East Africa’s enterprises and innovators have a unique opportunity on their doorsteps to learn new techniques in web content development at the East African Local Content Innovation Summit to be held in Nairobi over 7-8 August. The Summit is being hosted by Ignite Consulting and AITEC Africa in response to the urgent need for development of locally relevant content that is responsive to the interests and needs within the region about to link to the world via undersea fibre cables that will deliver much faster and cheaper Internet connections. For more information on this event, go here.
Monthly Archive for July, 2009
TED started about 20 years ago as a gathering of sorts comprising of a small group extraordinary people. Originally it was all about Technology, Entertainment and Design hence the accronym TED. One thing led to another and two decades later TED is all about sharing ideas.
Now TED was and still operates as regular conferences in different parts of the globe. Yes TED is big, but its far too small to fit everyone in. Furthermore TED’s grown a tad bit older and you know age comes with its effects and maybe TED cannot move as fast as it used to. So TEDx was born, the young and agile child of TED. Pretty much TEDx takes TED experiences to more people, more places and this generates more IDEAS!
Bolstered with the experience of a couple of TED fellows and some extraordinary minds TEDx Nairobi is born. It might not be a household name, however it certainly promises an idea storm that will take the city and region to new heights. The first TEDx Nairobi event will happen on the 8th August 2009. For more information and registration requirements for TEDx Nairobi, go to http://www.tedxnairobi.co.ke.
Its been announced today that Microsoft and Yahoo have signed a 10 year Internet search partnership deal. The press release has lots of intricate details on how the Yahoo and Microsoft search partnership will work together but the biggest aspect of the deal is that Bing will become the default search engine for ALL of Yahoo’s diverse Internet businesses. This is really HUGE! It means that Bing will immediately move from number three to number two in Internet search as Yahoo will abandon its own search engine. However, the release indicates that Bing can also integrate the good bits of technology from Yahoo’s search engine.
As we all know, Google still holds the number one internet search engine position with almost 70% market share. However, with Bing already gaining significant market share on Google prior to the deal, it means that we are about to see a full out search engine war erupt. Lets not lose sight of the fact that Google derives over 90% of its revenue from search-linked ads and any erosion of its dominant market position could potentially impact its massive revenues.
Going forward, the latest frontier in internet search is real-time searches of which Twitter, for the moment, dominates. In fact, Twitter recently redesigned its homepage to look conspicuously like a fully-fledged search engine with a archetypal keyword search entry form. Twitter now also lets non-subscribers make searches from its redesigned homepage. Clearly, Twitter have every intention of defending their real-time internet search turf by broadening their accessibility to anyone and everyone. From where I am sitting, It definitely looks like a major paradigm shift in what has been a long standing Internet search status quo has already begun.
According to the Daily Nation yesterday, Safaricom and NTV have entered into a mobile content partnership. The article states that NTV will provide mobile content on both its web site and Safaricom’s mobile portal (Safaricom Live) for download. However, the strange thing is that neither of the URLs provided for the new mobile content partnership in the article as http://www.safaricom.com/ntv or http://www.ntv.co.ke seem to be working as of this morning. Is this a case of a press release going out before the mobile content (optimized) web sites have actually been set-up to deliver? Whatever the case, NTV and Safaricom do NOT look good as the article is clearly inaccurate.
It finally happened – after a delay of approximately one month, the SEACOM high speed internet cable went live in 5 African countries including Kenya on the 23rd July 2009. However, it will probably take a month or two before we can feel the full impact as many internet service providers (ISPs) and Telcos will be testing the SEACOM service before they (fully) migrate from their satellite-based links. Nevertheless, I do believe my ISP at home is already on SEACOM as the speeds this weekend have easily doubled from what was a fairly decent internet connection.
So, now comes the interesting part. If we now have improved internet bandwidth, and this is only set to improve in the coming months as the TEAMS and EASSY high speed undersea cables also go live, what will we do with all this abundance? To begin with, we will initially just have to get used to the idea of near-instant email downloads, streaming real-time multimedia content and accessing web-based services quickly for a change. It will be like drinking soda from a fire hose instead, of a straw. We will gorge ourselves on this bandwidth, and then, we will get bored! Yes, bored of too much of a good thing. Only then will we start thinking of how we can put our excessive internet bandwidth to productive use.
There are many pros and cons to abundant internet bandwidth, even as everyone keeps talking about only the pros. There are obvious socio-economic benefits that can be expected, across the board. However, there are also an inherent number of risks for which many people and organizations are not (yet) ready for. More bandwidth means that viruses, malware, hacking and phishing will take on a whole new dimension. The disruption of business models that have worked well hereto will be challenged by the idea of truly global competition. There will be a need for massive capacity building across a broad range of industries and sub-sectors – workforce skills will need to be “e-enabled”. Education in the form of e-learning will become far more widespread and accessible, cost-effectively and efficiently. In a nutshell, lots of change is enroute.
Once we are fully settled into the idea that abundant bandwidth is a way of life and that Africa had been left so far behind due to lack of it, we will have to work hard, really hard, to catch up with other global markets in record time. This will put new demands on adopting global best practices and learning the hard way just what is required to take full advantage of high quality internet access to global customers and services. It will without a doubt be a level playing field, but one that can tip either way in our favour or to our detriment at any time. So, lets be pragmatic about the go live of SEACOM as the panacea for all our socio-economic challenges – there is still so much more work ahead to realize the full potential of high speed internet in Africa.
