News24Live is South Africa’s first original video news channel. Launched by 24.com to meet the increasing demand for video content (and the popularity of this medium), this groundbreaking channel features short, sharp, video-based commentary on breaking news, expert and exclusive opinion on hot topics, entertainment updates on celebrities and more.

“It is the first time in our publishing history that original video content is being generated for a web-based news platform on such a large scale,”says Dan Calderwood, News24Live Multimedia Editor.

Produced in-house by the News24Live studio, the content programming mix is lively and varied, spotlighting the biggest, hottest, most engaging stories. Some firm favourites to date include Zapiro’s interview on Malema shaking up Parliament, expert legal commentary on Oscar Pistorius, the hugely popular 32-day summary of the Pistorius trial, State of the Nation highlights and the social media furor on the Foo Fighters tour announcement.

The News24Live team integrates analysis, opinions, interviews and professional news presenters into an in-studio broadcast format, operating out of Cape Town, to give viewers a real-time sense of what is happening on verticals all across News24 and the entire 24.com network. In the near future, the platform plans to roll out mechanisms for users to upload their own video content.

“To help users get more involved with the content they upload, we’ll be adding a ‘submit’ option to the platform to allow for comments.. Also, using Google+ and Skype, we plan to integrate live discussions between online communities and experts on current news and hot topics,” says Calderwood.

News24.com SA’s most popular breaking news source wanted to take the news experience to the next level with News24Live and its quality video offering.

There is no limit to what they can do with content in the future.   Follow News24Live on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram or subscribe to the Youtube channel. Watch News24Live at http://www.news24.com/live

ENDS Sent on behalf of 24.com by MANGO-OMC
Contact: Nicki Venter on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 0716409162

Esquire Technologies, an international award winning company and one of the leading distributors in southern Africa of IT, mobility, digital and consumer lifestyle products from international vendors,  has announced it has reached a milestone of 30 000 online orders place on its website to date.

This was confirmed by Mahomed Cassim, CEO of Esquire Technologies, who said the company commenced  online sales four years ago. “In the first two years of starting this online drive we notched up only 5000 sales –but this figure has now jumped to 30 000, which is a 600% growth in two years. We are expecting this figure to rise significantly in the next few years. because many of our clients are now seeing the value of placing orders 24 x 7,” he said

Esquire is currently one of only a few distributors in South Africa which offers an online ordering facility for all the products they distribute.

“We are extremely bullish with our six-fold increase in online sales. All the hard work and sleepless nights THAT IT took to populate the website with content and information relevant for each product is starting to bear fruit with the growing amount of orders being placed online.

”Esquire has also developed and  pioneered the world’s first Virtual Reseller Network (VRN), with its own subsidiary, ImproWeb, an e-commerce solutions company.
Currently over 500 resellers are plugged into the Esquire backend, which allows them to trade with their own e-commerce web-sites, using Esquire’s Infrastructure. Earlier this year the company’s VRN won an international award – the EMEA Channel Academy Multichannel Initiative of the Year Award for 2014. The EMEA Channel Academy 2014 Awards took place in Monaco in February- in conjunction with the regional event, DISTREE EMEA. Distributors, retailers and vendors operating in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region submitted application packs to enter the Multichannel Initiative award.

A VIP Jury of international channel experts met in Monaco to assess the submitted entries. The VIP Jury selected Esquire’s world first Virtual Reseller Network (VRN) as the winner of the 2014 Multichannel Initiative Award. “We are definitely seeing that people and companies are feeling much more comfortable – and eager – to buy online. Revenue from online sales is already sitting at 10% of our total revenue, with this expected to rise to 20% by 2016.”  Commenting further,  Cassim said that by joining the Esquire VRN resellers were provided with immediate access to the company’s entire stock holding without having to invest in stock.
“This is a totally different way of conducting business in the  distribution channel.  Our VRN resellers don’t have to  HOLD any stock. They have immediate access to our stock – which is updated every few minutes. As we update our stock our resellers are given immediate access to this new stock as well. “This is going to make a significant impact on the e-commerce space in South Africa,” he said.

