“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” So reads the opening line of Leon Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. The novel comes to mind when looking at the prospects that confront mobile money. Success stories have many similarities, but failed efforts fail for their own
Have you heard of the world’s fastest growing language? It was born just 20 years ago, and already hundreds of millions (possibly billions) of people use it to communicate every day. You’ve probably used it today without even thinking. I’m talking about Emoji. These expressive little symbols have slowly
After years of inaction and delay in resolving some of the big policy bottlenecks holding back South Africa’s communications technology industry – a sector that has the potential to underpin economic growth and even to lift
As a techie, when I need something — anything — I turn to the Web. I do a quick search to find a service provider, or before engaging with one, to check out their services online. Often, I do a quick check on a company website
The smartphone industry may produce gleaming marvels of modern technology, but it is also ruled by the law of the jungle. Amazon has learned this the hard way. Its Fire Phone range, unveiled to such fanfare in June, has been completely mauled by
The leafy Johannesburg suburb of Parkhurst, one of the first in South Africa to get high-speed fibre-to-the-home broadband, now looks set to be the scene of a turf war between two competing fixed-line telecommunications providers. It’s a David vs Goliath battle that could also help decide which
Nobody likes to feel like they’re being watched. Societies will tolerate a lot from their governments but few things cause more outrage than the kind of mass surveillance practiced by America’s National Security Agency (NSA) and its cronies. But true to form, the Internet has spontaneously generated
Driven by the rise of broadband, the era of linear television broadcasting will draw to a rapid close in the next decade. New media empires will be built on the back of this change. Established broadcasters that don’t adapt will crumble. A revolution is at hand — a revolution that is going
Early e-commerce market entrant in Nigeria, Naspers’s Kalahari.com, came and went, with many suggesting it was inevitable given that the number of online customers was tiny. But Rocket Internet start-up Jumia and Konga, backed by Sweden’s Kinevik and Naspers, are now estimated by those
Love the company or hate it, Google has fundamentally changed the way we use the Internet. The company has set the standard for two of the Internet’s biggest drawcards, Web search and e-mail, for more than a decade. And it’s showing no signs of slowing down. This week, Google unveiled
