In partnership with World Wide Worx and e.tv, the Dreamfields Project will host a schools soccer tournament, or DreamEvent, at Orange Farm, where the project first began in 2007. Three schools will each be presented with a DreamBag, which provides a team with a complete set of kit, including boots and “everything a team needs to walk out onto the field, ready to take on the world”, says project founder John Perlman. “The sponsors, via their investment in DreamBags, are helping us to grow dreams.”

Aside from teams playing under the banners of World Wide Worx and e.tv, a team will also be sponsored by Gadget.co.za, World Wide Worx’s consumer technology magazine, which is celebrating its 12th year as South Africa’s leading online hi-tech publication. Gadget.co.za has focused strongly on coverage of soccer-related hi-tech news in the run-up to the Confederations Cup in South Africa this June and next year’s World Cup finals.

“We’re a soccer-mad organisation, and could think of no more appropriate way to give something back to the community,” says Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx, South Africa’s leading independent technology market research organisation.

The Dreamfields Project also works in partnership with the Department of Education and together they have staged 40 schools tournaments known as DreamEvents, where DreamBags are handed out to all the schools in a particular town or district.

The Orange Farm school teams that will receive their DreamBags on Wednesday are the under 12 teams of Podumo Primary, Lesedi la Kreste Primary and Ahanang Primary. They will vie for a trophy that will be jointly presented by World Wide Worx and e.tv.

“The tournaments are fantastic events — the joy of the children and the deep satisfaction of the donors mixing together in a day filled with football and positive feelings,” says Perlman.

Says Michelle Kirby, e.tv Head of Marketing and Corporate Social Investment: “e.tv are very proud to be associated with a project that not only provides for our young budding soccer stars now, but that will take them to 2014 and beyond,”

Two major corporate sponsors, Old Mutual and BHP Billiton, have covered the running costs of the Dreamfields Project, so that sponsors of DreamBags are assured that every Rand donated goes to the young footballers.

Wherever possible, the Project buys services and goods from local entrepreneurs so that the DreamEvent puts something back into the host community and deepens commitment to the ongoing soccer leagues that education officials will continue to run.

The Dreamfields Project is also committed to finding low-cost low-maintenance solutions to field building, especially in areas where water is a scarce and unaffordable resource. So far, it has built seven soccer fields in rural areas.

The May 27 Dreamfields tournament will take place at the Chris Hani Sports Complex, 15752 Ext 4, Orange Farm, Johannesburg. - 25 May 2009

• For more information on The DreamFields Project, visit www.dreamfieldsproject.org

• To read Gadget magazine, visit www.gadget.co.za

The Internet Access in South Africa 2008 study, conducted by World Wide Worx and supported by Cisco Systems, shows that international bandwidth available to sub-Saharan Africa was a mere 80 Gigabits per second at the end of 2008. This was split between the Telkom-controlled SAT3/SAFE cable and the West African Atlantis-2 cable.

But, according to the report, the capacity will rise to around 10 Terabits per second by the end of 2011, or 120 times the 208 capacity. This growth will be the cumulative result of the existing SAT3 cable being upgraded, three major new cables becoming operational this year, another two in 2010, and the WACS cable in 2011.

These figures exclude capacity available to North African countries that have access to a network of cables criss-crossing the Mediterranean.

Says Reshaad Sha, Senior Manager of Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group, “It is encouraging to witness and be part of the telecommunications revolution that Africa is currently undergoing. The role that the undersea cable operators will play is crucial to both the developmental and economic agendas that have and are being set by African Governments.”

The confirmed new cables due to serve West, East and Southern Africa are:
SEACOM, East and Southern Africa, 1.28Tb/s – Due end June 2009
GLO-1, West Africa,640 Gb/s, ready for operations, 2009
TEAMS, East and Southern Africa, 120Gb/s – Due September 2009
EASSy, East and Southern Africa, 1.Tb/s – Due June 2010
MainOne, West Africa, 1.92Tb/s, due 2010
WACS, West and Southern Africa, 3.8Tb/s, Due 2011

“The WACS agreement puts in place the final spark for the broadband revolution that is about to sweep Africa,” says Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx. “The real significance of all these undersea cables is that they will in turn lead to further infrastructure expansion to bring this bandwidth to end-users, especially in the business world.”

