Tandaa announcement breakfast at the Serena Hotel, Nairobi.

Tandaa grant round 1 winners include: Ibid Labs, Octopus ICT Solutions, Infotrack Strategic Solution, Foundation Support Services, BTI Millman, RiverCross Technologies and JBA Advertising.

Kaburo and Lucy of the ICT Board are in charge of the Tandaa local digital content project.

Paul Kukubo, the captain of the ICT Board and a big technology evangelist and enthusiast, sporting an iPad.

Bitange Ndemo, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Information and a big champion for local technology intiatives.

Hon. Samuel Poghisio the Minister for Information presented the $50,000 (a piece) grant to the first round of 7 winners of the $4,000,000 fund.

Filed under: Cool stuff, Ibid Labs, Kenya ICT Board, Tandaa local digital content | Post a comment

The new photo sharing service, Rumbaa, launched last Friday at the GP-Karting grounds sandwiched between the Carnivore restaurant and the Wilson Airport in Nairobi. The service borrows a leaf from the South African service Thunda.

A bunch of guys called RumbaaDudes drive around in a pimped-ip Hummer taking professional photos at parties and clubs. The photographs are later uploaded to the service where users can browse and share the photos on Facebook and Twitter.

Rumbaa gets a few things right where Nation Media Group’s Zuqka gets it all wrong.

Photographs on Rumbaa look great and the party people even better! There are also listings of events, DJs and local music (including videos).

So next time you are out partying and the RumbaaDudes come along, be sure to show your best side and strike a party pose.

The portal was developed by a local web development company, Ibid Labs.

Filed under: Cool stuff, East African Blogs, Kenya, Kenyan Blogs, Newsworthy, Safaricom, Events, Nairobi, Party, Photos | Post a comment

Why can’t the first version of this iThingy be great? After waiting for so long, the market has to wait for version 3 or 4 to experience all the really cool stuff??

Has Steve Jobs lost his touch? Are those Apple guys now just geezers, past their prime? The iPad is disappointing! This is what I was expecting:

• A hybrid iMac-iPhone or a Macbook Air (detachable keyboard…Check out the Lenovo ideaPad) with 3G!
• 1 centimetre thin!
• Multiple screen sizes, say 6 inches, 10 inches and 17 inches (I want to be able to put it in my pocket sometimes. It should be an alternative to a laptop. Why do I need both??)
• A revolutionary new OS. Apple could have stunned us here! Without this, its just a me-too gadget! Apple shouldn’t do me-toos without changing the game!

The name is boring! Hey guys, all you changed was the ‘o’ and replaced it with an…’a'? Enough with this i-stuff already!

I don’t get it…a big iPhone without the ability to call or send SMS?  If Skype works on the iPad-thing, that would be cool. It doesn’t even have a camera…WHAAAT!

Really, all they needed to do was jazz up the Macbook Air, by adding 3G (have I said that already), borrowing some cool ideas from Bumptop and maybe a 3D display (or am I pushing it here?)

I give Apple an underwhelming 2 out of 10 on this one.

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After several months of design, development and beta testing, the Ibid Labs marketing team has announced that the much awaited, web-based, business management software suite for SMEs, IBID, has been released.

Feature rich, simple-to-use, an elegant interface and user friendly language set IBID apart from similar systems often costing millions of shillings and out of reach for the thousands of SMEs that need such technology based tools.

IBID (Intelligent Business Internet Dashboard) is an integrated software suite that enables SME owners and managers collect and share all operational data and information. IBID has 12 feature-rich modules that help business managers and their staff manage accounts, employees, customer service, sales, document management, project management, eCommerce and more!

Even with such a huge features list, IBID manages to use simple, every day business language such that a first time user does not require much training. The interface is intuitive and if you can use email then using IBID will come naturally.

IBID runs off any web browser so users can access company data and all the features from a simple computer with an internet connection, or a mobile phone. There is no extra investment in computer hardware, software or personnel required to run IBID.

SMEs will find the recession friendly price of KShs 199,000/- affordable. The operational efficiencies and administrative cost savings of using IBID are huge. SMEs can expect a reduction of between 50% and 80% in adminstrative costs depending on how much use they put IBID to.

More information about IBID here (Ibid Labs blog) and here (Ibid Labs website).

More information about Ibid Labs here.

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Any individual or business in Kenya that needs internet connectivity can now have it. This is a big deal! Prior to this year, it has not been so easy for the masses of home and SME business customers. At average prices of US$70 a month for basic speeds, it is still expensive, but considering how useful, connectivity in sub-saharan Africa is affordable to those who need it the most.

So now that internet connectivity is getting cheaper and cheaper, then what?

For starters, Kenyan consumers could use several services to help them with information about, well, eveything!

If I can get my bank balance from an ATM and get a printout, I expect to be able to do the same on my banks website.

If I can get my KPLC electricity bill by SMS, I expect I can get my statements for the last two years on the KPLC website.

I also expect I can compare insurance products from all the insurance companies out there.

I want to quickly find the phone numbers and locations of dentists, lawyers, plumbers and electrical repairmen!

The current mad dash by companies to make money by providing SMS services to mobile users has left a huge chasm in internet information services. Sure I don’t mind an SMS with my bank balance from time to time, but I also want the details.

