The African Experience Matters for Next Generation Mobile Web
Ever since Steve Song put up this image of the undersea cables linking Africa to the rest of the world, I’ve been thinking about what it might mean. When a landlocked country like Botswana which was totally dependent on slow and expensive satellite links for accessing the net is able almost overnight to slash connectivity […]
Semacraft Announces Africa Innovation Tour June 2011
As Africa gets connected to the world wide web, there is an increasing hunger for relevant content and services in local languages. This has led to the rise of developer communities congregating in openly shared community spaces where new applications, software and technology can be nurtured and incubated. The mobile phone is the platform of […]
Purpose – Platform – Price: 3Ps for an African Mobile App
The competition is increasingly about the customers, and what tasks they seek to complete on their devices. Simply building the right apps/content/service to meet that need won’t be enough: it will become a matter of getting the purpose, the platform and the price just right for each demographic. Market creation and customer education will drive […]
Bridging the mobile ~ PC gap for enterprise solutions
This news item about Mumias Sugar Company caught my attention recently because of their decision to shift all wage payments made to sugar cane cutters on to the mobile platform. Advancing Sh 2000 to those who didn’t already own a phone, they requested that all participants choose between mPesa and Zap to register for their […]
The changing flavour of the internet: the next billion come online
Yesterday Vanderbeeken posted a link to an article on the changing culture of the internet as the next billion come online. It reminded me of some thoughts I had on this aspect a few years ago when I contemplated what would happen when the next billion came online. Here’s a snippet of my thoughts from December 2007: They are […]
The maturing of the African mobile phone market Feb 2008 to Nov 2010
This post has been percolating through my mind for the last couple of days, its time to attempt setting it out in words for a stab in the dark at some clarity. The trigger was the recent hue and cry over Nokia’s percieved downfall as the calculated global market share for the device manufacturer dropped […]
The maturing of the African mobile phone market Feb 2008 to Nov 2010
This post has been percolating through my mind for the last couple of days, its time to attempt setting it out in words for a stab in the dark at some clarity. The trigger was the recent hue and cry over Nokia’s percieved downfall as the calculated global market share for the device manufacturer dropped […]
Core values: business models meant to serve the BoP
(Republished from old Perspective 2.0 blog March 10th 2009) The biggest shock for me in the Phillippines was learning that airtime minutes purchased on a prepaid plan came with an expiry date. The smaller the amount the faster the expiration. For example, the lowest amounts of “load” that can be purchased are 10 or 20 […]
The Telco and the BoP (January 2009)
NextBillion.net’s Rob Katz recently posted an Indian news snippet based on research that led the writer to argue that telco’s should focus on their most profitable customers, those at the top of the pyramid. The BoP (Bottom of the Pyramid), as the numbers demonstrate, are simply not worth it. Following some commentary, Rob added his […]