Cisco’s Sha concurs: “The telecoms operators and governments are still required to fulfil the role of delivering this connectivity to their citizens. This will probably be the most challenging role in realising the benefits of the terabits of bandwidth that will be reaching the African coastlines.”

The Internet Access in South Africa 2008 report includes an overview of each of these cables and a timeline for their implementation. Download the executive summary here.

8 April 2009

The first formal web site benchmarking survey of South African political parties was released today by World Wide Worx, which uses its Webagility system to evaluate and benchmark web site usability and strategy of companies, organisations and institutions in South Africa and globally.

The Webagility system breaks the analysis down into several modules, including usability, social media, campaign effectiveness, and content strategy. Each module contains up to 30 micro-elements, which are each assigned a score, providing a detailed measure of overall effectiveness of online presence. Webagility has been used to analyse sites for clients as diverse as major retailers, banks, bookstores, the City of Jo’burg, SA Revenue Services, the SA Institute of Chartered Accountants and Wits University.

“The DA site achieves only an average score from a usability point of view, but their content strategy sets them apart,” says Steven Ambrose, manage director of WWW Strategy, which conducts the Webagility analyses on behalf of World Wide Worx. Ambrose heads up the Webagility team of analysts. “Benchmarked against global best practise, the DA scores 81% on content strategy, against 64% by the ANC and 60% by COPE.”

In usability, the DA score drops to 69%, while the ANC is consistent at 63% and COPE drops to 57%. Campaign effectiveness sees similar ratings for the DA, at 65%, while the ANC scores only 48%, COPE 45% and the UDM comparing well with these at 43%.

The much vaunted use of social media like blogging, Facebook and YouTube by the political parties is revealed by the analysis to lag behind global best practise. While the DA still leads substantially here, its benchmarked score drops to 69%. The ANC plummets to 47% and COPE 43%.

“The difference lies not so much in what they are doing, but in how they are doing it,” says Ambrose. “The ANC have clearly invested heavily in their online presence, and their YouTube site looks most impressive at first sight. But it is put to very poor use, with uninspiring content, and little opportunity for voter engagement. The DA, on the other hand, has spent less money on the Internet, but scores far higher due to the direct engagement of its own representatives. Their blogs are not only relevant, but interesting, so it comes across as real engagement rather than a public relations exercise.”

The overall Webagility scores of the major parties, benchmarked against global best practice, are:
DA: 76%
ANC: 61%
COPE: 56%
UDM: 43%
ID: 32%
IFP: 23%

“The poor performance of the IFP web site, which our system characterises as ‘potentially damaging’, is a reflection of the reality that the IFP does not expect its target voter audience to be found among Internet users,” says Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx. “It is probably not vote-effective for them to spend too much energy online. The ID’s performance is more a reflection of poor understanding of online strategy, with its leader famous for her attacks on blogs.”

Goldstuck adds that the DA has clearly done its homework on the Obama campaign in the USA, which set the standard globally for embracing the Internet in political campaigning.
Says Goldstuck, “We have nothing like that kind of sophistication in South Africa, but lessons are being learned fast.”

