The success of Groupon paved the way for a number of clones to enter the group buying game, but not all of them have survived. South Africa's late entrant to the daily deals space, Zappon, has bitten the dust, joining a string of other small daily deal startups which found the group buying road was not paved with gold. The startup, owned by South African media company Avusa Media, joined various other Groupon-like deal sites in the country earlier this ...

Stop Online Piracy Act or SOPA was introduced by the US House of representatives as a positive means of combating piracy but, noble as its intent may be, it could fundamentally change how we use the internet. The new bill effectively hands over the user's freedom of expression to the entertainment industry. If an IP address is seen as "engaging in, enabling or facilitating copyright infringement", its domain is blocked. The corporations who own media want to shut down sites where people ...

While some might question the logic behind Alan Knott Craig Junior's purchase of MXit, one can only stand up and applaud the astuteness of his first actions as the instant messaging giant's new Owner, CEO and all round Big Cheese! His first steps were simple, focus on what MXit's core product offering is and make sure it is the best at it. I liken this to the experience when you walk into McDonald's where, despite years of success around ...

It’s "all Android, all the time". That's what they’ll tell you. It's "totally blowing away the competition". According to Gartner, Google's pet project (which as we all know, doesn't generate any meaningful revenue) Android now commands 52.5% of the global smartphone market. Huh? Where are all these Android phones? On the face of it, the market share numbers make sense. You have a powerful operating system and ecosystem (second in number of apps only to Apple). You have numerous device makers, including ...

Visa, the world’s largest credit and debit card network, has unveiled a new product that allows people to access a prepaid account through their mobile phone. The product, which appears to be nameless, was developed in conjunction with Fundamo, a leading South African mobile money platform bought out by Visa for $110m earlier this year. The mobile banking solution is aimed specifically at emerging markets and, according to Visa, offers "unbanked and under-banked" people in those regions a "secure, ...

This is an odd review for me to write, because my opinion doesn’t count. It’s not designed for me, it’s designed for kids. But kids suck at writing gadget reviews, so I dug deep into my inner toddler to seek out any childish delight in the LeapPad, a low-tech iPad for kids that’s packed with educational apps. As a geek-tastic adult, my first instinct was to label the LeapPad a complete failure. It uses outdated technology. Its touchscreen is an old skool ...

This Army first launched Tank five years ago as a hosted site-builder application in an already competitive DIY web publishing arena. Slowly but surely it gained a following in the local market, mostly spread by word-of-mouth amongst the creative crowd. The simple, minimal designs and a certain “less is more” approach has seen it gradually being adopted by everyone from photographers to galleries and wine farms. Tank empowered those with little to no web development skills to quickly and easily ...

Digital strategy is often sidelined as the poor cousin of traditional planning and strategy. Even when it isn't overlooked it still seems that many forget about why they are actually creating a digital strategy in the first place. I want to highlight five of the top mistakes made when developing a digital strategy. 1. Not Clearly Understanding the Business Objectives Seems pretty straight forward - you'd be surprised at how badly wrong this stage of the process can go. Clearly defining the business ...

Google has finally opened its online music offering, via its Android store, to US residents after months of beta testing. "Today we are happy to announce you can buy millions of songs right from Android Market," Google product manager Paul Joyce said at Google's Android event. At the moment users can only purchase music via a desktop web browser but the internet giant is set to rollout the service for Android devices in the coming days. The beta version of Google ...

On the sidelines of a meeting of the Southeast-Asian economic and political grouping, ASEAN , around 200 bloggers from the region met to offer each other support in the face of government restrictions on freedom of speech. With news and information tightly restricted by some governments in the regional bloc, social media and blogs have seen a sharp increase in popularity. In August, one Vietnamese blogger was arrested and charged with "subversion" after having been involved in protests denouncing the authoritarian ...