Developing internet information services involves the hard work of data collection, editing and integration with other systems so that customers and internet users get the information they want quickly and on any internet enabled device. So sorry overnight-internet-millionaire-wannabes, it will be a while before you can buy a yacht.

Why is it that Nakumatt & Uchumi don’t publish their catalog online so that to purchase milk, soap and candles I don’t have to drive to all the way there?

The Kenya Revenue Authority has enabled citizens and businesses to serve themselves on their website for PIN registration, customs clearing and filing of taxes! Excellent! All they need to work on now is usability.

So the rest of Kenyan businesses, big and small need to quickly do the same for their customers and employees.

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Several months ago, vuma.co.ke announced a new mobile music service endorsed by the Music Copyright Society of Kenya. I am still waiting for the service to be activated though I’ve heard that some of the music can be downloaded from the fledgling Safaricom Live mobile service. If you are fan of Kenyan Gospel and Zilizopendwa, then you can download the tracks by logging on the Safaricom’s WAP website. The service is powered by strangely named Liberty Afrika who dubiously claim to bring you ‘tomorrows innovations today’.

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I enjoy reading the Business Daily newspaper online, though I can’t help but wonder why the banner ads either look awful or expired. Here’s an example of what you should not do! The Banner ad appears today yet the event it advertises happened a month ago. Is the client still paying for this?

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The already crowded ringtone business has yet another player dubbed Dizzimobile. A visit to their website today proclaimed ‘Coming soon’ so there’s nothing to say about the company.

The homepage user interface looks simple to use but this may be deceptive seeing as they ask for your phone number first, rather than presenting you with a choice of ringtones like an authentic shop does.

They do send you a PIN number which you have to confirm but I didn’t bother going beyond there. I’d tread with caution folks! 

I got their link from Facebook which has become a wasteland for hastily cooked online businesses as Kenyans make a mad dash for internet cash.

See for yourself here…

Filed under: East African music, Music | Post a comment

Kenya, like the rest of Africa is going to have to make one quantum leap into the information age. No time for trying this Microsoft solution or that Oracle solution or whatever other systems the rest of the world has gotten used to.

Once the huge information and automation gap is narrowed there will be a paradigm shift. Everything will change overnight.

Whatever Kenyans adopt as the standard will grow like MPESA. Like an unstoppable virus it will infect every nook and cranny. When that happens corruption will not die a slow death. It will die an immediate death.

Everyone will have access to information. Choice. Facts. And the tools to share. To trade. Everybody will be reachable on the great interweb. Imagine the police with up to date records on crimes and felons. The courts using web tools to schedule and process cases. Citizens searching the land registry, people and companies registry online. Filing taxes online is already happening.

So the opportunity is there for the startups that will figure this one out. The uncomputerised SME sector like the unbanked masses are waiting for solutions. When the right one comes along, the country will enter the long awaited information age.

The solutions will likely be developed in Kenya. Sorry Microsoft and Google.

The solution will be dumbed down and elegant. Easy to sample, sign up and use, like Mpesa.

One solution will rule them all. 70-80% market share.

The solution will be platform agnostic. Its not a Windows vs Linux vs any OS.

The solution will be bei ya mwananchi. Cheap.

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Everybody was on chat. Emoticons, strange words like lol, btw, and chat marathons. Then Facebook happened. Facebook is chat and reality TV mixed into one. Big Brother in photos and text messages. While you chat, you can check out someones wall, send them cards, look at their videos, etc, etc. Facebook has become chewing gum for the fingers (like TV was chewing gum for the eyes).

Once Facebook starts to really mine all that user data and it becomes a full fledged advertiser network (camouflaged as a photo album cum scrap book) users will flock to the next thing…maybe The Matrix. Facebook will make its money and users will get bored.

That next thing will be like a cyber daemon (watch the Golden Compass if you haven’t). Your online profile will become a virtual you and run your life. It the master, you the slave. It may happen sooner that you think if the Sixth Sense project finds its way into iPhone 5 or 6. That means in 2 or 3 years!

By that time no one will remember Yahoo or Messenger. Facebook will be yesterday. Summize might be the new Google and iPhone the worlds Nokia.

When Yahoo and MSN happened, probably over 30 million Kenyans missed out. This time with 15 million and growing mobile users only those at the furthest margins will be left out of the system. Children, the very old and very, very poor. For everyone else, resistance is futile.

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Recent front page media reports about radio advertising trumping TV and newspaper advertising in Kenya demonstrate the strange predicaments businesses have to deal with in this part of the world.

The articles were mostly strong rationales (backed with ‘latest media research’) by cash rich radio stations and the media buying agencies that keep them alive in order the drive even higher spends to such media.

Its all very ironical, really. What do media buying agencies stand to gain by diverting attention to more direct channels and better profiling of targets. Nothing. What do radio stations stand to gain? Nothing.

On the other side of the fence, the whole country is frothing in the mouth with so much talk of ICT this and fibre cables that. A recent cartoon showed an indifferent punter thanking the cables for arriving but wondering when the electric cables will do the same.

I think we are focusing on the wrong debate. I don’t think advertisers have many options on the way to spend your advertising cash. At least as long as their advertising agencies continue to advise them.

Communications and marketing departments will need to pay attention to thinkers like Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki and Sunny Bindra. Power in the market is shifting to the consumer. Consumers are tuning off from media that ‘talks at them.’ While the whole country may not be ready for the information age, the urban areas are. Surburbia and slum dwellers alike!

