General

Is Pieter de Villiers playing discordant musical chairs with Ruan Pienaar and Francois Steyn? Will these two players’ amazing versatility and prodigious talent prove to be a curse? I ask this because it was under Jake White that the curse first came to the fore. White used these talented ex-Grey College boys in virtually every […]

Although MXit is an exciting development in the South African social media space, it has suffered from a lot of FUD. As per Wikipedia, FUD is “Fear, uncertainty and doubt: a tactic of rhetoric used in sales, marketing, public relations.” I believe the same FUD created by some South African journalists, politicians and parents around […]

I thought I’d post this video from my rucku website. It has thoughts about Wales vs South Africa and Ireland vs New Zealand, Roy Keane, Rugby Heaven and New Zealand.

I had a thought on Twitter a few days ago: Could a Google acquisition of Twitter help the service scale? Or is it not an infrastructure issue but more a platform issue? Twitter has suffered from serious downtime over the last few weeks, trying to keep their service live during peak usage periods. They managed […]

Warren Gatland told the BBC last week that “we had an inferiority complex against the southern-hemisphere sides”, adding: “We spoke about it and thought we’d addressed it but were proved wrong.” Wales last beat the Springboks back in 1999 at the Millennium Stadium, but they have never beaten the Boks in South Africa or anywhere […]

14 June: Wales – 21 June: Italy – 5 July: All Blacks – 12 July: All Blacks – 19 July: Australia We all know that the real adversary to the Springboks, are the All Blacks. Games in between serve as preparation for the clash of the two titans of international rugby. Peter de Villiers will […]

The announcement last week that Naspers has put MWeb up for auction created a stir of surprise, but not shock. Is the decision by Naspers to sell MWeb a vote of no confidence in the internet? Hardly. If anything, it declares the opposite: a recognition that the internet has become so pervasive that its best […]

So with one round of the Euro Championships gone, the time for hype has died and everyone have put down their markers. The big guns seem to be back in full force to avenge the utter humiliation of Euro 2004 and this is shaping up to be a classic tournament. I would imagine the betting […]

Ah, my first, long overdue, Tech Leader post. To start off, thanks to Matt and team for the opportunity and the innovative “X” Leader initiatives that are certainly changing the shape of our media landscape. Thought Leader has been a great success, Tech Leader is here and, more recently, Sports Leader has hit the scene. […]

I want you to close your eyes and imagine for a moment that Zimbabwe was being ruled by Robert Mugabe, the duly elected white, rather than black, president. Everything else must remain exactly the same as it is right now. The overwhelming majority of Zimbabwe’s population remains black, the murder and torture continues, the destroyed […]

Hello from a surprisingly overcast Johannesburg. For some reason we seem to take this weather with us. We had it in Somerset West for our training camp, and then the first part of the week in Bloem. It’s meant a few of us are fighting the flu, but hey, if that’s our only complaint things […]

I thought there must be something substantive behind the city of Cape Town’s flexing its muscles to the court order by government’s provincial arm to utilise community halls for the displacement of foreign nationals. The reasoning that the provincial government first use resources under its own care just does not sound right. Is it possible […]