Media24 takes on Google

Naspers owned Media24 is attempting to create a local portal in competition with Google.

There isn't really enough room for another new search engine operator and pesky web crawler, plus if ever there was a company that needed re-branding - Naspers could compete for top of the all-time list.

The Afrikaans publishing house with Broederbond roots has grown into Africa’s most successful media conglomerate. A few years ago Ton Vosloo, the chairman of Naspers was considered a mouthpiece for the conservative Afrikaner establishment that conceived, legislated and maintained apartheid. Vosloo was a member of the Broederbond; the secret society of lawyers, judges, parliamentarians, cabinet ministers and business and political leaders who ran the government and sought to empower the White Afrikaner population.

Fast forward 20 very odd years and Naspers is still trading with the same name - and still controlled by a secret society of business and political leaders who are now seeking to Empower the Black Economic segment of the population; and it must be said that the sad old adage applies that whoever controls the media controls the people. First principle of running a country, that.

Where once Naspers influenced hearts and minds through major newspapers, the entertainment circuits, and the education curriculum in South Africa; now they are vying for control of the search engine market, too. To what possible end?

Perhaps such a project can be seen as an attempt to ultimately control what information its audience sees? With the way our tri-partite government has structured and interfered with ICT in South Africa, do you imagine that's not a really large factor in their consideration?