Where did innovation for banking solutions come from? The edge (Equity Bank, Mpesa, etc)

Where did innovation in entertainment come from? The edge (Nameless, Jua Cali, Esther Wahome, etc)

Where did innovation in retail come from? The edge (Exhibitions, stalls, etc)

Where will innovation in radio come from? The edge (Inooro FM, Radio Citizen, Ramogi FM)

Where will the next innovation in media and advertising come from? Not the media groups and big name ad agencies.

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Kenya’s premier restaurant chain, Tamarind Group owns and manages 8 restaurants. Their flagship, Carnivore restaurant has become a mecca for meat lovers and the adjacent Simba Saloon is undoubtedly the hottest night club/disco/concert venue/bar destination in the region!

But how do you get punters shell-shocked from the global recession to dish out $20 for a basic meal and up to $4 for drinks? You remind them of what a great experience the Tamarind Group offers and that life is good when [hard] times are shared with friends over barbeque and dawa cocktails.

The much improved website featuring an extensive photo gallery and simple to use reservations form was developed by Kenyan internet services company, Ibid Labs. Visit the Carnivore page here.

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Martha Karua, not necessarily known for innovation and tech savviness has embraced Facebook as a platform to engage with her fans. The current discussion topic is……… and she has over 8,900 fans. Not bad. This puts her in the same league os Obama whose use of social media like Facebook made him quickly popular with young voters and got him into the White House.

Social media can move mountains. So way to go Martha. I hope she will keep up with her fans.

Once you sign up to a social media platform like Facebook and Twitter, you can quickly become addicted to seeing people respond to your comments and thoughts quickly. Now you don’t have to wait for that irregular boys or girls night out to ask for insights on this and that. Your pals instantly give you the thumbs up or thumbs down and other people get to spectate. Its like watching and participating in a reality TV show like Big Brother.

So keep it up Martha. Sharing your thoughts and plans for your re-election with the influencer crowd that makes up Kenyan Facebook users might just get you into the White…er State House.

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It’s a start. But the figure is way low considering there are banner ads on the Daily Nation asking people to follow them on Twitter. Is this to say out of the 24 million Twitter users, there’s only 335 that are interested in Kenyan news?

I learnt about the Kenyan MP carjacking incident on the Daily Nation updates on Twitter. So a big thumbs up to the regions largest media group for finally embracing social media. The 160 text updates are much better than the irrelevant and sporadic Nation Mobile SMS notifications which eat up your airtime credit and interrupt you at odd hours.

Compared the The Daily Nation, The NewYork Times has 1,046,932 followers as at today. I hope the Daily Nation continues to tweet because the print edition of the Newspaper continues to loses its appeal.

Filed under: East African web services, Kenya, Kenyan Blogs, Media companies, Web 2.0 | Post a comment

Standard Chartered's mBanking service options menu

The first version of mobile Banking in Kenya was hardly that. Most banks that claimed to offer that had a messy SMS notification service that required one to memorize a variety of codes, numbers, star this and hash that. Some banks even provided a user manual!

Mobile software and value added services provider, Cellulant has changed all that. Their Commerce 360 mobile banking switch enables banks like Standard Chartered to offer their customers a pleasant mobile banking experience that mimics an ATM. The mobile banking user experience runs on USSD which works on all mobile phones. This is a wonderful example of appropriate technology in this part of the world. While application developers in the west focus on iPhone, Palm, Android, RIM and Symbian applications, here is an elegant solution that works on low end phones as well as smartphones!

I signed up for the service and the only complicated part was the 12 page application form with Standard Chartered. I was a bit miffed when after filling in the form all I got was a non-committal, “you’ll get a message from us”. The message did arrive, 5 days later. And a customer service person called after that to ask whether I’d gotten the SMS with my PIN number.

Using the service is simple enough. One  just has to dial *722# and follow simple menu options that load fast. Each transaction costs KShs 25/-. You pay extra for SMS notifications and for insurance. The service can turn out to be quite expensive if you opt to receive automatic notifications after each transaction and the monthly insurance. Lots of people like tinkering with their phone to see whether features work and knowing that you can ask for your bank balance at any time will cost you a few bob eventually.

That aside, its nice to know you can pay for your KPLC electricity bill, DSTV satellite TV, phone airtime top-up and transfer money to your Mpesa account from your phone. You don’t need the $500 iPhone from Orange but that’s a post for another day.

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Its always refreshing to read, watch and listen to internet entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley talk about new innovations every day, Venture Capitalists talking about their latest investments, the financial and technology media talking about awesome new consumer or corporate internet services. It makes your head spin, giddy with optimism. It’s impressive and inspirational.

Its quite the opposite when the chatter is coming from the Kenyan government. They telling you this will happen and you should do that. That the cables are coming as well as digital villages. You should register .co.ke domains and develop content. You should develop mobile banking and lower the cost of internet access. We are working on an IT policy and a regulatory framework. We are seeking ideas from stakeholders and consulting with partners.

Far from inspiring, it leaves you will a throbbing headache. What’s wrong with this chatter?