A PowerPoint presentation (in PDF format) summarising the Webagility analysis can be downloaded
here (size of download: 1MB).
7 April 2009

Among the hoaxes included in the study were:

Entire Internet to be rebooted today at 11.59 UTC
2010 World Cup stadiums grass disaster (video news clip)
Charlize Theron coming back to SA to star in soapie
Opera cellphone browser introduces phone control by facial expressions
Guardian to stop printing, moving to Twitter
YouTube provides upside-down video viewing
Computer virus claims human victim
DA leader to perform at CT International Jazz Festival
Cable theft delays SEACOM undersea cable
Emmarentia Dam to be renamed Mbeki’s Dam (video news clip)

* Compound April Grit-your-teeth Rate

1 April 2009

This is among the startling conclusions contained in the Internet Access in South Africa 2008 report, released today by World Wide Worx. The report shows that the number of Internet users in South Africa grew by 12.5% to 4,6-million in 2008 – the first time since 2001 it has grown by more than 8%. The increased growth rate is expected to continue for the next five years, taking the Internet user population to the 9-million mark.

“Four major factors will drive this growth,” says Arthur Goldstuck, managing director of World Wide Worx.

“The first and most obvious development is the arrival of a new undersea telecommunications cable at the end of June. It will increase South Africa’s maximum international bandwidth fivefold, and the actual capacity that was available until the end of last year will increase 30-fold. It will gradually bring down the cost and increase the capacity available to consumers and business – but not overnight.”

The second factor is the granting of telecommunications licences to all Internet service providers who wish to upgrade existing licences, allowing them to build their own networks.

“While we won’t see even a tenth of the 600 existing ISPs setting up networks, enough of them will emerge from under the radar to give consumers and business a new world of choice,” says Goldstuck.

These networks will be able to take advantage of the new undersea cable, which will allow service providers to buy bandwidth capacity at wholesale prices and repackage and resell it as they wish. This means that the new generation of service providers will be able to introduce business models that were never possible before.

The third factor is the rapid rate at which small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are migrating from slow dial-up connections to faster ADSL lines.

The impact of these lines goes much further than merely the number of small businesses that connect,” says Goldstuck. “Our research shows that every SME using ADSL is connecting anywhere between one and 20 additional individuals to the Internet. This means that SMEs have taken over from large businesses as the biggest driver of Internet access in South Africa.”

The fourth factor is the growth of Internet access via cell phones. However, warns the report, this is not yet as big a factor as media hype suggests.

“The cell phone right now is a very crude device for accessing the Internet,” says Goldstuck. “We will need to see great improvements in both usability and people’s ability to use advanced features on their cell phones, and that will take another few years.”

The report also covers the prospects for as many as seven new undersea cables planned for the next three years, new trends in connecting schools and universities, the dramatic evolution of wireless broadband technology, and the extent to which other African countries have overtaken South Africa.

25 March 2009

• For more information, contact World Wide Worx by telephone on +27 11 782 7003 or by e-mail. Or download the executive summary, which includes a contents list and ordering detaisl, by clicking here.

The findings indicate an encouraging 32% growth in online advertising in 2008, after an equally positive 27% growth in 2007. Actual online advertising spend in 2008 was up to R319-million, from R240-million the year before. The figures contrast strongly with the statistics from Nielsens but are based on actual revenue figures derived directly from publishers, and not rate card rates. However, neither Nielsen’s nor the commissioned study were able to obtain data from Google, which would further increase the figure significantly.

This robust growth is indicative of growing confidence in the online medium.

Adrian Hewlett, Chairperson of the OPA, highlights three key trends behind this growth: “Increased awareness of the inherent potential of online advertising has resulted in a growing pool of online advertisers. The net result is that even if certain long term online spenders reduce some of their digital budget in 2009, the arrival of many new players will fuel exponential growth for the industry.

“Secondly, and complementary to this trend is that there has been a considerable boost in digital adoption by traditional media buying and creative agencies, as well as new specialist agencies. Previously publishers saw only 20% of their spend coming from agencies. In the last 12 months this has increased to 45%, and in 2009 we expect this to shift even further, with perhaps as much as 60% coming from agencies.”

Finally, additional publishers have entered the market, further promoting the online proposition and maturing the online advertising market.

