PayasUgym shapes up with £1.6 million in funding

payasUgymPayasUgym, the UK’s largest fitness network, has raised a £1.6 million funding round, led by Albion Ventures and MMC Ventures and again by existing investors, bringing the total investment to date of £3.5 million.

With 12 million ex-gym members in the UK (double the amount of gym members) PayasUgym offers flexible, discounted gym passes nationwide, disrupting the existing and onerous model of year-long subscriptions. Continue reading

Led by 4G, mobile data revenues will be $42 billion by 2018

mobile_dataA new report says operator revenues from mobile data roaming will be $42 billion by 2018, representing 47% of global mobile roaming revenue and up from an estimated 36% in 2013.

According to a white paper from Juniper Research, these revenues will be driven by increasing data usage, as operator migration and marketing towards 4G will offer faster broadband networks and reductions in roaming charges will spur heavier usage. Continue reading

Orange keeps its eyes on the African Cup of Nations ball

African-Cup-of-Nations-2013~10Global operator Orange is continuing to grow its brand in Africa by its sponsorship of the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) 2013 football tournament that is currently taking place in South Africa.

The company has sponsored AFCON since 2009 and is committed to do so until 2016. Six of the teams who will be competing are from countries where the Group operates its own network Continue reading

SMS traffic may have peaked, but not the use of silent SMS

snoopingEither I’m getting old or SMS isn’t what it was. This year at midnight on New Year’s Eve I received one text message wishing me luck for 2013 and the person who sent it wasn’t even drunk.

Rewind ten years, even five years and it was a very different story. Acres of text messages from wasted friends and contacts, one year I received more than 100 such missives… and probably replied to all of them. Continue reading

In social media everybody could hear you scream… not any longer

Man talking into shoeIt was when the Library of Congress in the US announced two years ago that it would archive every single tweet that people became serious about social media… and more to the point their data.

The idea of all that data being saved made many people more reticent when posting their 140 characters on Twitter. It seemed inconceivable that all that information could be stored, as much as 160 characters on SMS could similarly be saved via those operators that are as avuncular as Uncle Joe Stalin. Continue reading