Today’s announcement that MTN would be taking over retail space for up to 17 Musica stores raised eyebrows for many. What is a cell phone company doing with music store?

Well if I think of it, MTN is a telecommunications company (telco) and what we are seeing is probably a signal that the business model of these companies is changing.

The business model for telecommunication providers has been changing and adapting longer than most people would realise. Many people, including myself, have thought of telcos as simply voice service providers.
Over the last 15 years as we embrace the internet, we saw telcos as infrastructure providers for the communications lines for us so that we can call our loved ones and push internet data.

One has to realise though that telcos are more of application providers. The applications have been changing all the time. The killer application at the inception of the Telcos has been seen as messaging; from the age of morse code and till recently the age of the internet.
It should not surprising to me to see MTN moving into this space. A move into the music distribution simply makes sense. With the growing preference digitally distributed music, MTN are just paying attention, they would be well placed to close the gap between the producer of music on the one side and the consumer on the other.
The signal has been there for a long time.

We have seen our local artists benefit from music distributions via wireless application service providers. Many ring tones appear on countless catalogues and only a short code away through companies such as ExactMobile etc.
So, the next announcement I am anticipating from the likes of MTN is a scramble for the creme of these wireless application service providers crop.

“Politics 2.0″ according to wikipedia is ” the idea that social networking and e-participation technologies will revolutionize our ability to follow, support, and influence political campaigns” and I would like to append that not only the political campain but the politcal process in general”

Unless you have been banished to a far flung Island totally isolated from all media over the last 4 years or so; the name Barak Obama has to sound familiar to you. Depending on the level of media that you may be exposed to, his name (Barak Obama) has become synonymous with the word CHANGE !

That message has been communicated and promised so well that even the means; with which that message is spreading; has changed. For the the change has been social media. The use of social media tools such as blog, shared video (Youtube), instant messaging (Twitter), social networking (Facebook et al) has done much to popularise and spread Obamas election promise.

Visiting websites for the major political parties in South Africa one soon realise that the political parties sit at varying levels of readiness for a robust political campaign that takes advantage of social media.  At the most basic level at least they all have a web presence of some kind.

ANC	Y	Y	N	N	Y	N	N	15-Sep-08
DA	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	N	N	15-Sep-08
FFP	Y	Y	Y	N	Y	N	N	15-Sep-08
ID	Y	Y/N	N	N	Y	N	Y	15-Sep-08
UDM	Y	N	N	N	Y	N	N	15-Sep-08
ACDP	Y	Y	N	N	Y	N	N	15-Sep-08
PAC	Y	N	N	N	N	N	N	15-Sep-08

However most lack an RSS feed which to my mind is the most fundamental element required to really give wings to a political opinion published on their websites. I thought it was curious though that among websites visited they all seem to have a representation in one form or the other on Facebook.

No doubt the use of the tools has some significance but how relevant are all these tools in South Africa ?

Broadband penetration in South Africa sit at a low and depressing mark ( around 1%  at best estimates  source ),  This does not compare well with  the US at 57 % (source).

We do on the other hand have  one of the highest mobile phone to user ratios in the world. This ubiquitous state in my opinion is the most widely ignored means of communication by political representatives. However, looking at the agenda on this years MobileActive08, I am convinced that perhaps some light will be shared towards that “Politics 2.0″ Euphoria I long to see.