Posted inGeneral

Starting a start-up

Are you an online entrepreneur or developer, with enough ideas for online projects to keep you busy for …well, forever? Great. Pull up a chair and let me tell you about Business Beat. It’s a collaboration between the Innovation Hub, GIBS MBA program and IdeaBank (my company). The goal is to bring together people from […]

Posted inBusinessMediaTech

Developing online ventures in SA

Ideas are free. Developing them into viable businesses, not so much. Developing them into viable online businesses…well…take a number. Especially if you live in South Africa. Entrepreneurs with exciting new ideas for online ventures usually have two problems: 1. They are unable to get funded for the first stage of developing their product 2. Their […]

Posted inBusinessMediaTech

Google does evil?

Google South Africa has abused its position of dominance in the online advertising market and has used underhand methods to win a major online advertising account with the SA Yellow Pages website. [Update: Allegedly, of course.] You can read the full press release here. In a nutshell, Entelligence was awarded the online marketing contract for […]

Posted inBusinessTech

One step closer to Paypal

As any South African who has tried to make money online undoubtedly knows, Paypal does not allow us to receive funds via its system. We can only use it to spend money at other merchants, most often via our credit card. This has been a huge bottle stopper in the e-commerce climate in this country. […]

Posted inLifestyleMedia

Death of newspapers nigh?

Quality newspapers are in trouble. The local daily printed newspapers are in even bigger trouble. I know this because I am a news junkie, and I haven’t bough a daily paper in ages. I even cancelled my subscription, and I am sucker for convenience. My interaction with newspapers goes something like this: on the morning […]

Posted inGeneral

When your country lets you down

In theory, I could live almost anywhere in the world. I have a US education, an EU passport, a work-from-anywhere career and have already called four countries home. I have chosen to settle in South Africa, not because it is my country of birth (it isn’t) and certainly not because of a lack of choices. […]