The national treasury on Monday warned of a fake Twitter account claiming to be that of newly appointed finance minister Nhlanhla Nene. “Minister Nene does not have a Twitter account,” spokesman Zwikhodo Netshituni said in a statement. “The Twitter account with a handle @NhlanhlaNeneZA is counterfeit.” The account, with
Yookos, a newish social networking site aimed at people across Africa, has signed up 10m users in the three years since its commercial launch and appears set for further strong growth. The network, which began in Nigeria as a Christian-focused site, is now headquartered in Johannesburg and is targeting a broader audience interested in what its founders
Judge Thokozile Masipa went “too far” by restricting the media from tweeting post-mortem evidence in Oscar Pistorius’s murder trial, a media law expert said in a television interview on Tuesday. “Unfortunately in my view that was a decision that, with respect, went slightly too far because it misunderstood the nature
Nineteen billion dollars. Two hundred and ten billion rand. Nearly R500/user. That’s how much Facebook has agreed to pony up for WhatsApp, the fast-growing but still very much loss-making cross-platform mobile instant messaging platform. It’s a daring – perhaps insane – bet by Facebook’s
The year has not started well for advocates of net neutrality, the idea that all data on the Internet should be treated equally, without discrimination. A US federal court struck down a key part of the Open Internet Order, a set of Federal Communications Commission regulations
Eight leading American technology companies have joined forces to demand changes be made to US surveillance laws, calling for current laws and practices to be reformed in light of revelations of mass surveillance of Internet users’ activities by the National Security Agency. In a letter
When Roy Amara was president of The Institute for the Future, he famously remarked: “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” Looking at the current crop of start-ups now hitting their stride, it’s safe to say online
It emerged this week, in an article in the Wall Street Journal, that Snapchat, a Californian start-up that develops a smartphone app of the same name popular among teens, recently spurned a US$3bn-plus all-cash offer from Facebook to buy it out. The offer value was at least three times the already
Twitter has to be one of the more interesting modern-day concepts: a platform where people from all over the world can share ideas, thoughts and breaking news in bite-sized portions of up to 140 characters. Apart from being a means for celebrities to
It began in 2006 as a pretty stupid idea: a service that let you post public messages on the Internet but limited them to 140 characters. Seven years later, Twitter has burrowed deep into the fabric of parts of society. Its highly anticipated initial public offering provides a fascinating glimpse
