Author: Cyrus

Google has awarded Africa Practice a contract to handle Google’s PR in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal and South Africa. The assignment comes as Google attempts to fight bad publicity, promote the usage of internet and google products as well as fight for internet penetration in the continent. The Google Africa account will be managed locally by teams in the six countries, with strategic direction from South Africa , Kenya and London. The Google account is being led by Africa Practice corporate comms director Alison Merifield.

KDN on Wednesday launched what it billed as a “system which will set the pace for flexibility and security in financial transactions”. The gateway is a multi-channel solution which will turn mobile phones into a means of secure electronic transaction platform. It looks to solve the problem of phobia or non-penetration of cards in Africa. The system which was launched is exactly what we predicted to be. It is the same system which the Spanish company is selling. The features are exactly the same though KDN CEO Kai Wulff says that its a KDN local creation which has not foreign…

The competition on mobile commerce or M-Commerce is heating up locally with KDN, the largest data provider calling journalists to a coacktail dinner today at Serena Hotel. It will be a launch party for an M2M and Mobile POS system called MObipay. KDN seems to have teamed up with some spanish company to localise the already existing system. This comes after Orange hinting that they are soon loon launching a mobile payment solution like M-pesa. Yu launched Obopay and Zain runs Zap which all have not been able to contain the massive consumer urge for M-Pesa. KDN lists the solution…

After fumbling with the Gwave and Orkut,  Google on Tuesday 9th February announced the launch of their new product, Google Buzz. The  product aims to compete with facebook on the social media scene as it intergrates status updates and photo and video sharing. It will be available on Mobile with Google Buzz for business to follow. The tagline according to blog post on Google Buzz is “a Google approach to sharing.” This is probably Google’s boldest effort yet to get social. It is taking on Facebook and Twitter as well as start-ups such as Foursquare . The new service has…

I browse through groups which my friends are joining in facebook and I meet this one titled “Men Against the Valentines Initiative (M.A.V.I)”. Now there is no problem with being against anything but MAVI is a very dirty word in Swahili. It translates more to wastes from the body which seems to be what the grou thinks Valentines is. The group is gaining membership at a fast rate and majority are men apart from the few naughty women out there who wont be scared of telling men off or simply watching what men are up-to. And a good number of women…

University of Texas RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service and Dell have launched a Social Innovation Challenge which expects to spur innovation by students throughout the world. The challenge whose goal is to provide a vehicle for taking student innovations from idea to reality, Dell’s Social Innovation Competition is a real-world exercise for perfecting your skills in: Project/business plan development Pitching ideas to investors Building resource networks

Naspers / MIH group is, according to Polish newspaper reports, the largest Internet group in Western Europe, is conducting checks on assets belonging to  Forticom owned by Digital Sky Technology. Naspers Group and DST already together own the largest Russian online portal Mail.ru If it goes through, the deal would see Naspers/MIH and DST merge their Polish Internet properties like IM service Gadu-Gadu which  is wholly owned by Naspers and has 15 million registered users. Polish biggest social network,  Nasza-Klasa.pl which is 70% owned by Forticom and claims over 23 million registered users, will also be under Naspers after the deal.…

You know that is now very common that without a good friend in the right places in entertainment industry in Africa, its very very hard to break into the market. Artists struggle walking from one radio station to another just to try to deliver their work without much success. But the internet is offering them a lifeline with many now releasing their singles, videos and albums through social networks like facebook, youtube, twitter and other. But there is new hope for such artists since the launch of Africa Unsigned website which features artists from Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Senegal.…

You know Tata Communication as the company which signed a pact with Access Kenya to establish a Tier 1 Internet Point-of-Presence (PoP) for Tata Communications in Nairobi, Kenya.  Well its part of the Tata Group which has companies like Tata Consultancy, Tata Motors and Tata Tea among others. Well Tata Consultancy’s website got hacked today. It has now been restored but from the twitter streams, you could see with the screenshots that its among the big IT names liek Google, Techcrunch and Twitter whose website got hacked in the last shot period of time. Tata Consultancy has offices in Botswana…

I am starting to fear the unlimited broadband services from Zuku, Zain, Safaricom and Orange. Its becoming addictive especially when you can afford it. When online, I am either facebooking, digging, tweeting, reading news or browsing the very many social media blogs out there. While chatting on Gtalk with a friend who is a web designer, I got an alert of this website called hookup. I checked it out including ranking on ALexa, ooh this is crazy. This website is drawing crowds and is being run from Makongeni. I contacted the owners and they were not so willing to talk…

Sometime back Mashable and other social media blogs were wash with the idea that bit.ly was launching a a customised URL service. Well that service has just gone live with the url Bitly.Pro You need to register your domain which you will use instead of the bit.ly url if you so desire. This move ups the game in the short url service as google, facebook and even ning now have their own url shorteners.

Kenya’s leading mobile network, Safaricom has launched a massive sms campaign dubbed “Go sms Crazy”. After complaint from subscribers from exploitation, Safaricom is now focusing on the low end market with such promotions. In the sms promotion, you can have 5 sms for Ksh 5 which is less than Ksh 1 per sms. The mobile phone service provider says that the promotion targets their 15 million pre-paid and post-paid mobile phone clients. Meanwhile, Safaricom came under heavy attack from participants at the ongoing Mobile Web East Africa conference. Many attendees called Safaricom a bully and saboteur in regards to Safaricom’s…

Google has announced that they are introducing the focused research awards. The awards will be are for two to three years, and the recipients will have the advantage of access to Google tools, technologies and expertise. The awards announced through Google Facebook page and corssposted with google research blog, has been initially awarded to 12 projects by 31 Professors in 10 Universities spread all over the globe. To quote Google Research Blog: Today, we’re announcing the first-ever round of Google Focused Research Awards — funding research in areas of study that are of key interest to Google as well as…

There is news that Safaricom, Jamii Telecomms and Wananchi Group will be leasing Fibre optic line from Kenya Power Lighting Company (KPLC) pair running the 500 km Mombasa – Nairobi. KPLC says that they have for the rent of the fibre optic, the Nairobi Mombasa route is $32 (Sh2400) per pair per kilometre per month which for 20 years translates to $ 3.9 Million (Sh288 million). The lease floated last year were in two categories, one for 15 years described as Indefeasible Right of Use (IRU) which required the bidder to pay upfront. The other was a five year lease…

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) – Tanzania has passed a new telecoms law making it mandatory for mobile phone companies to list on the country’s stock exchange in the next three years, a senior government official said on Monday. Parliament approved the Electronic and Postal Communication Bill 2009 late on Friday, compelling telecommunication firms in the east African country to offer shares to the public starting from 2013. We have given mobile phone companies three years to make the necessary preparations for listing on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange,” Maua Daftari, deputy minister for Communications, Science and Technology, told Reuters.