Online set to surpass Cinema

With a positive growth rate of 32% forecast for 2009, versus a negligible growth rate for cinema, the study asserts that online will surpass cinema spend in 2009. “While online economics in South Africa are different to those of traditional commerce, there is little doubt that a recession in the physical world would make itself felt in the online environment, but the 2009 expectation shows how robust this sector remains,” says Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx. This significant development will further encourage traditional buying agencies to embrace the online medium.

An international comparative

The study revealed that the only mature Internet market where online advertising appears to be growing faster than South Africa is Brazil, which is expecting 45% growth for 2008, after recording the same growth rate in 2007. In the English-speaking world, where the USA, UK, Canada and Australia outpaced South Africa in 2006 and 2007, all fell below the 30% growth mark in 2008, with the USA falling as low as 11% and the UK falling to 22%. Growth for both of these is expected to be below 10% in 2009. Comparatively however this growth will still appear healthy when compared to other major media.

Rich media (interactive HTML banners) and the static banner share top position for revenue generating advertising in South Africa, whilst the increase of sponsorships for online categories indicates a move by publishers to leverage brand association as much as traffic. The top five sectors from which advertising revenue is drawn include Finance, Insurance, Automotive, Technology and Telecommunications. This is a powerful reflection that purchase decisions for these sectors are first researched on the internet.

The publisher’s perspective

Online strategy has also evolved significantly in South Africa: building a more profitable web site has become the single most important core strategy for online publishers. In a 2006 edition of this study it ranked third, when it was important but not critical.

As in 2006, publishers still believe that the measurability and the demonstrable returns of online advertising are the most important benefits to advertisers. However, the key obstacles to online advertising remains lack of knowledge by advertisers and by agencies, followed by lack of interest by both of these parties. “It is fascinating to note that these factors were ranked in the exact same order as in 2006, with lack of knowledge by advertisers and ad agencies increasing in significance,” says Goldstuck. “It would have been expected that, three years on, these would no longer be such important issues for online advertising, yet they remain critical obstacles.” This critical issue is one which the OPA will continue to address, with workshops, and direct one on one meetings with traditional media agencies and through creative agencies.

Online publishers do not see new media formats as a threat: they are almost unanimous that Social Media and Social Networking are a great opportunity, along with video sharing, reader-generated content, and citizen journalism.

“The Online Media in South Africa 2009 study reveals a maturing industry on a strong growth curve. There are obstacles which the industry as a whole need to address, but the forecast for 2009 is strong’ concludes Adrian Hewlett, OPA chairperson.

17 March 2009

This is the key finding of the Internet Access in South Africa 2008 study, released today by World Wide Worx. The study was backed by Cisco Systems, and the findings released during the Networkers at Cisco Live! conference in Johannesburg.

“The increase comes on the eve of the biggest shakeup in South African Internet access we’ve seen since the dawn of the commercial Internet in 1994,” says Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx. “It is only the beginning of a dramatic turnaround, and is occurring despite numerous obstacles in the way of growth.”

Among these obstacles has been a highly restrictive regulatory environment, with the Minister of Communications only deciding late in the year not to oppose a court ruling that would allow all network operators to supply their own infrastructure.

The evolution and changes in the telecommunications industry could not have come at a better time in South Africa. “We believe these changes will lead to sufficient levels of competition, increase access to Internet usage and in turn, increase global competitiveness and economic diversity,” says Reshaad Ahmed, Senior Manager of Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group.

“South Africa could, potentially, go from five major service providers to more than 300 overnight,” says Ahmed. “The combination of new licencees, policy directions, and municipality networks has set the stage for a highly competitive telecommunications marketplace, with consumers and businesses leading the charge toward choice, competition, and fair market value.”

Goldstuck describes the Minister’s decision as a pivotal moment, but one that should have occurred four years ago.

“In that time we saw growth slow to a near standstill, and the possibility of bringing access to underserviced area becoming ever more remote,” adds Goldstuck. “But the market has been anticipating this change, and numerous small, semi-legal networks have sprung up around the country in the past year. Many of these should emerge above the radar with their new licenses, along with new entrants into the market.”

