If you’ve spent more than a minute in the African tech scene, you’ve probably heard of Ushahidi -- and the Kenyan team behind the non-profit software didn’t stop with their crisis mapping, crowd sourcing service. It went on to create iHub, a space for Nairobi’s geeks and innovators to meet, collaborate and turn their ideas and code into the next wave of exciting startups. It then went on to rock Kickstarter with the BRCK -- its backup generator for the ...

South African startup Webfluential, a platform that aims to connect South Africa’s most influential web users, is launching Africa's first blogger awards. The startup touts it as the continent’s very first awards programme that measures online and social influencers' reach and influence through data analysis and is open to bloggers, Instagrammers, Tweeters and YouTubers across the continent. "The African Blogger Awards are the first completely impartial, objective awards for online and social influencers on the African continent because winners ...

Move over Buffer, Beatrix is a small startup with big ambitions that could upset the content world. Not only are they tackling a difficult and changing problem but they are launching in a complex and highly misunderstood market - content.While purists will no doubt ball and holler that curation is nothing new and amazing content creation and management is difficult/art/science/holy grail (and to varying degrees they are right), Beatrix doesn't claim too much right now it simply does what ...

Charities are taking an increasingly entrepreneurial approach to sustaining their initiatives. US-based MalaikaForLife, for example, runs an ecommerce store that stocks bracelets produced by a group of 150 women in Tanzania. The proceeds go towards providing them with a source of sustainable income and for stamping out malaria in the region.Then there's DoGoodBuyUs, a type of Etsy for charities, which stocks hundreds of charity made products.The trouble is that in order for a charity to produce these products, they ...

We all hear the naysayers tell modern parents that kids should spend less time indoors and more time outside playing with traditional toys such as a football or some such. I certainly encourage my son to spend time playing outside but with the integration of modern technology into our daily lives it would be foolish of us to try and completely alienate our children from the wealth of high-tech gadgetry available to them as they grow.But what exactly is on ...

When it comes to life on the road, there are two things every driver hopes they won't have to deal with every time they turn their keys in the ignition: crashes and crime. Sometimes though, they're completely unavoidable.At those times, you hope that whatever's happened is something that you, and your insurance company, can deal with. There are however instances where the universe decides to completely abandon all logic and create some of the most bizarre and epic car ...

If entertaining an increasingly attention-divided online audience wasn’t already difficult enough, Facebook has made a strategic move that forces brands to invest in advertising. Brands, it’s time to pay up or get lost in the digital noise. Social media marketers and Facebook users alike will be frustrated to learn that Facebook’s latest algorithmic changes will not weed out spam or non-engaging content based on individual needs. Instead, it filters out brand pages that haven’t paid for organic reach. That’s right, ...

It may not be great at rooting out terrorists, but Reddit reckons that its massive and active user base could be a serious force when it comes to live reporting.To that end, the discussion board site has launched a live blog style feature for reporting on events in real time.The feature, which was actually on display during the recent TwitchPlaysPokemon experiment reported on by Memeburn sister site Gearburn, is called Liveupdate and Reddit has big plans for it. ...

Internationally renowned Charly's Bakery sparked outrage on Twitter today after it tweeted a picture showing a range of cookies based on Oscar Pistorius memes.The Paralympic gold medalist and Olympic athlete is about to go on trial for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in February 2013. As social media, which played a massive role in coverage of Pistorius' bail hearing, once again turns its attention to the case, the bakery took the opportunity to post a picture of the cookies. ...

On 19 February 2014, Facebook announced that it reached an agreement about the acquisition of WhatsApp, one of the leading mobile messaging services, for a total value of US$19 billion (US$4 billion in cash, US$12 billion in Facebook shares and US$3 billion in restricted stock units with a vesting period of 4 years). According to the agreement, WhatsApp remains autonomous and will operate independently following its current business principles (such as no advertising, no customer data collection and a business ...