• For starters there’s hardly any chatter about the hundreds of young creative, developers bootstrapping their innovations from bedrooms and small offices all over town.
• There’s neither talk nor action from investors supporting innovative technology or web startups.
• There’s no talk or action from schools and colleges to develop out market-ready graduates to work in the tech and internet market.
• There are no conferences or demo fairs for young, tech developers or entrepreneurs.
• There are no quality books, publications, television shows, radio shows, podcasts that focus on the doers, the successes, the failures and the future.
• The little quality chatter is drowned out by Mpesa this and fibre optic cable that!

So here’s what I’d like to see: 

• Jua Kali investment groups changing and calling themselves Venture Capital funds.
• Angel investors with a stomach for risk.
• The renamed Venture Capital funds investing in social media, mobile advertising, software development, internet consumer services, content development and game development startups.
• The government only opening their mouth to say they have simplified regulation and withdrawn licence fees, taxes on tech startups and they are funding technology education in primary and secondary schools and they have purchased 1 million of those awesome One Laptop Per Child laptops.
• The tech media interviewing and reporting on all the interesting technology and media projects that the market so desperately wants to hear about.
• Less talk about Facebook and Safaricom.
• More talk about locally developed internet services
• The Capital Markets Authority allowing startups to raise funding on the stock market
• Daring tech entrepreneurs like Ken Njoroge of Cellulant and Kizito Makatiany of Turnkey Systems developing their own platforms and taking on established American products head on
• The Judicial system enforcing the protection of intellectual capital.
• More Kenyan companies abandoning moribund business practices and embracing technology, business automation and internet media
• Conferences, networking events, white papers, case studies, demo events, television shows, podcasts and newspaper articles that celebrate the daring, pioneering force that is driving technology innovation in sub-saharan Africa.
• Kenya becoming a global player and a net exporter of ideas. Enough with being a subservient consumer and a passive follower.

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Fewer college grads have jobs than at any other time in recent memory—a report by the National Association of Colleges and Employers annual student survey said that 20 percent of 2009 college graduates who applied for a job actually have one. So, what should the unfortunate 80% do?

How about a post-graduate year doing some combination of the following (not just one, how about all):

• Spend twenty hours a week running a project for a non-profit.
• Teach yourself Java, HTML, Flash, PHP and SQL. Not a little, but mastery.
• Volunteer to coach or assistant coach a kids sports team.
• Start, run and grow an online community.
• Give a speech a week to local chamas.
• Write a regular newsletter or blog about an industry, sector or subject you care about.
• Learn a foreign language fluently.
• Write three detailed business plans for projects in the industry you care about.
• Self-publish a book.
• Run a marathon.
• Beats another college course.

If you wake up every morning at 6, give up TV and treat this list like a job, you’ll have no trouble accomplishing everything on it. Everything! When you do, what happens to your job prospects?

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On the cool morning of May 13, my colleague, GIlbert Ouko and I took off from the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi for Kilimanjaro, Tanzania aboard a Precision Air plane. Everything was routine and smooth. No glamour. No frills. Everything was basic. Like a matatu ride to Nyeri. The only excitement was having to empty all my pockets, take off my belt and shoes and putting everything back in and on. This is necessary to get through the security checks. At gate 4 there is a big transparent bin where there are hundreds of scissors and knives, obviously taken from passengers! Question is how did they get past the first security check before check  in?

Airborne. After 30 minutes we flew past Mt Kilimanjaro which barely poked through the dense clouds. As far as I could make out, there’s still some snow up there. I’ve watched Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth so I expected to see sand dunes and rocky outcrops only!

After touchdown and a brisk 45 minute cab ride, we arrived the The Tulip Hotel in Arusha ready for our meeting with the dons of TRAPCA. TRAPCA is the premier trade policy training centre for LDCs in Africa and runs their programes in partnership with ESAMI and Lund Univerisity. I have had the pleasure of helping them develop the brand, their website and marketing collateral for some time now.

8 hours later we were on another brisk ride back to the airport. This time I was able to take in the verdant fields peppered with maize, beans, bananas, goats and cows. Everything was picturesque and seemingly oblivious to the vitriolic exchanges between President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and the Kenyan politicians regarding ownership of that rocky outcrop on Lake Victoria called Migingo. The uproar being a clear message from the politicians that the dream of the East African Community is a mirage for now.

Take off and touch down back in Nairobi. The traffic on Mombasa road has melted down in the pounding rain. The road seems wider and smoother than it has ever been in 40 years! Just that sometimes it is a 3 lane then with no warning it becomes a 2 lane, then a 4 lane. Considering there are no street lights, it is rather disconcerting.

So international business is not that painful after all! But we need to get on with the East African Community, guys. The people want it!

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Kenyan Internet services and online marketing hot shop, Ibid Labs, has gone live with a new corporate website. The new website is a showcase of great website design and corporate communications and looks awesome to boot.

The new website features clever use of banners to highlight their flagship products, integration with the company blogs and eNewsletter as well as a staff and customer login interface with a lots of productivity and collaboration tools.

Visit Ibid Labs here.

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We’re rapidly growing and just about to launch some internet products that will contribute to Kenya’s transformation into a knowledge-based economy.

1. Knowledge Executive: Ideal position for someone who loves blogging, writing, and coming up with ideas for internet based products. You will be responsible for maintaining the corporate knowledge library, product documentation, marketing and PR documentation and website content management. Not for those who find it challenging to string together a coherent English sentence.

