Africa, The Next generation

African Social Network Discontinued

2007-06-14T05:18:00.000-07:00

The time to close doors on this blog has finally come. Reason being I wanted it to be a place to bitch about african apps ours inclusive. The highs and lows the goods and bads, learn from and get ideas of other bloggers, look at marketing strategies. But for some reason, African Social Networking isn't working. Some sites have closed shop some just dont have enough trafiic to worth being talked about. Maybe they will in the future.

People have asked though will Afriville follow the route of some and become Country specific. No WAY... Reason being if that was the initial idea then there's no novelty, its not even worth being in existence.

But the end is actually the beginning. The beginning of something new at Afriville.com , I'd like to think we are one of the most innovative platforms in the web 2.0 space of which there are not many. But soon enough the world will catch on, on how lucrative doing business in Africa is.

In the meantime we'll continue blogging, on http://africa2point0.blogspot.com/ . No more commenting on other sites (well maybe once in a while). And the blog posts about Africa and Pan Africa will come up there soon, as well as My take on why African Social Networks are Dying but being Reborn

Africa The Next Generation Discontinued

2007-05-16T17:51:00.000-07:00

Its time to say goodbye to this blog, why well the social networking market kinda sizzled out. we are going to continue however on The Africa Social networking Experiment

Afriville.com According to Yahoo News

2007-05-02T08:43:00.000-07:00

From http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20070502/bs_prweb/prweb521869_1

Afriville.com, an online community of Africans at home and in diaspora, has recently been rebuilt to further bridge the gap between individual African nations and Africans abroad whether African American, black British or African Latino. The new tools are designed to bring the community even closer together. The site's content and forums are bound to perk your interest, no matter your individual tastes. Afriville.com forums is becoming the place for the continents budding young minds where leaders of tomorrow discuss issues in all arenas of African life.

London, UK (PRWEB) May 2, 2007 -- Afriville.com, an online community of Africans at home and in diaspora, has recently been rebuilt to further bridge the gap between individual African nations and Africans abroad whether African American, black British or African Latino. The new tools are designed to bring the community even closer together. The site's content and forums are bound to perk your interest, no matter your individual tastes. Afriville.com forums is becoming the place for the continents budding young minds where leaders of tomorrow discuss issues in all arenas of African life.

The Afriville.com team has formed a new approach to "bridging the gap" between the different factions of Africans. Integration through segregation they call it. After testing several ways of creating a truly pan African site they are confident with the results.

"Extensive tests have shown that to become relevant in all the regions we hope to attract we need to have a degree of segregation within the site for users of that region. We are currently deploying for Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, UK and the USA," answered Nnamdi Ogbechie when asked about how the system worked.

Many new features have been added to the social network, including expanded forum discussions covering a wide range of topics, an African video sharing platform for videos from the African continent. All the latest music videos can be found on the site as well as long lost videos.

"The Community has really been great in helping develop the site. Everyone has been really receptive and have offered help on growing the site. The new design gives our users a better experience overall," says Nnamdi Ogbechie the spokes person for Afriville.com.

The site continues to be a leader in developing tools for the African continent and bringing out ground breaking tools for communication. We can only wait to see what they come up with next.

About Afriville.com
Originally named caramellounge.com, Afriville.com underwent a change of ownership that led to considerable investments in the platform and leveraged the business know how of its new owners. Afriville.com has striven to become the leading online community for Africans and friends of Africa. The site has become a community locus for knowledge, delivering news and opinions on the latest trends, events, news and multimedia in Africa.

African Bloggers and Blog Aggregators who exactly is helping who

2007-04-25T06:50:00.000-07:00

I've been testing on an off an African blog aggregator using "pligg" a clone of digg for the african blogosphere. As of now the blog aggregator is off, it may still come back on. There aren't that many african blog aggregators and the ones available are not exactly "any good" in my opinion. The thing is I know exactly what am looking for in a blog the digg design captures it exactly, the power of collective voting to decide what exactly is wortrh my time . I have seen quite a few aggregators that have tried to in effect copy this but when I take a look at the front page I am baffled, in fact puzzled that how on earth did that get there. What this does is put me off immediately..

Why does this not happen in digg ?

