 | [Mongezi Mtati] Our increased usage of social networks has ensured that the word "friend" is used loosely to mean someone you are friends with online, and have met offline. Chats I had with bloggers and perceived influencers in the trusted authentic amplification of brands and products revealed some interesting nuggets. |
 | [Douglas Reed] There is little ADSL or 3G access in rural areas. Farms and lodges for example have no communications or are battling with dialup or EDGE services, which are next to useless, and their businesses are suffering as a result. There is research suggesting that safari lodges could increase their occupancies by 50% if they could offer their foreign guests quality internet access. |
 | [Walter Pike] General Motors (GM), the third biggest advertising spender in the US, has announced that it would no longer be allocating any budget to Facebook advertising because paid ads on the site have little impact on consumers' car purchases, according to a GM official. This news has had the web buzzing with wildly differing views. Here's my take. |
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 | [Johanna McDowell] Digital or online agencies are different to lead agencies, as they operate in the online space by creating and implementing digital marketing campaigns that get onto online networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Whatever digital dilemma a client may have, digital agencies have the ability to provide a holistic solution. |
 |  [Herman Manson: @marklives] Zando, a new online fashion ecommerce play funded by Germany-based Rocket Internet, launched three months ago and is literally aiming to rocket through the online retail market to be in the same league like services such as Kalahari.net and Takelot.com.
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| [Tiffany Markman] Let's say you're new to Twitter. Okay - no-one who reads Bizcommunity is new to Twitter. Let's say you've been on Twitter a while and you mostly love it, but you have minor reservations about a) its time-wasting potential, b) its actual value to your brand, or c) when and whether to distance yourself from your fellow tweeps. |
 | [Craig Wilson] Next month, the gigantic West African Cable System (WACS) will come online, bringing around 400Gbit/s of submarine fibre capacity to SA at launch. But what does this increase in capacity mean for SA consumers and internet service providers? |
 | [Reghardt Marais] Bohemian project management might sound like the strangest oxymoron since 'friendly fire', but bear with me for a minute. Bohemian is all about the disregard of conventional rules, standards and behaviours, while project management is governed by the rules and guidelines set by others. But is it really? |
 | [Duncan McLeod: @mcleodd] The 14 000km West African Cable System (WACS), the first new sub-sea telecommunications cable along Africa's west coast since Sat-3 was launched 11 years ago, will be launched officially in about a month's time. |
 | [Marcela Ospina] Sources indicate that there are still some 30 million people without access to the internet. This is almost 90% of South Africa's population. It is hard to argue with these figures when explaining to corporates why they should invest more on digital and mobile marketing. However, there is still a lot to learn from small communities with limited internet access, as I will show in this piece. |
 |  [trigger/isobar goes to SxSW] Uno de Waal: SxSW is a crazy place - it's a jam-packed time filled with an insane amount of information and you won't take in everything within five days. Very long days, hit-and-miss panel-hopping escapades to find relevant talks and minimal sleep (all in the name of networking, right?). Here are some tips to decide if it's worth your going.
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 | [Godfrey Parkin] Since a critical mass of senior executives were given iPads for Christmas, even the most previously technophobic of business leaders are demanding that digital marketing be taken seriously. This is a blessing and a curse - we see a lot of overnight app-happiness driving silly projects ahead of important initiatives. But at last the momentum is building and companies are striving to connect with customers in the digital places where they hang out. |
|  [Herman Manson: @marklives] Acceleration Media is an old hand at the digital media game. It was launched as a specialist online media company more than 12 years ago, at a point in time when everybody was talking about the potential of online media but when advertisers were not nearly as invested in the medium as they are today.
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| [Craig Wilson] MTN South Africa has told the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) that a second digital migration may be necessary once the move from analogue to digital television broadcasting has been completed because of the fragmentation of the spectrum that will be freed up when analogue signals are turned off. |
 | [Nishan Singh] In light of the online shopping trend, intellectual property proprietors face new challenges with the enforcement of their rights against new forms of unauthorised use across millions of websites, in multiple languages and domains. Enforcement of rights is costly and difficult in the online environment, so companies are advised to implement methods of proactively deterring infringement before it occurs. |
 | [Lindsay Grubb] What you're putting out there gives us a window into your world and helps us form ideas and opinions about you. These might form differently if we were meeting with you in person, but when all we've got to go on is our potential "victims" last 10 tweets or likes or shares, it is this "first impression" that lasts. |
| [Herman Manson: @marklives] Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide has announced the rollout of Social@Ogilvy, a unit that promises to deliver social media solutions to Ogilvy clients, and which will operate across numerous marketing disciplines such as advertising, direct marketing and public relations. |
 | [Thomas Oosthuizen] Growth is hardly the challenge Facebook faces. The challenge for the monetarisation of Facebook is not how many people it reaches - it is a huge medium by any standards - but how it extracts revenue from its core business: connecting people in an objective, friendly, social, non-threatening and non-commercial environment. |
| [Duncan McLeod: @mcleodd] Government will not meet its self-imposed deadline of April 2012 to switch on digital terrestrial television, says communications minister Dina Pule, who now expects services will be only be launched commercially in the third quarter of the year. |
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