On Friday, 8 April 2011, DStv will be launching their 6th High Definition (HD) channel to join the DStv family of HD channels.

The new HD channel, SuperSport HD 3,  will be complementing the existing two SuperSport HD channels to deliver HD capable viewers with a even wider variety of sport in High Definition.

With the introduction of SuperSport HD 3, DStv will reshuffle it’s sport broadcasts across the current SuperSport HD channels.

SuperSport HD1, channel 171: SS HD1 will consists of a variety of sporting codes, including local and international rugby, PSL football, Uefa Champions League, tennis majors, European Tour, US PGA golf, F1 and MotoGP.

SuperSport HD2, channel 174: SS HD2, which currently shows the EPL, will be the new channel which will be available from 8 April 2011 at 6am. It will feature various High Definition sports programming, including selected cricket, Bundesliga soccer, PSL soccer, Europa League soccer, tennis majors, Champions League soccer, F1 and MotoGP.

SuperSport HD3, channel 176: SS HD3 will now broadcast the 24-hour English Premier League channel (previously available on SS HD2). A limited amount of programming, particularly legacy matches will be in Standard Definition because of their historical nature.

Apart from the changes above to the SuperSport HD channels, DStv will also be broadcasting sport on the M-Net HD channel on Saturday’s between 2-7 pm, these sport will mainly consist of Rugby but viewers may also see soccer from time to time.

With the addition of SuperSport HD 3, the total amount of High Definition channels on DStv now stands at six with the inclusion of M-Net HD, SuperSport HD 1, SuperSport HD 2, Discovery HD Showcase and M-Net Movies HD 1.

“We made a commitment to our viewers and now we are delivering,” said Andre de Villiers, SuperSport’s marketing director. “Sporting events are increasingly being produced in High Definition and SuperSport is committed to bringing more of this broadcast technology to the market. Sport, in particular, lends itself to the excellent quality offered by High Definition.”

“High Definition channels are becoming the television standard globally. We don’t want our subscribers to be left behind – our focus is on rolling out as many High Definition channels onto the DStv platform as possible,” commented Aletta Alberts, GM: Content, MultiChoice.

It’s great to see South Africa catching up with the rest of the world where HD channels are a norm nowadays, but how much I enjoy sport I would still like to see more variety when it comes to HD channels in South Africa.

Uncapped ADSL is no new phenomena amongst South African ADSL users, we have been having it for longer than a year already, but one ISP I have been following closely since MWEB and many other local ISP’s released their Uncapped ADSL is WebAfrica.

WebAfrica has always been a pioneer in the local Internet market, but with the introduction of Uncapped Internet they somehow failed to deliver and instead focussed more on building their very own Tier 1 network.

After almost a year, WebAfrica has finally introduced their very own Uncapped ADSL product, Business Uncapped provisioned through the SAT-3 cable system and not Seacom.

“Web Africa Business Uncapped ADSL is intended for those who want the best possible performance from their ADSL line for their business. Furthermore, redundancy is par for the course with SAT3 bandwidth being primary and SEACOM bandwidth for failover.” said Web Africa CEO Matthew Tagg.

Tagg also added that “What also sets our product apart is our transparency, in terms of excessive usage and AUP rules clearly laid out in the online console with a graphical meter.”

WebAfrica’s Business Uncapped product offers clients lower content ratio’s, prioritised bandwidth, 24 hour business support, 10 email addresses and a usage management interface all without the need to sign a contract.

WebAfrica Business Uncapped ADSL is priced starting from R499 for 384kbps data only or R599 for the complete 386Kbps package that includes ADSL line rental. For more details about pricing view the WebAfrica Business Uncapped ADSL page.

I am glad to see WebAfrica is starting to move into the Uncapped ADSL market, but it looks like we will have to wait a bit longer for a consumer Uncapped ADSL offering from them.

Since my post about the Cell C network issues of last night, I sat down to think and dug up some information as why I and many others follow brands on Twitter. The reason for me thinking about it was because I have an issue with brands tweeting stuff that has absolute no relation to them.

Take the Cell C twitter account for example, a quick look at their account reveals that they would rather tweet about how many spider legs there are in chocolate bars rather then about their own products or services.

So what are the main reasons for consumers following brands on Twitter? After some investigation I came up with the following reasons:

• Get updates on future products
• Stay informed about company activities
• Receive discounts and promotions
• Get updates on upcoming sales
• Get free samples, coupons, etc.
• Get access to exclusive content
• To learn about the company
• Share ideas and provide feedback
• Product support

All of the above makes sense to me, seeing as they are all related to the brand itself and that I presume that it’s also what brands are trying to give to consumers through social media.

Why do you follow brands on social media?

Okay I must give recognition to Cell C for driving down mobile broadband prices, but if there is one thing that really pisses me off is when I pay for something and then I can’t use it.

Last night from between 19:00 and 20:00, users started complaining about connectivity issues. I was unaware of this until about 21:00 when I realised I have still about 700mb left for the month and decided to make use of the bandwidth I pay for and upload some photos.

I hooked up the Speedstick and connected but when I tried browse to a site it just timed out, I decided to disconnect and reconnect as I get the error quite often and this usually resolves it but alas it did not help, I eventually gave up at around 23:00.

Heading to Twitter from my iPad with MTN broadband, I saw numerous users that was not very happy with the Cell C network reporting the same issues, and eventually Cell C tweeted “South Africans are WOOSHING big time tonight! We apologize for any intermittent connectivity caused by extra load, but we are working on it!”. Clearly users are fed up with the promise of great speed but getting either slow or no connections whatsoever.

