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Nigeria is 3rd Most Active Country for Game Downloads

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The latest edition of Buzz City report is out and we got to know about it, courtesy of TechLoy.

 

We have read this report.  And we are confused over this statement:

 

The number of ads served on our network increased 38% globally over the past three months, to 23.2 billion ad impressions. Apart from the continued demand for mobile content, and the success of our publisher team in attracting

new partners, we have seen handset manufacturers and carriers increase their use of mobile network advertising to promote their products and services, rather than relying only on their own channels.

 

We are unable to understand what the constituents of the network are, and without that, it would be difficult to ascertain and make sense of the numbers provided in the report.

 

We also got concerned over this statement:

 

In the handset market, we’ve seen continued growth of Android devices, particularly among gamers, with downloads from our mobile entertainment site Djuzz almost doubling in just three months.

 

 

The question is this: is Buzz City analyzing data from their network or are they looking at the global universe? If they are presenting data from their networks, the implication is that there do not represent the true dynamics of global mobility pulse. It will be naïve to use data from Buzz City to extrapolate to the whole world. This clarification is important. They have competitors and certainly not all traffic goes through their network. That report should make it clear.

 

However, they seem to have answered these questions in the introductory part of the report

 

The following commentary provides the headline changes and noteworthy developments in mobile advertising emerging from over 200 countries that we track each month. We also report on developments in the mobile games market, as a useful indicator of consumer demand for paid, free and freemium content.

 

 

So, this is purely from their network and we assume they are huge to give a good picture of the dynamics of the global mobility.

 

 

Who is Buzz City? From their site

BuzzCity is a mobile media company offering brand owners and agencies access to a global advertising network on the mobile internet. The network is made up of publishers from across the world and BuzzCity’s own mobile media properties. As a leading international player, BuzzCity has developed in-depth knowledge of the mobile consumer and provides marketers with clear opportunities to reach this audience via its advertising and publisher programmes.

 

 

Key Points from the report

 

–       Nigeria is in the top 10 of mobile advertising in the world, though Kenya did better. Nigeria with growth rate of 43% remained in 9th place, while Kenya fell three places to 5th place with only 3% growth rate, quarter over quarter.

 

–       Nigeria tops Africa with more than 1.5m games downloaded in Djuzz (note Djuzz). Despite a Q by Q growth rate of 3%, Nigeria did better (more than double) than South Africa which has 8% growth rate. This clearly shows that this website is biased for Nigeria.  Or there is a local game competitor in South Africa that prevented South Africans for downloading from this site. We do not know but surely think that South Africans are very active in the mobile ecosystem, at least now, than they are given credit in this report.

 

to be continued

New Apple Hybrid Thunderbolt Connector Could Signal Faster Syncing

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Apple has been awarded a patent for a new hybrid connector that combines several high-speed data technologies onto a single 30-pin connector. Uncovered by Patently Apple, the connector would support USB 2.0, USB 3.0, and Dual-lane DisplayPort — now being referred to as “Thunderbolt.”

 

Thunderbolt is an effort between Intel and Apple, and is said to deliver transfer speeds of up to 10Gbps. USB 3.0 could be seen as a competing technology, but the Cupertino company seems to be preparing itself by developing a connector that could support both.

 

It should be noted that the said connector would be on the device itself. The ports for USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt are different: this means devices that wish to connect to either port would have to obviously ship with a separate cable for each.

 

Aiming to support both technologies from the beginning could be a smart move. Apple was out ahead of competitors when it worked to push FireWire as a next generation successor to the original USB standard. However, peripheral manufacturers instead chose USB 2.0, and FireWire was relegated to a small subset of devices, mainly intended for use with the Mac platform.

 

The patent images show the connector as part of an iOS device, which seems to be the most logical use for such a technology. With Apple’s focus seemingly now being in these accessory devices, having a system that allows syncing in a matter of seconds seems to make a lot of sense.

 

While USB 2.0 has sped up syncing, in the case of iOS devices the process can take upwards of a minute or more depending on the amount of data being transferred between the device and the computer.
However, it does appear as if Apple has much bigger plans for this new connector: the patent documents state that this would be an option on “future Mac hardware” as well. Indeed, Apple’s quite serious about Thunderbolt: it’s currently looking for a “Software Quality Engineer” that would be tasked with ensuring the quality of its hardware and software solutions that include the technology.

