Rapport editor Tim du Plessis has given us a new version of Voltaire’s famous defence of free speech: “I don’t agree with what you say, but I’ll defend your right to say it, unless it harms my employer’s commercial interests, in which case I’ll shut you up quicker than you can say ‘editorial independence’.” Du […]
Business
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
So much wealth in so few hands
Statistics on world distribution of wealth make for interesting reading. Two percent of adults in the world own more than half of global household wealth. Ten percent of adults account for 85% of the world total and the bottom half of the world adult population owns barely 1% of global wealth. This study, by the […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle
Wines of change
South African wines are rated top of the global connoisseur’s list and have been for very many years. For most South African wine consumers, the marvel of having so many award-winning vineyards on our doorstep is often taken for granted, as are the underlying facts of them being located in a very unique biosphere, giving […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle, Media, Tech
What is the meaning of Facebook?
There comes a time in a man’s life when biting another Zombie chump, waiting four days for your growing gift to turn into a money tree or refreshing the page so that you get status updates in your news feed doesn’t get you excited any more. It’s depressing to be so bored with Facebook that […]
Posted inBusiness, Tech
The service domain?
Last year sometime, I registered a handful of domain names with a South African company. Having finally got some of the basics done, I thought I would have some use for one of the domains. So I contacted my company, and lo and behold, someone else owned the domain name. I phoned the company and […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
The colour of money
The great critic of bourgeois hypocrisy, Honoré de Balzac, reminded us in Father Goriot that behind every great fortune is a forgotten crime, forgotten because it was done neatly. But what exactly does it mean to do a crime neatly? Balzac did not mean mere cat-burglar prowess at the drainpipe, nor the tricky finesse of […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle, Tech
Google’s Android: About time mobile service providers woke up
My recent mobile internet access experiences with MTN remind me of the internet in South Africa circa 1996: download speeds can barely handle text pages, access can bankrupt you, browsers can’t display pages correctly and my phone is desperately seeking a “blue screen of death” alternative to just plain freeze-reboot. I recently read that both […]
Posted inBusiness, Tech
Free advice to anybody wishing to start another Facebook
This is the kind of business about which people dream and fantasise. Facebook was launched in February 2004. In November 2007 it was reported that Microsoft bought a 1,6% share of the company for $240-million. You can do the sums to check out how much the market seems to think Facebook is worth now, in […]
Posted inBusiness, Media, News/Politics
Blame Bush? Blame Greenspan!
Listening to CNN hail some recent economic pessimism as an “It’s the economy stupid” moment like the one which swept Bill Clinton to power in 1992, it not only sounded like a Democrat stump speech, but prompted me to give the US economy some thought. The proximate cause of the current low economic confidence is, no doubt, the mortgages problem.
Posted inBusiness, Media, Tech
Web publishing goes (desk)topless
One of my friend Vinny Lingham‘s* latest projects, a revolutionary, browser-based, wysiwyg website builder, Synthasite, launched into beta this week (November 5). I had the good fortune of being able to play around with the latest incarnation just before its public release and I found it simple to use and quite addictive actually. Although all […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle
I’m the PR person of the year (and you can be too)
Last year, Time magazine voted me (and you) as Person of the Year. Advertising Age also voted me (and you) as Marketing Agency of the Year. Why? Because suddenly, you and me, we’re important. And we have a voice. And people listen to us. And they respond. Pity then, that many businesses are missing this […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Mini-budget, mighty implications and the wooden spoon
I once heard Trevor Manuel say: “Let me take out my wooden spoon and stir.” Finally, I realised where his staff learned to use the phrase. Imitation is, after all, the highest form of flattery. It usually means that someone in the National Treasury is going to raise a controversial issue, with all the confidence […]