It’s been an interesting seven days in tech. Internationally, headlines were dominated by the release of user data from dating site Ashley Madison. Locally meanwhile, most of the attention was on Naspers as it launched video on demand service ShowMax.
Hardly surprising then that those also happened to be two of the stories you most enjoyed reading this week.
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The Ashely Madison hackers released the user data of millions of the site’s users, including an estimated 175 000 South Africans, after previously warning the site that they were in possession of the data. The leak has seen people frantically searching whether they know anyone on the list, but also has some asking what the popularity of the infidelity site says about monogamy in contemporary society.
ShowMax meanwhile is very clearly Naspers’ bid at countering the impending threat of Netflix. At R99 a month, the service launched with 400 movies and 750 series titles and requires at least a 2Mb/s line to make full use of.
Alongside those headline-grabbers though, you also wanted to see who’s been doing great things in digital advertising and once again showed that there are few things the internet loves more than a big corporate screwing up on social media.
5. Loeries 2015: All the digital and interactive winners
While digital may be playing an increasingly important part at The Loeries, South Africa’s premiere awards showcase, the big awards are still going to big agencies. That much was evident on Saturday night when the winners in the digital and interactive categories were announced. Read more…
4. It’s official: Naspers’ launches video streaming service ShowMax
Naspers today officially announced the launch of ShowMax, its Netflix-style online streaming service.
At an event in Johannesburg, the emerging markets internet and media giant revealed that the service will cost R99 a month. Read more…
3. Ashley Madison user data now leaks online, possibly includes 175k South Africans
It had previously been reported that popular infidelity website Ashely Madison had been hacked. Hacker group Impact Team, had previously ransomed user’s data if the website wasn’t taken down by parent company, Avid Life Media. All user details have now been leaked.
Account details of around an estimated 32-million users of the social networking site have been dumped online for the world to see. Read more…
2. ShowMax: 7 things you should know about Naspers’ new VoD service
Naspers today officially launched its ShowMax video on demand (VoD) offering. The Johannesburg launch followed more than a week of media reports around the product, which is aimed at the South African market.
Despite the best efforts of the country’s tech journalists, it did manage to keep some details of the launch under wraps. Read more…
1. Pick n Pay shows the world how not to deal with online criticism [Update]
In a week that’s seen South African brands take a beating on Twitter, Pick n Pay should probably have known better than to ask someone to remove a tweet linking to a blog post that criticised a new sale campaign by the company.
The post in question, written by Celeste Barlow of the Reluctant Mom blog, takes particular issue with a promotional gift the retailer recently started giving out for purchases over R150. Read more…
