Engadget Apple Music’s payment rate for artists and labels is fundamentally a penny per stream, according to a letter from the company posted on its artist dashboard and first reported by the Wall Street Journal. That payment rate is higher than Spotify, which has a confusing variable rate scheme that basically tops out at a half-penny per stream. Announcing a penny-per-stream rate is a nice PR win for Apple Music, since it is 1. very simple and 2. Spotify hates talking about its per-stream payments, which the company insists are a misleading figure. Seriously, it just launched an entire website called Loud&Clear last month designed to help artists and fans understand how payments work, and a good chunk of it is devoted to explaining why per-stream rates are not the right thing to focu...
Fresh attack on Thursday night claimed six lives as gunmen opened fire on some villagers at Wereng village, Riyom local government area of Plateau State, killing six and injuring three villagers. The attack occurred at the time villagers returned from their day’s businesses and were preparing to retire for the night when sporadic gunshots jolted them Before the incident, there were rumours being circulated that the villagers may be attacked any moment but it was unclear if security agencies acted on the information. Wereng has consistently been under attack in over a decade now and all appeals for the dastardly act to end have been rebuffed by the attackers. Although Operation Safe Haven on peace mission in the State did not confirm the incident at the time of this report because the spoke...
Image sourced from Glassdoor Nutanix, a leader in private cloud, hybrid, and multicloud computing, has released the local data from its third global Enterprise Cloud Index survey, showing how South African companies compare with the rest of the globe regarding their hybrid cloud adoption in 2020. South African organisations are still transitioning to a hybrid cloud infrastructure, and for most organisations, these transitions do not happen overnight. Legacy applications may justify keeping older infrastructure for a time or require re-platforming skills that organisations may not have access to. According to the report, 50% of South Africa organisations run either private cloud-only or a non-integrated mix of private, public, and traditional infrastructure models. Key Findings includ...
Sourced from International IDEA Cybercrime is on the rise and South African C-suites would do well to ensure that they have up-to-date and appropriately resourced strategies to deal with its threat. The pandemic showed us that while land and sea borders can be shut, in the digital village this is not possible, and more importantly, in many instances, it is unclear where these attacks originate. The definition of cybercrime perhaps holds the key to who should take it seriously. Cybercrime is defined as criminal activities that are carried out by means of a computer or the internet. Anyone who uses a computer that is connected to the internet should have a cybercrime strategy in place. No matter where you are in the world, if you let your guard down you are at risk. Everyone needs to be resp...
One in two small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in South Africa has yet to see revenues recover to pre-pandemic levels, according to the latest edition of Facebook’s Global State of Small Business Report. 50% of operational South African SMBs on Facebook reported that their sales in February were lower than the equivalent month last year. Some 74% reported that they were operational or engaging in any revenue-generating activities, while 8% of operational SMBs on Facebook expected challenges related to cash flow and 20% expected challenges related to demand or a lack of customers in the next few months. Continuing trends observed throughout the pandemic: Women-owned South African businesses have been hit especially hard. Some 71% of women-led SMBs (vs. 77% of men-led SMBs) on Facebook ...
The National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) has announced that Nigeria had so far vaccinated over a million eligible people out of its target of 70 percent of the nation’s population. The NPHCDA disclosed this on its official Twitter handle, on Thursday. Newsmen report that for the country to achieve herd immunity against COVID-19, it had set an ambitious goal of vaccinating 40 per cent of its over 200 million population before the end of 2021, and 70 per cent by the end of 2022. The country kicked off vaccination on March 5, 2021, commencing with healthcare workers who are mostly at risk to the infections, being the first responders. It noted that the vaccine roll-out would be in four phases, starting with health workers, frontline workers, COVID-19 rapid response team, l...
File Photo Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), on Thursday, dismissed alleged payment of N151million to a firm for a road rehabilitated by the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) in Osun State. Fashola in his submission before the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, probing the allegation, said the claim by the church was untrue. He said the 15-kilometer road was awarded to Messrs Cartil Construction Nigeria Limited at the cost of N662.7million by the Federal Government in 2011. He said the Ministry paid N99million as 15% mobilisation fee and N52million to the contractor after the firm achieved 26.2 per cent of work done on the road in March and December 2011, respectively. He insisted that the award of the contract and the subsequent p...