Is this a knee jerk reaction? Or a well thought out plan to improve security and reduce crime in Kenya? To be honest I have no idea but the directive issued yesterday by President Mwai Kibaki that all mobile users in Kenya have to register their mobile SIM cards, by the end of the year, sounds eerily like what Tanzania did a few weeks ago and I blogged about here.
At the time I wrote the Tanzania post, I expected that this unprecedented action of requiring mobile users to register their SIM cards in East Africa was something of an oddity and had hoped it would take other countries in East Africa more time to go the same route, if ever. However, the escalating security issues in Kenya and unabated crime wave clearly are the main drivers behind this course of action. Never mind that the directive is not actually law (yet) per se as it is not included in the recently passed ICT Bill but its happening nevertheless.
The implications will be huge for most of Kenya’s 16+ million mobile subscribers. I wonder how the logistical challenges of getting ALL of these mobile SIM cards registered will be tackled. Also, are the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) and the Ministry of Information and Communications equipped for the task at hand? As well as the various mobile networks?
I am also curious as to whether mobile SIM card registration will actually result in a more secure Kenya since criminals will probably find a way around the registration process, eventually, if not initially. Lastly, mobile SIM card registration in Kenya, as is the case in Tanzania, may give the Government an overwhelming level of access to personal information on the Citizenry, which could potentially lead to human rights abuses. Whatever the case is, its happening, your mobile SIM card will have to be registered, and Big Brother will be watching!
In late June 2009, it was announced in the media that the Kenya Tourist Board (KTB) had received US$ 2 Million from the European Union (EU) to market Kenya as a travel destination on CNN. US$ 2 Million is a substantial amount of money by any measure – but its a lot less than what leading African tourism destinations like South Africa, Egypt, and Morocco spend online and offline. It was not explicitly mentioned if the budget includes ads on CNN’s hugely popular web site. But, as we know, internet marketing is part and parcel of what makes any kind of tourism marketing successful today.
So, what is KTB’s internet marketing strategy? This is more than just placing display or text ads on Google or CNN, its about a holistic internet marketing strategy that includes web site development, content, media planning, etc. One only has to look at South Africa’s tourism marketing online to get an idea of just how much more has to be done. South Africa has one of the best Internet marketing executions out there – and yes, its world-class!
I stumbled on the South Africa Tourism video micro-site at http://www.mysouthafrica.tv. The micro-site features interviews with South African personalities from a diverse range of professional backgrounds. This is a purpose-built micro-site, JUST for video content that promotes South African Tourism from a one-on-one perspective. It also looks like the main South Africa Tourism web site at http://www.southafrica.net has also been completely redesigned to be visually appealing, content rich and user-friendly.
By comparison, Kenya’s Tourism portal at http://www.magicalkenya.com is a good improvement on what it was in the past and leverages social media by having linkages to Twitter, Facebook, etc. However, in terms of strategy, presentation, content and technology, it seriously lags behind the South Africa Tourism portal. It also feels as though the online and offline marketing branding are not (yet) fully synchronized. In a nutshell, its not at South Africa’s level and yet this is the basis that many would be tourists will use to decide whether or not to travel to Kenya.
Going forward, there is a lot of work to be done if the KTB is to take full advantage of the Internet medium as a key marketing channel for Kenya Tourism – visibility on CNN is quite simply not enough. What is required a complete re-think on how the Internet marketing strategy will work to deliver a unique and compelling online execution of how Kenya, the original home of safari, is the perfect African tourism destination!
According to the newspapers, Orange Kenya has launched yet another internet offer for the home market. The service is aptly named “Broadband Nyumbani” (nyumbani means “home” in Kiswahili). The service runs on ADSL which means it uses landlines to connect you to the internet.
This service was offered by Telkom Kenya before France Telecom made its investment last year – it had customers who either complained about it or loved it, depending on where they we’re located, and the time of day. I’m guessing that Orange Kenya has fixed the bugs in re-launching the ADSL service.
Broadband Nyumbani requires a live box which is the device that connects you to the phone line for the ADSL connectivity to work. The live box costs Kes. 3,990.00 across all the various monthly packages as below:
- Home ADSL 256K: Kes. 2,999.00
- Home ADSL 512K: Kes. 4,999.00
- Home ADSL 1MB: Kes. 6,999.00
Its official. On the 23rd of July 2009, the Internet in East Africa is going to get fast, really fast! This is because the Seacom high speed undersea cable will “go live” on that day and change the East African Internet experience as we know it. Imagine a scenario where you can download thousands of megabytes of internet data effortlessly via your mobile phone, wifi connection or fiber link to your home or office. Imagine streaming video and audio content with no buffering or erratic flows. Imagine making video phone calls to anyone around the world in real-time, for free. Imagine a situation where you watch live television or listen to radio stations on thousands of web channels worldwide, for free.
Consider the possibility of online jobs and businesses where you virtually commute to work, right from your home. Imagine doing your University Degree online virtually or educating your children through the Web. However, also consider that you may be competing with Indian Accountants or Chinese Architects for your next piece of business. You will find that your clients can now access services globally via the Internet in near real-time, and at half what you charge. You may end up outsourcing many of the core functions of your business, online, cheaply. All this will become possible. The cable is almost ready. Finally. The world as we know it is about to really change. I hope we’re ready for it.
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