Mandy De Waal writes about recent controversies with Google SA’s policies and apparent discrepancies in their reseller certification program…

Google South Africa set the cat among the pigeons when country manager Stafford Masie revealed intentions to moderate SA’s search industry, saying some e-marketing companies were committing “fraud” against customers.
Masie stated “Google-certified agencies” would be introduced in [...]

2008 has been a year of change in South Africa, and people have been using Google to keep abreast of the most interesting news and trends as well as their favourite websites. Some of the most popular searches included Load Shedding and of course the FIFA 2010 World Cup. This year’s Zeitgeist also reflects important [...]

Wow, It’s hard to believe that 2008 is coming to a close. What a year can change!? Obama won the U.S. Presidency; Zimbabwe, Somalia and Congo tragically spiraled deeper into lawlessness and a number of companies began to pay attention to Africa again. Not for it’s troubles, but for it’s market potential. Here’s a look [...]

Google Friend Connect is the latest in a trend of big media companies who are ‘opening up their users data’ to help make the web more social. Facebook recently scored big by securing a deal that would allow Digg, Hulu and Discovery users to sign up and authenticate using their existing accounts. This is huge [...]

In the spirit of the new era in American history, philanthropy and investing in a better future were the first topics of discussion…
Against the backdrop of the change in power in Washington, D.C. (opportunities) and the economic meltdown (one of the problems), the navel-gazing tech industry lives on. Speakers at the event include VC legend [...]

Go ahead and build that mapping app for your NGO, Google will underwrite it…
Today, we’re excited to launch Google.org Geo Challenge Grants, a small grants program to provide nonprofits with the impetus and resources they need to take advantage of powerful and exciting online mapping tools.
Maps are a powerful way for organizations to display and [...]

Google was one of the biggest backers of cleantech companies last year and Eric Schmidt recently revealed that he was advising the Obama campaign on policies related to energy. As of today Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, has announced that he’s backing the Obama campaigns bid for office.
Google was the second [...]

Google’s efforts to map Africa have been increasing significantly over the past year. Little more than a year ago Googling Kampala, Uganda returned a blank green screen indicating the area was nothing but forests. In other words, according to Google Maps the city didn’t exist. More recently, however, the detail of maps [...]

In honor of their tenth anniversary, Google has brought back it’s oldest available index. The index is from 2001 and features an option to view pages (most of which aren’t online any more) as they were at the time using the Internet Archive.
Try it out, especially if you want to know what your web [...]

This list rounds-up several web applications that claim to serve a ‘world-wide’ audience but who’ve fallen short on delivering to people outside of the U.S. and Europe, in most cases not for the lack of trying. It’s purely observational and not meant to be too critical. These are all services I use everyday, [...]