Fasmicro Official Comments on Google Nigeria 2011

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The MD of Fasmicro, Ayo Olalusi,  was present in G-Nigeria event on Wednesday.

 

He reports that the “the g-nigeria conference of yesterday went well. It was a very good atmosphere and the enthusiasm among participants was very high”.

 

This is our official assessment of this program. We are honored to have been invited and relish on the opportunity for networking this event created.

 

 

The SwiftRiver Platform – Ushahidi Advanced Realtime Analytics

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SwiftRiver is a platform that helps people make sense of a lot of information in a short amount of time. 

 

And that is the big one? Can this be used to help people manage their IDs online in real-time? These guys better approach credit and identify protection companies like Experian, Equifax and Transunion in US. If a customer signs up, this engine can comb the web to track if any social security is being traded or identify is being compromised. They can add this as a bonus and expand revenue sources besides the donations they are getting.
More about Swift River

 

Filter & Verify Real-Time Data

In practice, SwiftRiver enables the filtering and verification of real-time data from channels like Twitter, SMS, Email and RSS feeds.

Capabilities

Intelligence from the Web

SwiftRiver helps you curate real-time data and analysis on any topic or interest relevant to you or your organization.

Analysis & Insight

SwiftRiver helps users discover nascent relationships and trends in data sets that may appear to be unrelated.

Brand Monitoring

Setup streams that search for mentions of your brand or product online and manage social media campaigns (e.g. Twitter, SMS, email) from one dashboard.

 

Add Context to Content

SwiftRiver adds context to content using semantic analysis. Auto-categorize and classify email, twitter, text messages or news articles based on keywords.

Artisans Must Balance The Books

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The boy was 11 years old when his father took him to live with a kinsman, a businessman with many shops in Lagos, Nigeria. He later spent 12 years with this master, learning a trade, and understanding many aspects of business. At the end of his apprenticeship, his family and the master pooled resources and graduated him. They got him a shop, bought shop items, and gave him money. He was now a man. He must live independently, and go back to the village, find another boy, and become a mentor himself.

Unfortunately, after five years, he headed to the village, not for good. His business had collapsed. He started very well, but as soon as his cash flow improved, financial burdens from family systems stifled his operations. As more people depended on him, he spent his working capital, and the business failed.

When I founded the nonprofit African Institution of Technology, I initially focused on helping African entrepreneurs or artisans, especially those with only primary education, develop new skills and market opportunities. But with time, I observed that most of the artisans were closing shops, and returning to villages, not because of lack of skills or market opportunities. Rather, they were abandoning their businesses because of bad bookkeeping.

Lack of simple bookkeeping experience destroyed many of these businesses. When artisans have no understanding of their cash flows, they fail prey to spending a big percentage of their working capital, without meaning to, on non-business issues that usually cripple their operations.

Most African artisans do not bank because of the fees associated with operating current accounts. You pay a fee for withdrawing your money in most African banks, thereby discouraging many from banking. The alternative is to keep the cash in the shop, usually in a drawer. It is customary for them to dip into that drawer for family and non-business issues.

During a recent workshop, an artisan told me that, had he known that money was running dry, he would have cut his non-business expenses. He was on a second act after his friends called him back from the village to try again. He explained to me that his business failure was sudden. He had no knowledge of his cash flow, because he was not keeping any record.

Across Africa, many unemployed men have managed small businesses, at least once in their lives. Their families made plans for them. But as soon as they began, the communal power of African extended family system weighed on them. Eventually, most collapse. There are many reasons this happens, but, over the years, I have observed that lack of basic bookkeeping is a major factor.

Organizations that move into developing nations to help small technical businesses, must help those businesses manage their finances. People need at least a rudimentary understanding of finance to become good entrepreneurs or artisans. If they understand cash flow, they will make better decisions and stay in business. As you enter a developing market and invest in the locals’ technical skills, do not neglect to invest in their cash flow management.

 

originally published in Harvard Business Review