Reflections with Michael Joseph from Al Kags on Vimeo.
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It is said that Africa is the last frontier in many ways, having vast resources yet untapped or undiscovered. This rings true on many levels when looking at the amount of knowledge inherent in our culture and history. In this day of increasing access to the internet and growing numbers of mobile subscribers, an ecosystem that supports the creation, aggregation, distribution and consumption of content has been created. This newly created markets are heavy consumers of content as shown by research, with many in Africa accessing the internet for the first time on a mobile device in their quest for content. It has been unfortunate though that a lot of the content consumed is foreign in nature; using the term loosely to mean not originated from Africa or being targeted to the African audience. Continue Reading…
Everyone is thinking mobile, just as everyone was thinking web a decade ago. Every brand, church, politician, government agency, you name it wants to have a piece of the pie. “I have a very simple idea for a mobile application, it should not take to much of your time or cost much”, sums up an increasing way of understanding that the market has developed toward development of services on mobile.
Whether delivered via sms, mobile web or mobile application best practice requires that certain steps are followed, call it the application development lifecycle to ensure that the end product meets all requirements from functionality to aesthetics. Continue Reading…
I have been living under a rock over the past week, trying to grow the network and explore new business in the Comesa region. Under a rock because, for a person who lives literally 24 hrs online, i had intermittent short and expensive bursts of online access as I hopped about.
So I check back into the .ke this morning and want to take the day easy and prep for one heck of a week starting the 27th, when the phone beeps to life and Safaricom welcome me back home. Then the texts comes flying in, the first one reads…”am sure you have heard of the masonko thing safcom is doing..what do you think? “, then I wonder…yes I did get it from Nation Online that this chap Sonko won the seat in Makadara…good for him – after spending all that color you better not loose, whether you are young or old but whats he doing with Safcom? In my head, I am about to give him mad props for getting MJ and BC to the table and sealing a deal that gives Makadara residents the best calling rates in town..like 10cts per min, Safcom to Safcom – Makadara to Makadara calls only. Next weeks headline…infrastructure problem as masses move into Makadara, land prices up 1000%. Sonko declares Republic
It may feel abit dumb to start off like this…but any kiosk owner will tell you this. If you all stock the same nyanya skuma, you will be left with no recourse but to compete on price. The kaching comes with setting yourself apart…I would stop here and have you call me and pay me to walk you back to the school of basics but am in a good mood today.
Like I told you before, you better stop this price war maneno or you will all soon go out of business or best bet see massive hemorrhages on your bottom line. Micheal Joseph has said time and again – he has investors to take care of, and I have to agree with him on that point, coz I would expect a divided on my shares, if I had bought like 1 million of those “papers” when the country was going green and this not alluding to the referendum. My boy Rene is willing to take a hit for the next 5 years because he has a big brother with deep pockets. Deep pockets get depleted, and if your strategy doesn’t work out, you will be out of a job – tail tucked and the Kenya operation will be spun to some other hapless investor with big visions and their head in the clouds, with grand plans of a turnaround. Rene was on Business Daily explaining their strategy…you will remember the Vuka tariff that was discontinued…hmmm
Bwana Atul of Yu, jumped over the cliff late last night and put it out that they too had “amuad” and dunked prices to 5cts per second or more directly 3 bob per minute and 50cts per sms on onnet messaging.
Mickael Ghossein has been quiet thus far after the sparing between the Pinks, Greens and Blacks, but I kinda guess he too is thinking of their new lower price point. I am sorely hoping that his decisions will have a good measure of thought and not some knee jerk reflex. Continue Reading…
Zain Kenya has today lowered its calling charges across all networks by a whooping 50% – becoming the first mobile phone company in the country to pass to customers the benefit of the new low interconnect charges released by the Communication Commission of Kenya. The mobile phone company has lowered its callings charges to Kshs. 3 across all networks in Kenya for both its prepaid and postpaid customers in a move that abolishes completely the distinction between intra-network and cross-network calls costs.
SMS costs have also been lowered to Ksh. 1 across all networks in Kenya. In what is arguably the best value proposition ever launched in the Kenya telecommunications industry, Zain said the drastic reduction in calling charges would benefit its customers and those on other networks who are paying extremely high prices for making phone calls. With the lowering of the connectivity charges to a new low, Kenyans will now be in a position to switch mobile service providers while retaining their current numbers once the number portability directive comes into force. Continue Reading…
* The top 12 countries using Opera Mini in Africa are South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, Sudan, Libya, Tanzania, Ivory Coast, Namibia, Mozambique and Mauritius.
* Some numbers: From June 2009 to June 2010, page views in the top 12 countries in Africa increased by 182%, unique users increased by 124%, and the amount of data transferred increased by 160%
* Growth rates in Africa: Sudan and Ghana lead the top 12 countries of the region in terms of page-view growth (4,645.6% and 916.5%, respectively). Sudan and Ghana also lead the top 12 countries of the region in growth of unique users (1,225.0% and 498.8%, respectively). Kenya leads the top 12 countries of the region in page views per user, with each user browsing 639 pages on average each month.
* Facebook, Google and YouTube all do well in Africa. Facebook is the top-ranked site in six of the twelve listed countries, and Google is ranked #1 in the remaining six countries.
* Nokia remains the most popular handset brand in Africa, followed by Sony Ericsson, Samsung, and LG.
Here is how Kenya stacks up. Continue Reading…
Now…everywhere you go, governments have access to and produce the huge amounts of information. That it is stored in different locations and different formats notwithstanding(sigh), the government of Kenya stands to benefit most from the adoption of mobile and online platforms to engage with its citizens.
In Korea for example, the government is planning to launch a mobile application store before the end of its second quarter. With the likes of Nokia – with Ovi, Safaricom – with Safaricom Live (which they did not get the .com for, which was subsequently taken by some chap), Apple – with the Appstore, Symbiotic – with KeleleMobile putting out their own tools and platforms, the government should smell the coffee and join the revolution.
There are a couple of reasons why this makes sense…three to be precise Continue Reading…
Reading through the success stories of some internet bubble start-ups it became apparent why some of their fellow start-ups went down. Some of these businesses had greatly leveraged on other larger business on their business model and a simple change in policy for the big guys saw the start-ups take a beating with some falling along the way and others adapting and surviving.
This is the issue that may plague many entrepreneurs today: dependence on platforms. The international example that I will use is PayPal’s whose rise was built on top of eBay as the preferred method of receiving payment for both buyers and sellers. Yet their success was completely dependent on eBay. eBay constantly changed policies which completely disrupted PayPal’s service and caused them to endlessly be scrambling to maintain share. The situation got monumentally worse when eBay acquired PayPal’s competitor Billpoint and made it the default payment method on their service. Many would have assumed PayPal was dead at that point. Yet PayPal was able to survive, through a variety of tactics.
The most important tactic that I think is a key lesson for today’s entrepreneurs was building a consumer brand and strong customer affinity towards it. When eBay made changes which threatened PayPal’s position, PayPal often appealed to their own users, who flooded the eBay forums with complaints. This strong customer affinity eventually forced eBay to have no choice but to buy PayPal if they were going to keep their customers happy. Continue Reading…
My list mobile of content genres for mobile is a lot longer as I opt to split hairs looking deeply into niche markets that on the long tail would generate sizable volumes. However low hanging fruit in the mobile content sphere is in infotainment. Infotainment includes a wide range of applications, including:
- Games, both downloaded single player games and multiplayer games utilizing bluetooth
- Audio downloads, including full music tracks, podcasts, and audio books
- Video downloads and video streaming
- Information services, including weather, news, financial information, travel updates etc Continue Reading…