No my question to Cell C is what are you going to do about the fact that I, and all of the other Speedstick users could not use our cap before you reset it? I think it is just fair that you reimburse us for this seeing as we pay for something we could not make use of.

After reading some tweets and forum posts it seems like this is something that has happened before, an easy solution to this load issues is to just make the it roll over every month end. This was my first month with the Cell C Speedstick and I am really not impressed, during the month I also had speed issues where my connection was getting dialup speeds and I live almost next to a Cell C tower with full signal and HSPA signal.

So Lars I think it time for you to take some action and offer explanations and what you are going to do about the fact, and perhaps you must rethink your social media strategy also as you official twitter account spends more time tweeting tech articles that has absolutely nothing to do with Cell C rather than assisting customers. I sent out numerous tweets that mention @CellC and did not receive one response.

Angry Birds has to be one of the most popular mobile games at the moment with all of its releases topping the Apple iTunes App Store charts as soon as they are released.

Last week Rio the makers of Angry Birds released the latest installment of their popular mobile game, Angry Birds Rio.

Angry Birds Rio adds a whole new twist to the game, and they also upped the graphics a bit. With Angry Birds Rio, there are no more pigs, instead all the birds have been kidnapped and shipped to Rio headquarters and you have to free them. The new Angry Birds Rio takes place inside a warehouse and there are also new obstacles like hanging chains with fruit that can obstruct your shooting.

Up until now the only way Android users could get access to Angry Birds Rio was through the new Amazon App Store, but unfortunately this is only open to US users. Good news for international Android users is that Rio will be releasing Angry Birds Rio on the Android Market sometime this week. The game will be free on the Android Market and will be supported by Ads.

DStv Mobile has announced that they will be adding three new channels to their mobile TV offering bringing the total number of channels available on the mobile TV platform to twelve.

With the free introductory phase coming to an end at the end of March 2011, DStv Mobile subscribers will enjoy the three extra channel starting from 1 April 2011. The channels that will join the existing DStv Mobile bouquet are CNNi, E!Entertainment and Sony Max.

Not only will DStv Mobile introduce the three new channels they have also promised applications for Nokia and Android smartphones to enable people with those phones to watch DStv Mobile with the Drifta decoder.

From 1 April 2011, you can expect to pay R36 per month to watch DStv Mobile through the Drifta decoder or alternatively if you have a DVB-H phone you can also opt for the R9 per week option.

Good news for DStv Premium subscribers is that they will have access to DStv Mobile through the Drifta decoder or a DVB-H phone at no extra cost per month. If you are a DStv Compact subscriber and subscribe to DStv Mobile before 31 March 2011 you will get access to the service for free until the end of March 2012.

Leaf, the distributor of HTC products in South Africa, has just announced via Twitter that the Paid Android Market will be available in South Africa soon.

To date South Africans only had access to all the free apps through the Android Market, but soon we will get to experience paid apps also.

The tweet by Leaf states that the paid-for Android Marketplace will be available to South Africans from the 2nd quarter of 2011. This will enable us to get the latest and greatest content on the Android Market charged straight to our credit cards.

The introduction of Paid Apps in the Android Market it not only just good news for local Android users, but this also opens up a whole new world for our local developers enabling them profit from building Android applications for the local market.

MXit has started out as a simple instant messaging platform that offered users a cheap way to communicate but since has grown into a network of 27 million users strong with messaging, gaming, media, counseling and library functionality.

Here is a nice infographic put together by Eshaam Rabaney about MXit.

Click to view larger version.

Yet another group buying website has opened up shop in South Africa, this time backed by Avusa Media who owns local titles such as The Times, Sowetan, Sunday World and Elle.

The launch of Zappon short for South African Coupon, draws on a trend that is part of a word wide phenomenon called group buying lead by Groupon. Group buying has picked up tremendously with local consumers with no less than 14 group buying sites already operating within South Africa and one of them already bought out by Groupon.

“We know we are entering an incredibly competitive market at the moment but feel this is the perfect timing for the launch of Zappon.co.za,” said Mr. Elan Lohmann, Zappon creator and GM of Avusa Media LIVE.

The fact that Zappon is owned and operated by a large media company may see them rise to the top of local group buying scene, seeing as they have instant access to to an audience of more than 2.5 million readers through their various newspapers and not to mention the radio stations they own.

With such a large media presence, Zappon will also not have a problem finding great deals to offer their clients through their contacts with Advertisers from Avusa’s range of media companies.

Zappon is however no different from the other local group buying sites, they will also offer consumers between 40-90% off luxury deals such as spa treatments and meals.

Some may say that the local group buying scene is becoming too overcrowded but for consumers this just means more and greater deals on offer and at the end of the day the site offering the best deals will cry king.

Facebook Places, the location check-in service by Facebook has for a while now been active to allot of countries with exception of South Africa.

It seems as if Facebook Places has now officially been activated for South African Facebook users, I picked up on this when Gary Meyer tweeted asking if Facebook just launched Places in South Africa and I quickly fired up my Facebook application to check.

Using the Facebook for Android application I was able to view check-ins of my friends and also it allowed me to check into places as well. Other users have also reported that its working on the Facebook iPhone app.

Whether this is a bug or the official release of Facebook Places in South Africa we will just have to wait and see, as Facebook has made no official statement on their blog yet about the roll out of Facebook Places to other countries.

Does Facebook Places work for you?

[UPDATE]
I just checked out the Facebook Touch site and it seems that Places has also been activated there.