In times of users being pulled away to smaller screens, TV providers are trying to keep their medium fresh and exciting. Through social tv, users can experience something they can’t if they were watching the programme online – participation. Joining the conversation has become as important as watching the programme itself.

It doesn't make much sense. South African mobile phone users have to pay standard cellular rates if they want to call the South African Police Service (SAPS) emergency 10111 line.

I don't see the reason why the government and mobile phone network operators can't reach some sort of a compromise and look at the policies around this matter.

Squeezed into some 60 pages is a review of how digitisation is impacting on media in Southern Africa, and especially how the new digi-scape is impacting on state-owned broadcasters. It's been produced for distribution at the 13th Highway Africa conference to a mass of influential people in journalism and journalism education.

Overall, Africa’s mobile market has probably been the fastest growing of any region in the world over the past five years, and mobile access has grown twice as rapidly as the global average.

It took the African continent 100 years to accumulate 28 million fixed lines – an average access rate of 3 per 100 inhabitants – but this was overtaken by mobile connections in 2001, and with 137 million mobile subscribers in 2005 mobiles outnumbered fixed lines by more than five to one.

A rude awakening in the news that Vodacom is becoming a media company.

It's not about the firm's distribution of a bouquet of other people's TV via 3G (and in future DVB-H). It's not even about content as such.