2. Administrative Executive: Great position for the individual who loves working with numbers. Costing, billing, etc. You will also be responsible for overseeing the smooth running of the office and management of company assets. In between you will be responsible for staff welfare and managing the payroll.

3. Client Service Executive: Suits a well rounded, people-person. That means you will have the gift of crafting proposals that close the deal, as well as the ability to motivate a team of designers and software experts to deliver what you promised the client, on time and on budget. You should be the type that is confident without being cocky and can present internet solutions to seasoned as well as clients who have new to the world of the internet.

Drop a well worded email and CV to: hr@ibidlabs.com

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We’re rapidly growing and just about to launch some internet products that will contribute to Kenya’s transformation into a knowledge-based economy.

1. Knowledge Executive: Ideal position for someone who loves blogging, writing, and coming up with ideas for internet based products. You will be responsible for maintaining the corporate knowledge library, product documentation, marketing and PR documentation and website content management. Not for those who find it challenging to string together a coherent English sentence.

2. Administrative Executive: Great position for the individual who loves working with numbers. Costing, billing, etc. You will also be responsible for overseeing the smooth running of the office and management of company assets. In between you will be responsible for staff welfare and managing the payroll.

3. Client Service Executive: Suits a well rounded, people-person. That means you will have the gift of crafting proposals that close the deal, as well as the ability to motivate a team of designers and software experts to deliver what you promised the client, on time and on budget. You should be the type that is confident without being cocky and can present internet solutions to seasoned as well as clients who have new to the world of the internet.

Drop a well worded email and CV to: hr@ibidlabs.com

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Firstly its the bad ads. Seriously…ye admen/women thats it? A bunch of smiley heads and a logo? And Orange has decided that a blackboard with a big 1/- will connect emotionally with me?

But the deals on Zain and Orange are great! So I’m changing. Lets all change in one move…call each other cheap, cheap.

Who’ll go first? No one?

So Safaricom will continue to scam the nation. Until we all realise that a one shilling difference per minute is a big deal! Save your money for a flat screen TV. Or a sexy new iPod touch! Your hard earned cash shouldn’t be going to airtime only!

You know what Zain and Orange fellas?  A well crafted ad campaign will do it. No clip art or recycled typography. Something original, fresh, that is earth-shattering!

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Kenyan creative and web development lab, Ibid Labs, just unveiled the 3rd Dosika SMS, text-to-win experience to help WASP Africa raise funds for the conservation guys at Rhino Ark. This is the third version of the Dosika experience and so far the campaign has given away 4 Isuzu DMAX pickups and millions of shillings to charity.

The Dosika Kifaru edition aims to raise funds for the Rhino Ark. 2 Isuzu DMAX pickups, cash prizes and airtime all worth 4 million bob are up for grabs.

All of creative concepts and final production on TV and radio was done in under 2 weeks!

Creative output included, several multi-size print layouts, including large format bus posters, 4 radio commercials and a motion graphics TV commercial.

We love the fabulous new Dosika logo and tagline, yawezekana!

Thanks to Owino at Just Imagine Kenya, Wanjiku at Saracen OMD, Roy, Aspenas and Shiko at KBC and Willie and Lillie of Big Ideas.

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The much anticipated redevelopment of Sub-Sahara’s premier online law reporting service, www.lawafrica.com finally made its public debut last week.

A completely redesigned search engine presents intuitive, ‘clustered’ search results quickly, from a variety of databases.

Law reporting will never be the same, this part of the world.

The law reports feature cases from the Kenyan, Ugandan Tanzania and Sudanese Judicial system, as well as the COMESA Court.

A high five to the folk who worked tirelessly onthe project, especially Judith who took the project to the finish line!

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So Telkom Kenya has a new logo. Ok. It looks like CRAP! For starters it looks like a rotated AIDS ribbon! Is this is it for such an important (I’m not using ‘iconic’) company? I think it requires a lot more thought. Somebody messed up big time!

Somebody pour water over my head, but isnt the Zain logo (the circles thingy) similar to the Telkom Wireless circles thingy? And the taglines, ‘talk about happiness,’ and ‘its a wonderful world?’ Aren’t they both saying pretty much the same thing?

I quite like the new KRA logo. Makes me wanna pay my taxes quick! No maneno here!

There are enough ‘Lion’ logos out there, but the KCB one…err…is lame. I know he’s supposed to be super-butch, signifying ’strength.’ But he looks melancholic and pissed off! Not exactly the message the big cats at the bank (no pun intented) should be sending out!

If they could get him to smile, on the other hand…

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Kenyan CDMA network operator and broadband provider needed a quick low cost way to reach over 50,000 targetted customers in the UK and US.

A traditional media campaign was out of the question.

So we customised the elegant, easy-to use-Tangaza eNewsletter and they were up and mailing in no time.

eNewsletter are a low cost way to get into online marketing in the emerging Kenyan internet economy. Talk to Maina Kiarie on Tel: 3578477 for a quick introduction into this exciting method of direct marketing or visit Ibid Labs for more details.

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Safaricom, listen up! I’m a shareholder now!

Mobile TV just doesn’t seem to die. For years now, countless companies have said they will provide the “real” Mobile TV experience that will totally change the way we enjoy television.

Mobile TV is dead in the water.

Let’s figure out why it’s dead, shall we?