The Internet Access in SA 2008 report shows that growth has come largely on the back of dramatic take-up of broadband offerings by small businesses, which alone accounted for half of the growth in the market, mainly through connecting office staff to their ADSL links. At the same time, the market as a whole has seen a continued dramatic shift from dial-up connections to broadband, with growth in both ADSL and 3G at more than 50%.

“We are seeing a broadband culture emerging in South Africa, held back only by the restrictions still placed on data capacity,” says Goldstuck. “These should start becoming a non-issue from the middle of 2009, as the first of the major new undersea cables enters operation. At that point, dial-up will effectively be dead as a connectivity option – it is more expensive, and utterly inappropriate to the changing nature of the Internet.

“Once everyone who is connected is on broadband or high-speed networks, the Internet will come into its own as an environment for business collaboration and personal interaction.”

The Seacom undersea cable, commissioned mainly by new market entrant Neotel, will increase South Africa’s international bandwidth 40-fold, and will mark the beginning of what World Wide Worx describes as a seismic shift in the Internet landscape in Africa. But it is only one of a series of new cables in the works, which will make the connectivity landscape completely unrecognisable for both South Africa and the rest of the continent by 2013.

“It spells the birth of an entirely new industry, and we are already seeing the market champing at the bit to become part of that industry,” says Goldstuck.

However, Cisco warns change won’t happen overnight.

“Only some of the 300-plus contenders will be in a position to manage their own net­works due to their ability to raise the necessary capital,” cautions Ahmed. “Those that do step up to the challenge must spend a significant amount of time building a business model that will be sustainable, innovative, and takes advantage of the strategic position with which a contender is faced, while employing the capabilities of existing service providers.

“We are therefore pleased with these findings as they indicate a positive trend for economic growth. We believe that pervasive broadband at the right price is a key enabler for economic prosperity.”

“It is imperative for all relevant stakeholders to drive broadband to encourage new services: skills, education, business interaction and lowering the cost of doing business,” Ahmed concludes.

“Acceptance of ADSL connectivity has been rapid since its introduction in 2003; in 2005, SME Survey anticipated that it would steadily replace dial-up as the connection of choice, but the speed of acceptance has been surprising,” says Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx and principal researcher for SME Survey.

Today, for the first time, less than 10% of SMEs that use computers connect to the Internet via dialup, while ADSL is favoured by 63% - exactly the proportion using dial-up five years ago. Wireless broadband as the primary connection moves above 10% for the first time at 10.1%.

“This is a confirmation that ADSL is not a hype-driven technology. While it was originally seen as expensive, users soon discovered that in terms of overall cost, it is far cheaper than dialup; the value proposition has gradually become clearer and today it is a no-brainer for the SME owner or director,” says Goldstuck.

Another technology-related issue where the value proposition should be crystal-clear is that of data backup. However, while Goldstuck says just about every computer user understands and appreciates the value of their data; he says only 49% of SMEs backup data daily or continually. “Some 10% make continual backups, and 39% do a backup daily. These are the only business owners who are taking good care of themselves and ensuring no loss of productivity,” he comments.

Worryingly, says Goldstuck, nearly half of SMEs are not sufficiently diligent. “The 20% who make weekly backups are at some risk, but the danger of data loss is magnified dramatically for the 16% who do it monthly. Then there is the 9% who don’t know if or when backups are made at all – they are a disaster waiting to happen.”

The implications of this negligence is made clear by the fact that power failures were the single biggest factor in data loss for SMEs in the past year, with 15% saying they had suffered as a result.

Additionally, Goldstuck says only 46% of the businesses surveyed have a disaster recovery plan.

He says this is a glaring gap in the SME landscape and is an opportunity for solution providers to assist SMEs to improve their processes where data protection is concerned.