Leading South African Payment Gateway, Setcom Payment Solutions, today announced their partnership with innovative e-commerce solution provider, Digital Planet. This partnership will enable Setcom to introduce a wider range of e-commerce services to their existing portfolio of online credit card processing, SID Instant EFT and mobile payment solutions.

“We feel that Digital Planet’s services would be of great value to our client base, as they have a proven track record in terms of optimising efficiencies across the entire e-commerce value chain. We look forward to collaborating with Digital Planet to provide our clients with holistic e-commerce solutions that will have a positive impact on their business performance,” said Setcom CEO, Kumalan Naidoo.

Digital Planet has been assisting some of South Africa’s biggest businesses and brands for over 15 years by enabling e-commerce efficiencies and helping their clients realise e-commerce goals. Running a successful e-commerce business can be very challenging, as it requires efficiencies in a number of areas, such as website design and development, payment integration, digital marketing, fulfilment, customer service and logistics. This is where Digital Planet’s expertise can help improve and streamline competencies across the board.

“Digital Planet continually strives to add value to our clients, and working with Setcom has allowed us to offer more flexibility to our clients when it comes to online payments. This is very important to us because secure payment methods are one of the most important consideration factors for online shoppers in South Africa,” added Cassie van Wyk, Head of E-commerce at Digital Planet.

Setcom facilitates secure credit card and SID Instant EFT transactions across multiple channels, making them a one-stop payment solution partner. Setcom’s payment infrastructure paired with Digital Planet’s e-commerce expertise will surely make for a winning combination for years to come.

About Setcom:

Setcom has been one of South Africa’s most trusted Payment Gateways since 1998. They offer secure online and mobile credit card payment processing, SID instant EFT and fraud prevention services to entrepreneurs looking for a reliable, affordable payment solutions partner.

Part of the Setcom methodology is to offer traditional and non-traditional payment types across multiple channels, partnered with an effective reporting and reconciliation platform that enables efficient processing of payments. The offering is further enhanced by a fraud and risk management system that operates across multiple channels to ensure optimal business performance.

As payments evolved through traditional retail environments and the Internet, Setcom has been at the forefront of developing products that not only differentiate, but allows business to partner with technology to expedite growth and revenues. For more information, visit www.setcom.com.

About Digital Planet:

For more than a decade, Digital Planet has helped companies build and manage profitable online businesses. They offer a complete solution: world-class e-commerce websites, back-end order management systems, e-commerce expertise, online marketing, call centre services and fulfillment services.

Digital Planet was founded in September 1999 when they launched the Digital Planet online electronics store. It was early days for the e-commerce industry in South Africa and there weren’t many skills available, so they built our own end-to-end solution for the business. This solution included the front end marketing, merchandising and technology, as well as the back-end logistics and customer services. They mastered all the nuances of a virtual business in South Africa.

They soon had customers knocking on their door to help them build and run their own online businesses. Digital Planet quickly won clients including the major brands Hewlett-Packard and Discovery Vitality, both of which are still with Digital Planet today, more than a decade later. For more information, visit www.digitalplanet.co.za.

{pp}MillionRandHomePage.com - South Africa’s first million rand homepage was launched 1 May 2009 and is expected to be one of the largest, single page advertising portals in South Africa.

{pp}Television and the Internet are two of the most dominant advertising mediums.

To advertise on television has become increasingly expensive. For many PR and brand management agencies including video productions in this year's budget is now out-of-scope and many companies have had to cut-back on their advertising budgets due to the current global recession.

{pp}SME owners can now get an online presence on the internet that is quick, easy and cost effective. Lutho.com,the South African based online marketing company, has a exclusive website package that is affordable to small and medium sized business owners.

Lutho.com has developed specialized software that allows any small business owner to get a quality website and a professional looking email address set up at their own domain name in only two hours.The Lutho system provides for the content (such as news, product listings, photos and documents for download) to be easily self-managed by the clients without the frustration of waiting for a web developer to make the changes for you.