Online gurus from some of the biggest names in etourism and Internet marketing are lined up to present at the first ever etourism conference in Southern Africa which will be held in Johannesburg in September.

Google, Microsoft, WAYN, Expedia, Nightsbridge and Eye For Travel are some of the global Internet giants that will make presentations at the conference that is aimed to help businesses in Southern Africa gear up for the 2010 World Cup and the boom in tourism that is expected in the region leading up to, during and after the event. (more…)

The technology is supposed to be very simple. Someone somewhere in the world sends you some money via their closest Western Union office and in ten minutes time you can collect it from your local Western Union office.

That’s what Namatai Hamandishe was told by her husband who recently moved to the United Kingdom to look for work, as many Zimbabweans have done. So when he informed her after two months that he had sent her some Pounds from his first salary she got very excited and made plans to travel to the nearest Western Union office- 20km away in Harare. She and her five month old baby got onto a bus from the town of Chitungwiza very early one morning to go and collect the money. (more…)

Find out how this web development innovation is changing the way websites are being built.

Here’s a parallel. Willowvale Mazda Motor industries in Harare does not build cars from scratch. They simply receive kits from the manufacturers and put the parts together to build a vehicle. Imagine being able to do that with a website- each time you build one, you don’t build it from scratch but simply take the parts you need out of a “box” and put them together.

Left: Wearing the same cap- Joomla is fast becoming a standard for Zimbabwean web developers

That’s what a content management system (CMS) can do for you and Zimbabwean web developers have fallen in love with one CMS in particular. It has a peculiar name, whose origins are African- Joomla!- with the exclamation mark. (more…)

NewZimbabwe.com has won two awards for Best Website and Best News Service at the inaugural ZimAwards held in Coventry over the weekend.

Left: NewZimbabwe.com editor Mduduzi Mathuthu

New Zimbabwe Media Group CEO Jeff Madzingo was on hand to receive the awards.
“This is for our readers who make it so worthwhile to expend effort trying to deliver the Zimbabwean story to every household around the world,” Madzingo said. (more…)

Zi.Report Internet Writer

The place is an Internet Café in downtown Harare. Every machine, save for one or two that are out of order, is in furious use. There is a queue of about twenty people outside, anxiously waiting their turn.

Left: Milling around for the next deal outside Ximex Mall in Harare.

This is not an upsurge of Hararians wanting to use Yahoo or Google or to chat with their Diaspora-based family and friends online. This is a new wave of forex (foreign exchange) dealers that have found a way to beat the restrictive banking system. (more…)

When I first met Rosinah Hove, in 2006, she struck me with her demure brand of confidence and sharp wit. She had just been appointed to the post of Finance Director at Celsys Limited, one of two listed technology counters on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, and she discussed this issue with me in a matter-of-fact manner, as if it was one of those things that just happen in life.

A few weeks ago she was sitting next to Condoleezza Rice and I can picture her seated there unfettered by the whole scenario, chatting about this and that with the most powerful woman in the World. (more…)

Mobile telecommunications companies have increased tariffs by over 1,000 percent in the latest round of increases.

The three mobile telecommunicatons firms, Econet Wireless, Telecel and NetOne announced the charges over the weekend. The tariffs were last renewed in July.

According to the new tariffs, subscribers will now pay between Z$12 (Z$120 billion before revaluation) and Z$18 per minute up from about Z$2. (more…)

We survey the new landscape of online self-publishing that has taken Zimbabwe by storm.

When I was a kid growing up in Bulawayo I woke up one morning to find that the Sunday News- that City’s biggest Sunday newspaper at the time- had published one of the short stories I had submitted to them. I was thrilled.

That was in 1995 and I was in Upper 6 then. As any writer will testify, to find an outlet for one’s work is an ultimate aspiration.

In a time when the printed word was, well, the printed word- it was exhilarating to get printed- and I suppose, thirteen years later, in 2008, it still is. (more…)