The increasing importance of user experience for cyber cafes
This idyllic garden paradise is our favourite hangout and interestingly enough, our cyber cafe, in the literal sense of the words, since it provides free wifi along with your coffee and butter cream cake. Given our recent single minded obsession with internet access and cyber cafes, it was only natural to fall into a conversation […]
Impact of mainstreaming and commodification of cyber cafe services
Around 2007, the urban cyber cafe industry began to display signs of maturing as the market saturated and the services specific to internet access underwent a process of commodification. As it came to be perceived as no different a business than setting up a corner kiosk or hot dog stand, there was a shift in […]
Innovation at the small enterprise level
I’ve never been left with such a strong sense of enterprise and innovative thinking as I have now after this past week in Coastal Kenya. In fact I asked Muchiri if he’d been specifying some high standards for the introductions made to various cyber cafe owners or was it that we just happened upon the […]
Pondering the sustainability of the cyber cafe industry and its future
Jomo, who runs a traditional cyber cafe in an office building near Mombasa’s busy port district, gave us a well framed and articulate argument on the challenge of running a sustainable business given the costs involved. His key point was that the internet providers, particularly the mobile operators now actively competing with conventional ISPs, were […]
You’ll find me on Facebook
Peterson (in yellow) has just begun setting up the beachfront corner he and his colleagues maintain during the high season at Kilifi, next door to the Baobab beach resort. A few curio shacks, some local art, a massage and salon comprise their services to the expected influx of tourists taking a break from the winter […]
Inserting tones into your iPod
Inserting tones i.e. Ipod – just the choice of words used to describe the service offered, that of downloading from iTunes seems to imply the order and popularity of the technologies introduced in this market i.e. contextual knowledge of the customer base. I’m not articulating this as well as I’d like but we’re going back […]
VoIP centers in Old Mombasa
We saw this shopfront while following our friend Ahmed through the narrow gallis of Old Town. Wouldn’t you think it might be a cybercafe offering you a chance to go online? We did so too, but no, its a small room with a table top full of boxes and switches. He offers only VoIP based […]
Socially networked mystery shopfront
We spotted this closed shopfront just before entering Mtwapa – a midsize town about 10km from Mombasa, when returning from a day trip north to Kilifi today. There was no signage to tell us whether it was a cyber cafe or internet center of some sort. But we’re sure they are extremely networked socially.
21st century Kenyan
Beyond.internet
From the fact that mtandao is a newly minted word in Kiswahili that means network – from the verb tanda which means to spread – to the signboard’s assertion that its no longer simply a matter of getting access to the internet but instead a consideration of what’s next – our early survey of cyber […]
