• Google+ via SMS now available in 23 African countries

    Google announced yesterday that users in 23 African countries can now post to Google+ via SMS. The move is the latest in Google’s efforts to encourage use of their relatively new social network. “We wanted to ensure that Google+ is also available at times when you are not connected to the internet” says the announcement.

  • Zimbabweans losing money to internet scammers

    A report carried in the Chronicle, a Zimbabwean daily newspaper, says that many Zimbabweans have fallen victim to internet fraudsters. Without revealing any figures, a Criminal Investigation Department (CID) spokesperson Detective Inspector Augustine Zimbili indicated that cases of Zimbabweans falling prey to fraudsters were on the increase.

  • Zimbo Jam finally launches new site after one week of down time

    Zimbabwe’s most trafficked entertainment and lifestyle news website, Zimbo Jam, is finally back. The site went down on 13 April as the team there upgraded it to a new version. During the upgrade however, things didn’t go as planned; a major component failed, derailing the whole upgrade process.

  • Zimbo Jam downed for several days during upgrade

    Zimbo Jam, Zimbabwe’s most popular entertainment news and culture website is down. The site has been down since Friday due to a problem that happened during an upgrade to a new version of the website. We got in touch with Zimbo Jam founder Fungai Tichawangana today and he told us that one of the major…

  • How I created and launched a website from the internet café in Zimbabwe, Africa

    After my last interview with a big mining firm, I got fed up. I had gone to many interviews with big companies, and the result was always the same. With unemployment at a staggering 80% , one can imagine the stiffness of the competition , now add corruption and your chances are next to none.

  • SMS, USSD and the mobile web: Zimbabwe is not that country

    It was just a few months ago, sitting with the CEO who had moved back into the country after working as a successful starter-up in the US. The interview part hadn’t started and I was shaking a bit (he had come to pick me up in a classy vehicle and drove me to his classy…

  • The role of government in fostering an active tech startup ecosystem

    One issue often mentioned in discussion about mobile and the web as platforms for technology entrepreneurship in Zimbabwe is the issue of an environment that doesn’t encourage innovation, and one that doesn’t reward on merit. It is no secret that Zimbabwe has fallen behind other top nations in Africa in harnessing the potential of these…

  • Of installing open source software and starting an internet business

    Classifieds (and business directories), like Social Networking, are a favourite with local tech startups. Very much so you’d think with all this work addressing the classifieds problem, it’d be solved by now. That an ordinary person would be able to easily post an ad to platform with any device they have and within minutes be…

  • Zimpapers’ Sunday Mail website goes down on Sunday

    For most of the day today, the website of the Sunday Mail, the most read weekly newspaper in Zimbabwe, was down. We first noticed the website (www.sundaymail.co.zw) wasn’t accessible at around 10AM when, on loading the it, it reported: “Database Error: Unable to connect to the database:Could not connect to MySQL”. The website was restored…

  • SHA’s first five months – an interview with the founder

    Some five months ago, in November, Webdev, the company behind Zimbabwe’s successful online classifieds site, launched a social network and named it SHA. They were not the first to try social networking locally; there have been many ‘local’ social networks already. All of them open source projects like JomSocial, SHAretronix, BuddyPress, elgg themed for the…

  • eTXT Apps Challenge launch: FMNA founder presents on building successful startups

    Last night, ForgetMeNot Africa launched the eTXT Apps Challenge in Harare at a JumpStart event attended by developers, tech entreprenuers and journalists. While the highlight of the night was the launch of the challenge itself (read more about the challenge here) , we found the presentation by ForgetMeNot Software Founder and Director of Technology, John…

  • biNu reveals usage stats; top biNu apps in top biNu using countries

    We got pointed a few days ago to some biNu usage statistics that have been released by mobile platform Australian startup. The stats show the top 10 countries by usage on biNu as well as the top 10 apps in those countries.