First off, the Slingbox has made it abundantly clear to all of us that Mobile TV doesn’t really make much sense. If I can watch all of my home programming no matter where I am, for free, with the help of an Internet connection and laptop, which is almost always with me, why would I pay for, or even use, a Mobile TV solution?

Oh, and what about Hulu and the rest of these video services that allow me to watch practically any show I want? Sure, it may not be the same feeling, considering I’m streaming or buying the show after it has already aired, and it requires that same broadband connection, but who cares? At least I’m getting something out of it from a reputable source instead of paying more for something I barely want to watch.

And perhaps that’s where the biggest issue comes along for Mobile TV: no one wants to pay. More often than not, Mobile TV services will say that you’ll need to pay to use it. Why would I want to do that? You mean to tell me that in order to watch your crappy programming, I’ll need to pay a set fee for use of the service, on top of the fee I pay to have Internet access? Sorry, but that doesn’t seem quite right to me.

I should also point out that most of these Mobile TV services seem to forget that battery concerns are real, user interfaces really do matter, and more often than not, we don’t really want to watch TV on a junky little cell phone screen.

More companies will undoubtedly crop up and claim to have the solution to making more people use Mobile TV, but none will work.

We don’t want Mobile TV because it doesn’t make any sense. And because it doesn’t make any sense, it’s failing – miserably.

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For almost ten years now, we have been witnessing a decisive shift from client-server software to software as a service. Google, eBay, and Amazon.com established the value of multi-tenant internet applications in the consumer market, and salesforce.com, Google, and others have been proving that this same multi-tenant model is winning in the enterprise as well.

This shift to Web-based applications has generated two powerful waves so far. Now, we are seeing a third wave—one that we are calling Web 3.0—and it may prove to be the most significant and disruptive yet to the traditional software industry.

While the world doesn’t need another buzzword, I feel that both the emerging generation of entrepreneurs and developers, as well as traditional software ISVs, need to grasp the enormity of Web 3.0 and its potential to create change, disruption, and opportunity. Web 3.0 is about replacing existing software platforms with a new generation of platforms as a service.

To put Web 3.0 into perspective, we need to look at all of the major waves in the history of the Web. They are not defined by distinct periods of time, but are best seen as overlapping waves of adoption.

Web 1.0: Anyone Can Transact
Web 1.0 was about the emergence of the “killer app” from companies like eBay, Amazon.com, and Google. Although we thought of them as Web sites at the time, they were really amazing applications with a level of functionality, ease of use, and scale that had rarely been seen before by the average consumer. Transactions, not just of goods but of knowledge, became ubiquitous and instant. The efficiency and transparency that was once the domain of global financial markets was now at the command of individual consumers and businesses. Web 1.0 remains a huge driving force today and will continue to be for some time.

Web 2.0: Anyone Can Participate
Web 2.0 is about the next generation of applications on the Internet, featuring user-generated content, collaboration, and community. Anyone can participate in content creation. Posting a viral video on YouTube, tagging photos from a party on Flickr, or writing about politics on Blogspot requires no technical skill, just an Internet connection. Participation changes our idea of content itself: content isn’t fixed at the point of publication—it comes alive. Google’s AdSense became an instant business model in particular for bloggers, and video-sharing sites have rewritten the rules of popular culture and viral content.

Whether you are creating a business around Web 1.0 or 2.0, building massively scalable data centers that are secure, reliable, and highly available is not a job for the faint of heart or shallow of pocket. For companies entering the emerging software as a service industry, the massive time and capital requirements remain a substantial barrier to entry. Moreover, traditional client-server software development is still mired in painful complexity. And the “rewards” for creating a successful application are arduous deployments and maintenance.

Web 3.0: Anyone Can Innovate
Web 3.0 changes all of this by completely disrupting the technology and economics of the traditional software industry. The new rallying cry of Web 3.0 is that anyone can innovate, anywhere. Code is written, collaborated on, debugged, tested, deployed, and run in the cloud. When innovation is untethered from the time and capital constraints of infrastructure, it can truly flourish.

For businesses, Web 3.0 means that SaaS apps can be developed, deployed, and evolved far more quickly and cost-effectively than traditional software of the client-server era. The dramatic reset in economics should help CIOs finally break through the innovation backlog created by the cost and complexity of maintaining client-server apps.

For developers, Web 3.0 means that all they need to create their dream app is an idea, a browser, some Red Bull, and a few Hot Pockets. Because every developer around the world can access the same powerful cloud infrastructures, Web 3.0 is a force for global economic empowerment.

For ISVs, Web 3.0 means that they can spend more time focusing on the core value they want to offer to customers, not the infrastructure to support it. Because code lives in the cloud, global talent pools can contribute to it. Because it runs in the cloud, a truly global market can subscribe to it as a service.

Amazon.com, Google, and salesforce.com have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build these infrastructures already, and a dozen others, including Facebook, MySpace, Ning, Rollbase, Longjump, Dabble db, Intuit, and Coghead, are also offering some form of platform as a service in the cloud.

Creating Value
How much disruption will Web 3.0 cause? An examination of the technology forces at work gives us a good clue:

Vic Gundotra, VP of Engineering at Google, offered this interesting perspective at a recent salesforce.com event. Vic looks at the history of computing, starting with the mainframe era, as two grids: vast computing power vs. low accessibility and terrific ease of deployment vs. poor depth of functionality.

