Social Media

VENTURES AFRICA – Founder/CEO of Mara Group and Mara Foundation, Ashish J. Thakkar today announced the launch of Mara Online during his keynote address at TiEcon entrepreneur’s conference.. Mara Online is an online and mobile eco-system that allows users to communicate, interact and collaborate with each other via social portals, while building communities that are centered around [...]

VENTURES AFRICA- African social network site, Yookos, has launched a new Application Programming Interface (API) that will help developers and techpreneurs create applications for the cross-section of social media channels that could be used on both desktop and mobile platforms. Yookos, a social network site which focuses on providing users the platform to connect, share [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – By breaking down the demographics and behaviour of its users, a survey by an African social network, 2go, has declared Nigerians are more social than South Africans. Marc Herson, director at 2go, revealed this while speaking at the Focus Day at Mobile Web West Africa 2013 holding in Lagos. Herson said in Nigeria [...]

Editor’s Note: This piece was originally posted on Open Society Foundation By Marie-Soleil Frere Better and wider access to Internet and mobile is changing how journalists work in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), bringing more access but also sometimes greater risk. Internet and mobile devices allow journalists to contact multiple sources on a [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Large corporate brands in Africa’s biggest economy, South Africa have woken up to social media, following in the footsteps of their customers, according to new findings from technology market researchers World Wide Worx and information analysts Fuseware. The South African Social Media Landscape 2012 study by World Wide Worx and Fuseware, reveals [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Swiss multinational pharmaceutical company Novartis and Malaria No More, a leading global charity, have announced a partnership – Power of One campaign – geared towards reducing the treatment gap and accelerating progress in the fight against malaria. Over the next three years, Novartis will support the campaign financially and also donate up [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Running a business in today’s tech savvy world requires constant engagement with customers i.e. feeding clients with info and getting the required feedback. And the role of social media in this two-way street is crucial as it creates an informal platform where businesses and customers relate. Social media has come to stay. [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – The poor adoption of Nigeria’s domain name, .ng, and the purchase of foreign domain names such as .com, .org, .net, and .co.uk etc, by Nigeria’s website owners, has resulted in a capital flight of about 3.76 billion naira ($23.8 million) in the last five years. As Punch reported, the “figure is expected [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Following a successful MTN Cloud pilot project, the South African telecommunications giant has announced it would launch its cloud services Wednesday, 10th of April, 2013 to boost ease of business operations. Cloud technology provides clients with virtual data servers (online memory spaces and softwares) that can be accessed on any device – mobile [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Across nations, many firms and governments face the increasingly complex challenge of resolving international poverty, variations of political instability, and global climate change. With United Nations experts projecting the world population to reach 10.1 billion by 2100 some of these problems may worsen before they are improved. Both firms and governments are [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Having worked with SMEs for 12 years there is a sense of “give me a sleeping tablet” when they tell me they need a website. So after chatting to Push Digital CEO, Stephen Gorman, I have a clear sense of who will be setting up my company website. More exciting is that [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – The 2013 Economist Nigeria summit has come to an end. The event had in attendance global economic icons such as former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, under whose helm the country’s economy significantly improved; founder and CEO of Acumen Fund, Jacqueline Novogratz; and Robert Neuwirth, author of Stealth of Nations [...]

“Consumers should desist from just consuming social media and become content creators. We too can create something. We have things to say and stories to tell.” - Ato Ulzen-Appiah, CEO of Museke Inc.   VENTURES AFRICA – People from all walks of life gathered in Lagos for one week to participate in the Social Media week [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Africa’s first ever social media week took place in Lagos this February 2013. How did Nigeria get the right to host the event? What exactly happened during the social media week? What plan are the organizers putting in place to improve next year’s edition? How can those who were not able to [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Mara Online and Plingm, the Swedish mobile VoIP application provider, have formed a strategic partnership to market a free mobile VoIP app called Mara ConnectTM, allowing smartphone and tablet users across Africa to call and text for free, both domestically and internationally. In spring this year, the mobile application Mara ConnectTM will [...]