Staying with the theme of protection, SMEs generally protect their data quite well in terms of usage. Goldstuck says the research indicates that 84% of these businesses have antivirus software – an appreciative majority, but that still leaves 16% vulnerable to an obvious and inevitable threat. Spyware protection is used by 78% of SMEs. “This is a more specialised form of protection; it is built into most antivirus suites but is still sometimes a separate application,” he notes, suggesting that SMEs have picked up fast on this issue. But with just 61% of SMEs using a firewall – which is provided as a feature of most Windows operating systems – he says that may indicate that users don’t know how to initiate this tool in the operating system.

Danny de Beer, business development director at Fujitsu Siemens Computers, says he believes SMEs are increasingly taking advantage of what the ICT sector has to offer in support of improved convenience and productivity. “With more SMEs using ADSL, it is apparent that they are taking advantage of the Internet to support their objectives. The ICT industry has also adjusted its focus to bring more systems and technologies to market that are specifically geared at the SME, delivering advantages such as simple set-up and maintenance, further supporting the ability of SME owners to get more done in less time.”

SME Survey is sponsored by Standard Bank and Fujitsu Siemens Computers. It is in its sixth year and tracks trends and opinions of more than 5 000 South African small, medium and micro enterprises.

This has emerged from the findings of SME Survey 2008, which explored the impact of infrastructural challenges on SMEs during a time of increasing inflation, interest and petrol prices.

According to principal researcher Arthur Goldstuck, SMEs tend to get off the ground without troubling banks for business-specific loans, looking instead to existing sources of capital such as mortgage bonds. This tactic, however, leaves especially start-up companies with particular sensitivity to interest rate fluctuations.

“Although a large proportion of SMEs across the board are concerned by the impact of interest rates on their businesses, it is the micro-enterprise – companies with one to five employees – that appears worst affected,” he says.

The changing economic circumstances are reflected in whether or not companies are taking or intend to take loans. While one out of every five SMEs surveyed took out a loan in the past year, just 6% of companies surveyed indicated plans to borrow money in the coming year – and it tends to be the more established organisation that seeks funding for expansion.

“The survey suggests that micro-enterprises at the one end of the scale and larger businesses at the other are least likely to borrow, but for different reasons. The micro-enterprise owner may not qualify for a loan or is funding the business from existing resources, such as a bond, while the larger company is likely able to fund itself. Less than 4% of micro-enterprises and 13% of those with 6-10 employees plan to take a loan in the coming year. That figure rises steadily, reaching 18% of companies with 51 to 75 employees that will borrow. However, for the larger enterprises in the survey, those with more than 100 employees, the figure falls to just 4%. This suggests that the larger a company is, the better it is able to fund expansion from its own operations,” Goldstuck says.

Micro-enterprises are also most likely to fret over cash flow, with 20% of these companies indicating this to be a big issue for them. That drops to between 16 and 17% for those SMEs with up to 100 employees, and drops to 13% for those with more than 100 staff. “This shows that the micro-enterprise has the least resilience; they are not as diverse and do not enjoy the established cash flow of a more substantial organisation,” says Goldstuck, “Bad debt of course has an even more dramatic impact on cash flow for these businesses.”

However, he says, having a positive cash flow has no impact on whether the SME decision-maker has sleepless nights over high interest rates. “That is spread evenly over those SMEs with positive and negative cash flows. This makes clear the fact that SMEs are universally concerned over the precariousness of the market as it relates to the higher cost of living and doing business.”

Returning his attention to bad debt, arguably a major threat as higher interest rates restrict money supply, Goldstuck says this has increased by 31% for those companies with a negative cash flow and by a lower margin of 22% for those with a positive cash flow. “Bad debt is clearly a factor in not having a positive cash flow and is a headache for any SME,” he notes.

SME Survey is sponsored by Standard Bank and Fujitsu Siemens Computers. It is in its sixth year and tracks trends and opinions of more than 5,000 South African small, medium and micro enterprises.