Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Budget Day web sites
Hello good morning and welcome to the budget edition of Cybersurf – I am Steven Lang taking you this fine morning to few sites that might help you find out about, and digest the budget.
The first place you might want to look would be at the ministry’s home page – but that would not be a good place to start because everything related to the finance ministry is actually on the National Treasury page which you will find at treasury dot gov dot za.- that is treasury dot G.O.V dot za
This is a very interesting site that I am sure will receive a huge amount of traffic in the next few hours.
I say it is interesting because it is an old fashioned, mish mash collection of vast amounts of documents. I have been visiting this site for years and it is in dire need of a re-organisation because there is so much information on the site but the navigation is so haphazard that it is not easy to search for anything specific.
Anyway, the most important thing for today – the budget – is very easy to find boldy displayed on the front page. No – don’t go rushing off, the speech is not on the site - yet! But the place is clearly marked where you will be able to find the budget speech soon after two pm.
There is also a link to a “Tips for Trevor” page – a concept that was born on this very program – AM Live – about ten years ago, when we invited listeners to send us faxes with “tips for Trevor”
The links page is useful with links to many, relevant financial institutions – but it also shows its age with links to a number of banks that have long since been swallowed up by the oligopoly.
If you are not going to be near a radio today and would like to hear the Budget speech anyway, you should logon on to SABCnews.com. The site has a really great feature section dedicated to the budget where you will be able to watch Trevor Manuel deliver his speech on a web cast. To get to this section, there is a link right at the top of the front page, or you can navigate down the left hand side till you get to the “Features” section – click on the button, and Cyber gods willing – you will be able to watch the presentation on line.
The full text of the speech will be available on SABCnews.com shortly after the minister delivers his concluding remarks.
For more analysis of the speech you should also visit the sites of the big banks – they all have economic research units and they are usually quite quick to put this information on their respective sites – I am thinking here about absa.co.za; standard.co.za; and fnb.co.za.
But if you want all first hand, listen to SAfm this afternoon from two pm when you will be able to listen to the speech and then have loads of analysis all the way through to six o clock.
And with that, we come to the end of this week’s Cybersurf. Please tune in again next week when we’ll have a look at the status of e-government in
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
MXit - Instant Messaging on cellphones
INTRO: It's time now for Cybersurf, a weekly look at what's happing on the internet. Today thanks to convergent technology, we hear about instant messaging - but this time on cellphones. A South African business called MXit (pronounced "mix it") has just notched up its three millionth user for its instant messaging service. Steven Lang asked Herman Heunis, CEO and founder of MXit, what exactly is MXit.
Audio Insert
IN: MXit is an instant . . . .
OUT: . . . . talking to kids in Europe.
DUR: 3'16"
OUTRO: That was Herman Heunis, CEO and founder of MXit talking to Steven Lang on Cybersurf. If you would like to find out more about the service go to www.mxit.co.za
ssl/
MXit Press Release
MXit reaches the 3 million mark
In less than two years since its official launch in May 2005, popular instant messaging service, MXit, has reached the 3 million mark in its registered user base.
³Between 18:00 and 19:00 on the 29th January our 3 millionth user subscribed to MXit. We continue to grow at a rate of between 9 000 and 12 000 new registered users per day. But, as our international rollout gains momentum, we expect this number will increase dramatically,² says Herman Heunis, CEO and founder of MXit. ³We have recently established a premium rated payment gateway in the UK, as well as permanent infrastructure in the USA, and are looking forward to an extended international presence by the end of 2007.²
MXit is currently one of the largest generators of GPRS traffic in South Africa.
³Our user base currently logs on to our servers more than 6 million times per day and the total traffic between our servers, mobile phones and other gateways is well over 500 million packets a day. We are continually upgrading our servers and our ongoing commitment to infrastructural growth is massive,² says Heunis.
³We launched greeting cards over the festive season which have proved to be a huge success with 660 000 cards already sent. To our knowledge, we offer the only service in South Africa where users can send greetings cards from their mobile phones via an Instant Messaging system. At a cost of only 10 cents per card and with unique content available to our subscribers, it is understandable why this has been so popular,² says Heunis.
MXit also launched ³Trivit² during the festive season, a trivia game where players answer general knowledge questions covering a wide range of topics.
Swist Technology Solutions (Pty) Ltd, one of MXit¹s primary development partners, developed the game and continually provides updated content.
