Archives For twitter

The social curation opportunity for small and medium sized businesses. Leveraging the consumer as a media outlet

August 4, 2011 — 1 Comment

A large percentage of business in Kenya is generated by the small and medium sized enterprise. From most of the business owners that I have had the privilege to interact with, it is evident that a lot of the tech and digital buzz words that may be floating around make no real sense for them. The benefits of social networking, mobile web, mobile applications, software as a service, service as software, cloud computing etc are nonexistent, simply because their  real world value is yet to be understood. This  value for most of  these small and medium sized businesses is pegged to increase in foot traffic. But how can the benefits  of the web and mobile revolution be brought closer home?

Services such as Mocality, that is owned by the well heeled Naspers Group have built what could arguably be Kenya’s largest business directory in the quest to get more local businesses on the map. A great step forward especially  with the tools that are built in to empower the listed businesses reach wider audiences and begin to exist in the minds of potential customers, from a search perspective.

However, what informs an individual’s purchase decision or on a minimum, interest in your product or service? Continue Reading…

In Business, People, Technology , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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The philosophy of technology business in Africa, and why we must get it right

February 24, 2011 — 3 Comments

It is always  exciting to get emails from people keen on getting onto the technology bandwagon and are seeking direction. Some are older business people who want a piece of the tech pie, feeling utterly lost in the buzz but clearly smelling the opportunity, others are students who have worked on an app or web service and want to know how to best push it as a business. A final lot of people exist, mostly venture capital types and prolific business analysts who keep asking “Why do we not see big indigenous, technology based service companies emerge from Africa?”

Running a technology based business in Africa can be a tough call, as technology changes so rapidly that it could render your innovation or service redundant in a flash. There is the proverbial build, buy, integrate or adapt conundrum. Business models for technology companies, more so those offering services are not as straight forward as one would think. There are numerous permutations to think of as consumers are a tough lot to please or convert. The debate for free, paid or freemium shall not be concluded soon, in as much as there are stellar examples of each out there. Continue Reading…

In Business, Misfiring neurons, Mobile, Numbers and the bottom line, Technology , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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@ anywhere…has twitter finally got its business model?

March 20, 2010 — 1 Comment

When Twitter was designed, they took a different approach—the twitter chaps didn’t require a relationship model like that of a social network. Keeping things open meant you could browse our site to read tweets from friends, celebrities, companies, media outlets, fictional characters, and more. You could follow any account and be followed by any account. As a result, companies started interacting with customers, celebrities connected with fans, governments became more transparent, and people started discovering and sharing information in a new, participatory manner. Continue Reading…

In Business, Technology , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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‘Reverse Twittering’ all these damed services

August 5, 2008 — Leave a comment

I get really sad seeing consumers charged Ksh. 10 per alert to know what a certain stock is trading at, or that the CDSC is charging a premium to tell its 1 million plus customers how their CDS account is faring.
Twitter is defined on its website as – a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

Now the concept of reverse twittering, nothing revolutionary, but we are thinking that all your essential services should be able to tell you how they are doing. From your stocks, to your doctors diary, to your examination timetable, your children etc. With Zunguka, you can effectively budget how much you want to spend on being kept in the loop. Good thing is, it costs much much less than all these premium rates services.

Here is an example; you check the status of your Safaricom shares using the Nationmobile service that charges say Ksh. 10 (USD 0.154) per alert.But you would also want to check the status of the other 10 counters that you have invested in.That would essentially cost you Ksh.100 (USD 1.54), for 10 alerts right. With ‘reverse twittering’ on Zunguka you can set up all your stock counters to update you say when they get to a certain value or when the stock moves (whether up or down) but at the ridiculous rate of Ksh.1.50 (USD 0.023) per alert. You can therefore work withing certain budgets and control the frequency of your “twitter” service updates.

Power to you.Why? Because even basic personal service or business updates are meaningful to you—especially when they’re timely.

In Business, Misfiring neurons , ,
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