{"id":6114,"date":"2012-03-05T13:08:56","date_gmt":"2012-03-05T13:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=6114"},"modified":"2012-03-05T13:12:08","modified_gmt":"2012-03-05T13:12:08","slug":"google-to-grow-south-african-presence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/6114\/google-to-grow-south-african-presence\/","title":{"rendered":"Google to grow South African presence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"Company Information\" href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/vb\/showthread.php\/314567-Google\" target=\"_blank\">Google<\/a> South Africa has grown from a small team supporting the company\u2019s advertising products in 2007, to having a far larger presence that supports a range of local products. This growth, according to Google South Africa country manager, Luke Mckend, is set to continue.<\/p>\n<p>McKend told MyBroadband BusinessTech that Google is committed to South Africa for the long term: \u201cIn addition to staffing the office, we have already launched a number of projects that we believe will have greater and greater impact on the SA digital landscape\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The Google SA head pointed to a range of projects under the company&#8217;s wing &#8211; which includes entrepreneurial and small business projects such as Woza online and Umbono.<\/p>\n<p>Other products include the support of SA\u2019s developer and student community, and the development of its advertising agency landscape through Google Engage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe look forward to not only growing the office, but to seeing each of these projects expand. We will also launch new initiatives that build the digital community in SA.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Online advertising business in South Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>McKend is optimistic about the South African online advertising market, saying that it is \u201cvibrant, creative and more importantly, very competitive\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAdvertisers and their agencies will continue to seek out new ways of reaching consumers as effectively and creatively as they can,\u201d said McKend.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCoupled with the explosive growth of internet usage, declining broadband pricing and greater access to internet-enabled mobile devices, we foresee that online marketing will continue to grow rapidly in 2012.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McKend added that, what benefits Google, will also benefit South African businesses and the broader economy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have advertisers that range from Wendy-House makers and baby-pram sellers in Joburg &#8211; to a para-gliding company and wine farms in Cape Town. On YouTube, we\u2019ve seen home gym instructor SixPackFactory making over R600k a year off his popular channel,\u201d concluded McKend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Google South Africa country manager, Luke Mckend, says that Google SA is looking forward to bringing tens of thousands of businesses online, for free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6115,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9882],"tags":[53,1537,26,1538,851],"class_list":["post-6114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-google","tag-google-south-africa","tag-headline","tag-luke-mckend","tag-woza-online"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6114","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6114"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7262,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6114\/revisions\/7262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}