Categories
Rants Technology

Google Wields the Startup Axe of Death

In a sadly predictable turn of events Google has binned Jaiku, a service they bought just over a year ago for a huge chunk of change ($12 million). Dodgeball too, has eventually suffered the cruel fate that has been looming over it ever since Google bought them back in 2005. Apparently it’s part of a Google cost cutting and re-focusing exercise, but I can’t for the life of me understand why they went ahead and bought duplicate services in the first place and then didn’t build out on those products.

I’m worried its becoming quite the modus operandi for Google to buy out small exciting startups, starve them of resources and then discard them when they fail to bring in any real revenue. Not cool, Google. In fact, it’s rather evil. In future this should surely make any startup think twice before flipping their passion to Google for a sum of cash.

Why do I care? Well, apparently I told you so.

Categories
Rants Technology

How Vodacom, MTN and Cell C make big money at our expense.

Cell site
Image via Wikipedia

I just came across an interesting article on the New York Times where Randall Stross decided to investigate the actual costs a text message has for a cellular network operator. Finally someone did the research I’d been too lazy to do for a while.

As I suspected, a text/sms message is basically free. They are sent to the nearest tower over a control channel – a channel that exists in order for the phone to communicate with the network, and so stuffing that channel with a message bears very little overhead, if any. This also explains the stupid 160 character limit that texts are subject to.

So yeah, another blatant rip-off. Go ahead, send your R10 messages to 35050 now!

[Article Link: New York Times]

[Update: A slightly more in-depth technical discussion by Tom Limoncelli at EverythingSysadmin.com]

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Categories
Humor

Mbeki on Mugabe (via Hayibo.com)

Awesome parody satire site Hayibo.com relates Mbeki’s comments on Mugabe:

“That’s why I sold every last shred of moral high ground the ANC had after 1994 to keep him out of the International Criminal Court in The Hague,” said Mbeki.

“Now I realise I was just like Amy Winehouse and he was like Blake. They wanted to make him go to rehab in The Hague, but I said no, no, no.

“But now I’m not sure.”

Full story here: Mugabe says there is no cholera in Zim and Heid Klum is his girlfriend.

Categories
Computing

Google Zeitgeist 2008 for South Africa

For those of you interested in seeing what South Africans search for, here’s the Google Zeitgeist 2008 for South Africa. It’s actually quite boring in some places. I mean who googles for yahoo? Or googling for facebook? Or the worst – googling for google? An indication perhaps of immaturity in South African search usage? I thought so, until I looked at some of the US and UK trends, and we’re not that far away from them…

Some of the most popular searches included Load Shedding and of course the FIFA 2010 World Cup. This year’s Zeitgeist also reflects important South African concerns like Xenophobia, along with rising interest in new developments like the Gautrain. South Africans were keen to stay up to date on politics, with high volumes of searches around Thabo Mbeki’s resignation, and around international events like the elections in the USA and Zimbabwe. Take a look below to get sense of the Zeitgeist, or spirit of the times, in South Africa for 2008.

Fastest Rising

  1. gumtree
  2. facebook
  3. lotto
  4. eskom
  5. youtube
  6. beeld
  7. news 24
  8. yahoo mail
  9. chuck norris
  10. beijing olympics

Most Popular

  1. facebook
  2. cape times
  3. games
  4. map
  5. yahoo
  6. news
  7. jobs
  8. google
  9. gmail
  10. pictures

Top Politicians

  1. jacob zuma
  2. thabo mbeki
  3. trevor manuel
  4. julius malema
  5. kgalema motlanthe
  6. helen zille
  7. fikile mbalula
  8. terror lekota
  9. mbhazima shilowa
  10. mongosuthu buthelezi

Top Newsworthy

  1. load shedding
  2. fifa 2010 world cup
  3. beijing olympics
  4. barack obama
  5. global warming
  6. euro 2008
  7. xenophobia
  8. adt (home and office security service)
  9. zimbabwe election
  10. cope (congress of the people

    11. political party)

Top Sports Teams

  1. the sharks
  2. kaizer chiefs
  3. the lions
  4. mamelodi sundowns
  5. bafana bafana
  6. orlando pirates
  7. stormers
  8. the springboks
  9. cheetahs
  10. proteas

Top Local Celebs

  1. dj sbu
  2. dj fresh
  3. dj cleo
  4. kelly khumalo
  5. danny k
  6. ryk neethling
  7. khanyi mbau
  8. connie ferguson
  9. gareth cliff
  10. loyiso bala
Categories
Entertainment Music

Coldplay’s Costly Creativity?

I’m always pretty amazed that in this day and age you can actually create anything new under the sun. It feels like its all been done. Well, it feels like it has all been done in certain fields. Take music, for instance. How the hell does anyone manage to come up with anything original without treading on the toes of another artists work? The permutations of a piece of music are not endless (which is probably why commercial radio is dying from bad eighties pop covers).

Well it seems Coldplay have deliberately or inadvertently made a beeeg mistake with Viva La Vida. They are being sued by American guitarist Joe Satriani, who is claiming a pinched riff or three.

Of course Coldplay denied stealing the song today. Watch the video below, tell me what you think, cos I think its a straight rip-off.

Via: Lefsetz Letter