The client-server era caused a reversal of polarity in both cases. Computing power was much more accessible but limited in scope; there was an explosion in functionality, but deployment became a nightmare. Vic sees the Web 3.0 era eliminating these trade-offs and potentially maximizing computing power, access, ease of deployment, and depth of functionality. As Vic says, the key is that industry leaders like Google, salesforce.com, and others have to work to make the cloud ever more accessible and programmable, keep connectivity pervasive, and make the client more powerful.

The move from mainframes to client server was painful for IBM and DEC and created massive wealth for a broad generation of new companies like Microsoft, Oracle, PeopleSoft, and SAP. Web 3.0 threatens Microsoft’s .net, BEA, and WebSphere. And while I expect companies such as Amazon.com, Facebook, Google, and salesforce.com to do well, I think that even more wealth and further innovation will be created by a new, more broadly distributed class of companies and entrepreneurs that leverage the power of Web 3.0.

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According to a report, Microsoft isn’t just looking at the next version of Windows (no, not Mojave) for future OS possibilities, but is looking beyond the Windows architecture altogether with a project known as Midori. The new OS is still in the “incubation” phase (which puts it slightly closer to market than R&D projects), but Microsoft has admitted to its existence, and the Software Daily Times says at least one team in Redmond is actively working on the new architecture.

The basis for the platform centers around research related to Microsoft’s Singularity project, and envisions a distributed environment where applications, documents, and connectivity are blurred in a cloud-computing phantasmagoria which can be run natively or hosted across multiple systems. The researchers are working to create a concurrent / parallel distribution of resources, as well as a method of handling applications across separate machines — religiously-dubbed the Asynchronous Promise Architecture — which will set the stage for a backwards-compatible operating system built from the ground up, with networks of varying size in mind. Says the SD Times, “The Midori documents foresee applications running across a multitude of topologies, ranging from client-server and multi-tier deployments to peer-to-peer at the edge, and in the cloud data center. Those topologies form a heterogeneous mesh where capabilities can exist at separate places.” Like it technical? Hit the read link for an in-depth look at the possible shape of Microsoft’s future

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Don’t call it a comeback! Less than 48 hours after voluntarily shutting down Scrabulous at the behest of Hasbro, the game’s creators have relaunched the popular application under the name Wordscraper. The new game was first spotted by on Pulse2.

Scrabulous founders Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla turned the game off in the US and Canada on Tuesday following legal threats from Hasbro, makers of the original board game that Scrabulous was based on. Now, the game is back online under a new name, and 200 people are already playing – a number that will presumably grow exponentially in the hours ahead as more people learn of the game’s return. There are some changes however, including an altered look and feel that makes the game look much less like the original Scrabble.

Meanwhile, after a sluggish start – which included some downtime – the official Scrabble game from Electronic Arts (who licensed Scrabble from Hasbro) appears to be booming – as of this evening, the application is showing more than 50,000 daily active users. We’ll now wait and see if the gaming giant moves to shutdown Wordscraper as it did its predecessor. One would have to assume so, but kudos to the Agarwalla brothers for keeping a thorn in their side.

If you were an active Scrabulous player, we’re curious to know if your old games were carried over to the new version. Let us know in the comments.

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You are a founding CEO starting a company and you need help. Building your team is a complicated, tricky business.

You can be the best judge of character, you can do all the references (back door included), you can read all the books, you can even include your investors on the interview train, but you can still make bad hires. There might be circumstances (that you never anticipate), which create changes in otherwise normal behavior, possibly yielding disaster.

Before imposing some attributes on building the right team for you, let’s take a look at WHY you need a team in the first place. What’s the biggest driver to building your team?

a) to get funding
b) having an impressive ABOUT page
c) to execute
d) to help you focus on the big picture

If you guessed (c), you are correct. This in fact, is the only driver you should have to building your team. If you get this right, the rest takes care of itself. If there’s any other motivation to building your team, you will get burned.

Seven ideas for building your startup team:

1. Hire like-DNA

Like DNA doesn’t necessarily mean like personalities. Hire people who get it, who see the world the same, but that have complementary skills. There’s an old saying that “it takes all kinds,” but don’t take that too literally. If you do, you’ll have analysis paralysis and you won’t accomplish anything in a timeframe that matters.

2. Too many chiefs

Don’t hire too many execs; being top heavy isn’t fun. It comes with egos, turf wars, high expense to your cash and cap table. A GM level role must be severely justified. Just because someone is the first employee, doesn’t mean they’re a GM. And just because someone’s a founder, doesn’t mean they’re a GM either. While we’re here, “founder” is not a job title, so avoid behaving as if it were.

3. Build a low fat company

People tend to over-hire so that they can scale to meet the demands of a hockey stick business that’s coming any day now. Don’t hire until it’s clear you have one of those hockey stick situations. You’ll burn less venture, social and emotional capital. The more bodies, the more drama and associated management. The fewer bodies, the less of that and likely the more you get done. You’ll be able to make decisions faster and implement them even faster. Understand, that in the early stages of a company, getting small wins is key. Momentum is like that: the sum of the small wins yields the bigger win, so on and so forth.

4. Be scrappy and hire scrappy

It’s the only way to fly in this era. Scrappy people find a way, they create momentum, they make things happen, they thrive on roadblocks, they don’t read the manual, they figure things out, they see the forest and the trees, they find openings in the field, they try fast and fail fast, but apply lessons learned quickly.

