{"id":3489,"date":"2012-01-19T11:23:17","date_gmt":"2012-01-19T11:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=3489"},"modified":"2012-01-19T12:42:12","modified_gmt":"2012-01-19T12:42:12","slug":"google-launches-woza-online-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/3489\/google-launches-woza-online-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Google launches Woza Online in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"Company Information\" href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/vb\/showthread.php\/314567-Google\" target=\"_blank\">Google<\/a> announced today (19 January 2012) the launch of Woza Online &#8211; an initiative that aims to bring tens of thousands of small and medium businesses (SME) online in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Using the platform, businesses will be able to create their own websites and develop an online presence at no charge.<\/p>\n<p>According to the interim results of the latest SME survey conducted by <a title=\"Company Information\" href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/vb\/showthread.php\/307751-World-Wide-Worx\" target=\"_blank\">World Wide Worx<\/a>, it was found that having an online presence is &#8220;crucial to being competitive, profitable and sustainable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Statistics presented by World Wide Worx MD, <a title=\"Person Information\" href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/vb\/showthread.php\/221541-Arthur-Goldstuck\" target=\"_blank\">Arthur Goldstuck<\/a>, at the Innovation Centre in Pretoria, showed that 79% of SMEs with a website reported profitability &#8211; this compared to only 59% of SMEs without a website reporting the same.<\/p>\n<p>Woza Online is an initiative by Google, partnering with <a title=\"Company Information\" href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/vb\/showthread.php\/227063-Vodacom\" target=\"_blank\">Vodacom<\/a>, the Department of Trade &amp; Industry, and the Human Resources Development Council.<\/p>\n<p>Businesses participating in the initiative get:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a free easy-to-build professional website;<\/li>\n<li>a free sub-domain name and hosting;<\/li>\n<li>an automatic listing on Google Places which reflects in Google Maps;<\/li>\n<li>access to training material and workshops;<\/li>\n<li>free online support available via Google Chat and e-mail;<\/li>\n<li>1 year free top-level .co.za domain name for first 10,000 applicants.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The programme was launched in Kenya and Nigeria last year, with these countries seeing over 20,000 businesses going online within the first two months.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Woza Online\" href=\"http:\/\/www.wozaonline.co.za\/\" target=\"_blank\">Woza Online<\/a><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Related Article<\/h3>\n<p><a title=\"BusinessTech Article\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/3461\/sme-website-presence-up-20\/\"><strong>SME website presence up 20%<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Google announced today the launch of Woza Online &#8211; an initiative that aims to bring tens of thousands of small and medium businesses online in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":3491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9882],"tags":[855,53,26,637,857,853,851],"class_list":["post-3489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-business","tag-google","tag-headline","tag-local","tag-sme","tag-south-africa","tag-woza-online"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3489"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3495,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3489\/revisions\/3495"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}