There’s a quote from outgoing Naspers chief executive Koos Bekker buried right at the end of Sunday’s City Press article that tells you an awful lot about the man. In a note to staff, (as the newspaper points out) his humility is stark: “We screwed up frequently, but we had a great deal of fun and I couldn’t imagine another job that would have fitted my limited talents better, that would have given me more pleasure.”Bekker is acutely aware of ...

WhatsApp's exit to Facebook and subsequent outage have raised some concerns about the app's ad-free integrity being maintained, especially seeing as Facebook is fast becoming an ad company.It seems the most popular WhatsApp successor will likely be Telegram, a messaging app with very similar functionality. Telegram has surpassed WhatsApp in the App Store rankings, just a week after the sale announcement and, if the tweets are anything to go by, users seem to be getting used ...

Meet the Galaxy S5, a mild upgrade destined for a million and one pockets and handbags. It's the "new" new life companion, and it's coming to you at the power of five. After an endless, and needless symphony which played the familiar Samsung tunes, the show began (there were two orchestral encores, seriously? The hubris at play here was insane). Here's what the S5's all about:More of the sameFirst off, it's difficult to even tell the difference between ...

There's a new South African incubator on the block and its name is Springlab, and its goal is to "foster entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa" by building highly scalable ventures.Founded by ex-Rocket Internet's Eugen Peterson (co-founder of Zando) and Sheraan Amod (co-founder of Personera), with the help from strategic advisor Randolf Jorberg, SpringLab claims some unique features to separate itself from the incubator pack.First off, Springlab co-founds every single venture it invests in -- taking them right from, as Petersen tells ...

Press Friendly is the startup du jour that is being heralded by both PR Flacks and Journos as the future of PR. Dodging the "does PR have a future/what is the future of PR" debate for a second, this back to basics approach of "who, what, when, where and why" approach might just do more than ruffle a few feathers. It might just find and launch the next big thing.I sat down with Co-Founder and CEO, Joel Andren, ...

It's pretty easy to understand the appeal of a head-up display in your car. From a safety point of view, it means you can get vital information about the way you're driving without taking your eyes off the road.And once you've given that explanation to the rational part of your brain, you can start coming to terms with the real reason you want it: it makes you feel like a fighter pilot. The rusting Peugeot that refuses to move ...

You might recall that, in one of its bids to be everything on the internet to everyone, Facebook introduced email addresses a few years back. Well now the social network looks set to kill the feature for good.The Facebook.com email addresses, which were a serious source of controversy when they replaced users' authentic email addresses in 2012, have never really been all that popular.Speaking to Inside Facebook, a Facebook spokesperson explained what will happen if anyone sends you ...

"What exactly is a business plan?" a startup says to me. Life in Nigeria's booming startup scene is not like any other. "We don't really take on a lot of risk," he says to me, but the business he is running will probably hang on risks that he will have to start taking soon.A business plan is not really a fully formed idea for some of the startups I have met. I ask about business models and revenue projections -- ...

Not content with basically murdering SMS, it seems the WhatsApp team is setting its sights on the next level: voice. Speaking at Mobile World Congress today, founder and CEO Jan Koum announced that his hit messaging app would soon begin rolling out voice services to its suite of mobile apps. Sorry, telcos.Koum also took the opportunity to give some more insights into WhatsApp's rocketing growth -- the messaging app now serves 465-million users a month, of which 330-million chat ...

Why are retailers (or for that matter banks and telecoms service providers) not making an absolute killing in the mobile payment space? Most importantly, why are retailers missing out on potential new revenue streams?Even in an emerging market like South Africa, where mobile penetration is estimated to be around 128%, only nine percent of mobile customers use mobile to send or receive money.The answer may be explained by applying the theory of constraints.The Theory of Constraints, as written ...