• BURN MEDIA
    • Motorburn
      Because cars are gadgets
    • Gearburn
      Incisive reviews for the gadget obsessed
    • Ventureburn
      Startup news for emerging markets
    • Jobsburn
      Digital industry jobs for the anti 9 to 5!

All posts by Llew Claasen

Llew Claasen
Llew is Vice President: Marketing at Clickatell.com. Clickatell has been around for more than a decade and is the largest Online SMS mobile messaging gateway covering 869 networks in 223 countries and territories. Llew is a member of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council Advisory Board for Africa , the global Advisory Board to the Forum to Advance the Mobile Experience (FAME) and the Customer Experience Board. Llew is also a member of the Research and Metrics Committee of the international Mobile Marketing Association.

  • Get OTT ‘a here! Facebook’s WhatsApp buyout and the state of mobile messaging

    By on 10 March, 2014

    No one could blame you for wondering how many square meals you could buy for the world’s poor with 45% of US$19-billion (reportedly the stake held by the founder of WhatsApp when it was acquired by Facebook this past week). Or wonder why the Snapchat founders didn’t accept US$3-billion and retire on their own islands before the age of 30. It seems that the mobile messaging space is white-hot in 2014 and if you’re like me, you’re wondering what’s going on here. Our story begins with tweens -- those little people who are not yet teenagers, but also no longer babies. Tweens...

    1

  • Why the iPhone 5 means that NFC won’t grow as fast as expected

    By on 12 December, 2012

    I think we've already forgotten that it took so long for us to get to the year of the mobile that was 2010, that we’re expecting similar speed in the roll-out of mobile payments solutions. Everyone and their grandmother expects that in the next year or two, your mobile phone will become your wallet and your credit card and that in order to pay, all you’ll need to do is wave it at a point of sale (POS) terminal or at another mobile handset, so that money can be magically transferred from your bank account. Credit cards and cash...

    11

  • Africa finally pays its own way — with a mobile phone

    By on 5 July, 2012

    Mobile is big. Even bigger than you think. No technology in the history of mankind has achieved the reach and penetration globally that rivals that of the mobile phone. According to the International Telecommunications Union, at the end of 2011, there were approximately six billion mobile phone subscriptions. This is equivalent to 87% of the world’s population and a huge increase from 5.4-billion in 2010 and 4.7-billion mobile subscriptions in 2009. Initial excitement about the rise of the mobile phone was dominated by talk of the rise of mobile voice at the expense of fixed line operators, and then more...

    4

  • 10 mobile trends to watch out for in 2011

    By on 17 January, 2011

    Apple was the telecommunications industry’s flag-bearer during 2010, finally delivering on the promise of the "Year of the Mobile" -- initially with its launch of the iPad in April and continuing with the launch of the iPhone 4 in June. What will 2011 hold for Mobile? 1. iPhone sales will rocket on the back of the Verizon deal I predict Apple will sell another 10-12 million iPhones in 2011 through its new

    2