5. Can you feel it?

Chemistry is so, so, so important. You need to be able to WANT to have a drink or a meal with the people on your team. You need to be able to call B.S. at times, and for your teammates to not take things personally. You need to have personal and company alignment of interests. This level of engagement is only had with strong chemistry.

6. Hire in tribes

If you can find people that have enjoyed and had success working together in the past, keep them together. You can’t buy that. It’s like an instant catapult, and there’s no substitute.

7. Don’t hire (or partner with) your friends (for friendship sake)

Make sure there’s a major fit to the task or vision, otherwise you put a friendship on the line – and that can only go one of two ways. I have a friend that to this day is hurt because I didn’t ask him to join a company I started. Truth was, we had a good chemistry friendship, but that didn’t qualify for a good chemistry business venture. I’m just glad to still have the friendship.

There is a #8, but it involves your CEO seat, and deserves a post of its very own.

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Slywotzky and Morrison, management consultants and authors of The Profit Zone, return with guidance for companies that will increase their competitiveness and profitability by integrating the most appropriate technology into their strategic business design. Their concept, dubbed “Digital Business Design,” is “not about technology for its own sake; it’s about serving customers, creating unique value propositions, leveraging talent, radically improving productivity and increasing profits. It’s about using digital options to craft a business model that is not only superior, but unique.” The companies that demonstrate the best DBD, they argue, are those that focus on business issues firstDand then determine how technology can maximize their business. The authors guide readers through a series of fundamental questions, with numerous examples of companies (Charles Schwab, GE, Cisco) that have successfully employed the DBD concept. Key to DBD is a “choiceboard,” an “interactive on-line system that allows individual customers to design their own products and services.” The best example of a company using choiceboards to increase a customer base, claim Slywotzky and Morrison, is Dell, whose customers can go online and select from an array of options to “custom make” their own computer system. For an increasingly global and digital market, Slywotzky and Morrison lay out a clear and cogent recipe for increased competitiveness and profitability.

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For 20 years I’ve watched the Discovery and National Geographic channels about the magnificent Rift Valley. When I got one of those Phillips, 42 inch, high definition LCDs I promised myself I’d have to see the real thing in person.

I first needed to figure out how to take a vacation without feeling guilty that I’m abandoning my clients and projects for a little R & R.

We’ll, thanks to the good folk at the Aga Khan University, Yvonne and my namesake Rafique, I can watch the stupendously awesome sun rise over the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater.

It was just like watching the big screen from my bed. For half an hour. Only, this was is ULTRA definition.

I still cant get over the high speed WiFi in my room!

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In my Nairobi office, we share a 64k connection between 40 or so people. Individual speeds hover around 1.5k per second.

Today, I drove up the Ngorongoro Hills for the first time in my life and the view of the crater almost knocked me down the other side! Whoo!

So after the business that brought me here, I sat down to check out the internet connection. Lo! I was cruising away at atleast 56k per second. Good enough to watch streaming videos with no annoying breaks. Right here in the cold, pitch darkness and the crickets!

Oh, there is also phone connectivity on both Safaricom and Celtel.

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The San Jose Mercury News, the newspaper with circulation in the south part of the San Francisco Bay Area, has announced nine more layoffs in the newsroom by the end of the week, and an undisclosed number in its other departments.

The newspaper’s execs cited the tough economic climate.

This continues a remarkable downward spiral for the Merc, the paper where I worked for six years before leaving in 2006. It parts of a decline in the entire industry, long known for its fat, double-digit profit margins. The industry wasn’t doing well even during the economic expansion period of the last few years. With the housing crisis gutting them of even more revenue, Wall Street is hitting these newspaper companies even harder. I remember the shock a few years ago, when things first hit that we might be slipping out of the double-digit margin range. Now newspapers are lucky to be in the black.

About 19 of the top 50 U.S. newspapers are in the red, the Mercury News’ vice president Dave Butler told employees yesterday, but “we are not among them,” he noted. The Mercury News will end the fiscal year June 30 with a profit, publisher Mac Tully said. It has now gone through several rounds of layoffs, and they’ll likely just keep cutting costs. The margins in the industry have gone for good.

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It’s old news, but my hat’s off to Mr William Gates who introduced computing to the masses! I hardly use Microsoft products nowadays, but I still have my hotmail account which I got back in ‘95!

Enjoy your new gig…saving the world!

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For all you tech, cyber, innovation, design, web, games, PS2, PS3, animation, space travel and Star Trek fans…finally, a blog in the language of the masses from the good folks at Ibid Labs.

Enjoy without prejudice!

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…And I mean everything from those, ‘Congratulations, you’ve won. Click here to claim prize,’ to ‘Find gorgeous girls in Nairobi,’ porn site ads.

If you are running a ’serious’ service then you’ve really got to put some effort on a neat, well written banner ad.

If you are one of the nationmedia.com com users wondering why the most trafficked website from the largest media group in Sub-Sahara Africa looks like crap, its partly due to all those pathetic banner ads!

Solution? Hire a pro, give them a proper brief, and improve, improve, improve, until your banner ad looks like those smart Microsoft, HP, Sony or Nissan Infiniti ads.

Or talk to me 

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