  • Have websites forgotten about the masses without “mobile apps”

    Whatever you say can and will be used against you. A recent quote from a post on the Google Africa blog reads “[Google:] Making the world’s information universally accessible and useful means making it available to people no matter what device they use”. I suppose in a world where quad-core mobile processors are the headlines…

  • The Internet and the declining newspaper readership in Zimbabwe

    Almost a month ago, the Zimbabwe All Media and Products Survey (Zamps) released the results of a quarterly newspaper readership survey that the organisation carries out. The results are the for the last quarter of 2011 and according to reports in the media, the survey results showed that print news readership in Zimbabwe has started…

  • Her Zimbabwe goes live

    Last week, we read on iZimbabwe that one of our favourite writers in Zimbabwe, Fungai Machirori, was going to launch a website dedicated to discussing and articulating Zimbabwean women’s issues and experiences. Being one of Zimbabwe’s most insightful writers (yes she is, read her blog), and one who’s already been already writing so much about…

  • Why mobile operators should consider startup funding in Africa

    Paul Graham, Founder of the Y Combinator incubation hub once spoke of the ingredients required to create Silicon Valley. He summed it up as a combination of: Rich people (angel or VC investors) + Nerds (talent)

  • Huawei holds a mobile broadband show for Zimbabwe telecoms operators

    Last week, we visited the Huawei Mobile broadband show that ran from 22nd to 29 February in Harare. The show was held for telecommunication services providers in Zimbabwe and it was meant as a neutral platform for Huawei to showcase its product, both end user consumer products and backend infrastructure products.

  • eTXT now app platform as ForgetMeNot Africa launches App Challenge

    You’ve probably used eTXT a number of times. If not you then at least someone you chat with on Facebook, on Gtalk or just someone you exchange emails with has […]

  • Google’s sub-Saharan Africa Head of Communications speaks at Deloitte event in Harare

    Yesterday we had the opportunity to attend an event organised by Deloitte Consulting in Harare called “The List”. It’s basically a monthly networking event whose purpose is to link the future leaders of Zimbabwe’s top 100 local and international organisations. Usually, there’s a high profile Zimbabwean business person speaking at these events. Business people like…

  • Opera Mini Next: Why you should try it out

    Last week at the Mobile World Congress, Opera made available a pre-release version of their next series of mobile browsers which they ave dubbed Opera Mini Next. Opera has been the dominant mobile browser globally, and especially so in Africa where its technologies make it deliver the web faster on GPRS and EDGE mobile internet…

  • Are new social media disaster apps suitable for Africa?

    Natural disasters always have casualties when they strike, and the drama goes on after the strike when family and friends have no one to answer them when they call to check who made it out and who didn’t. Although a simple phone call can be made, it’s usually not enough to check on all your…

  • Eatout.co.zw launches new look

    If you have visited eatout.co.zw in the last two weeks, you probably noticed that the website is spotting a fresh new look. The website has been redesigned, again. We can’t remember the exact number but the website must have gone through about 4 design changes in the last few years.

  • How much do you know about your digital footprint? How secure is your data

    I was, in equal measures, horrified and amazed at the accuracy of Google’s image search. For those of you that don’t know, you can upload an image to Google and search by that image! And the results are quite astounding. If it’s a common photograph online, it will show you sites that host that photograph,…

  • You can build a startup in Africa. Here’s how

    In 2011 Sarah Lacy, who was working at Techcrunch at the time but is now running a new tech blog known as Pandodaily, did the unthinkable by travelling to Nigeria on a mission to unravel its startup scene.

  • Telecel has co-branding testing agreement with Opera Software

    Last week, we posted that Telecel Zimbabwe started pushing updates of a co-branded version of the Opera Mini mobile browser to subscribers. The special Opera Mini browser has some Speed Dial shortcuts set to the Telecel website and its social media pages. We contacted Telecel to give us more information and they responded.

  • Review: NetOne mobile broadband internet service

    Towards the end of last year Zimbabwe’s state owned mobile operator, NetOne, launched its mobile broadband service. Over the weekend this writer decided to test the service and see how it performs.

  • Climate Challenge brainstorming session in Harare

    If you have been scratching your head struggling to come up with an idea or strategy for the Climate Apps4Africa Climate Challenge, well the funders of challenge, The US embassy, have some good news for you; there’s going to be a brain storming session for the challenge in two weeks. The US embassy in Harare…

  • SA town, Stellenbosch, to get Wi-Fi cloud

    Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa, is set to get a Wi-Fi cloud over it offered in the next six months. According to a report in South African tech news site MyBroadband, The Wi-Fi will be available free of charge to anyone, and users of the service will not be…

  • How good is your internet lingo?

    So, do you talk the talk? We thought of putting together some of the trending internet vocabularies (mostly abbreviations actually) that are dominating conversations on the web, how much do you know?

  • After extended trial run, Econet begins charging for MMS

    Yesterday Econet announced it had begun charging for its Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS). The service was launched in mid-December last year and ran on trial since for two months. Initially, the trial period was meant to last until the end of December.