The answer lies in the digg algorithm. Digg figured out a long ttime ago that the main voters will be people looking to improve their sites ie trying to advertise for free. In truth thats what the platform is for. When I asked this about Muti I was asked to join and vote for what I deem interesting. Pardon my excessive comparison with Digg, but a long time ago Digg classified its users.

(1) The Submitters
(2) The Voters
(3) The readers

Although any of this 3 groups may write comments
People generally fall into on e of these 3 categories.

Its an ecosystem and all of them are required if (1) doesnt exis there will be no stories (2) is what organizes the place so (3) will come .

The problem with most sites is that 1 == 2 == 3 hence the stories that make it to the top have high bias

Now back to the title of the post, who exactly is helping who, the blog aggregator project have been working on started out as afribian.com and has been on since last year october sometime, its not like it hasnt made anyway its just that there's no point releasing a blog aggregator if your bloggers have to do more for you than you do for them.

Naturally some blogs have more traffic than the people who aggregate them, so for me until i think of a way to organize these blogs such that it makes it interesting for the readers of the aggregator and hence brings new trafic to the bloggers, there really isnt any point for an aggregator.

African vs Pan African - Does it Really Exist? And if so in who's mind!

2007-03-26T21:13:00.000-07:00

Watch out for my next post

Videos in Africa - The African Youtube

2007-03-09T06:34:00.000-08:00

Youtube has turned to a sort of amature singing, movie promotion, video production skill, illegal music video uploading showcasing site. I enjoyed watching music videos there, but they just keep getting removed.

In africa things are different, the whole point of a music video is to get it played as much as possible to enable the artist spread their wings.

It is with is in mind that I believe that videos in africa should even be greater than in the western world, we need the exposure more than anyone else.

Lately I have even noticed some movie trailers of potentially big african movies showing ther stuff on vide upload sites.

With this I present to you The African Youtubes

My Video SA - Just South African

Mooziko - A bit too francophone

Afriville Videos Too Much Nigerian

None is pan african "yet" but then again when u look at it,, thats like saying there's a site that all europeand would enjoy

Afriville 2.0 - The African Digg

2007-01-13T22:18:00.000-08:00

For a minute there I sidetracked, as 2006 ran out I looked at issues close to heart. Whether its Blood diamonds, or the african plight, a couple of things came up.

Right now its 6.20am GMT and the African Network is ready to release another social media tool. Anyone who is fond of digg, will appreciate its importance in sifting through whats important and whats not. What is worth reading and whats not worth a glance. So when Afriville.com decided to add a news tab to the many other tabs, there was no doubt the Digg format was the way ahead.

Present and new users of Afriville.com will be able to submit news stories that they find interesting, with their peers voting and discussing this stories. The stories will cover a wide range oftopics from news headlines to fashion to sports and entertainment. Voting will also take place and our unique algorithm will decide whether a story is worth "front page" / "headline" status

Afriville News will do for Blogs, what allAfrica does for Newspapers

An African Digg, as the project is codenamed is now in its beta testing stage. Africans and people interested in African News are invited to take part in its testing.

Furthermore Afriville News calls on all African Bloggers with adsense accounts to register and activate a bloggers account where a revenue share system makes sure they earn their share of profits from th stories originating from their blogs or posted by them.

Blood Diamonds - De Beers Conspiracy

2006-12-17T10:39:00.000-08:00

The new movie Blood diamonds isnt out yet in the UK but its out in some parts of the world. And its got people talking. Everyone knows what conflict (blood) diamond is (at least they think they do).

Check out 10 reasons not to buy diamondsoriginally from globalwitness.org

De Beers is writing News Articles and buying ads everywhere just to cover up the dirty diamond industry they make claims on this site

diamond facts.org which they tout on adsense

Diamondfacts.org is built on bending the truth and feeding propaganda to the masses

The truth however are in Realdiamondfacts.org

I believe De Beers are so neck deep in this they are even editing stories in Wikipedia about blood diamond. Someone attatched a document about the Kimberly Process - which is a method of certifying diamonds. The person doing this must definetly have an agenda what does certify have to do with conflict if you are not in the diamond trading business

Finally I finish off with 10 reasons not to buy diamonds as gotten from the link above

Campaign against "blood diamonds"

Ten Reasons Why You Should Never Accept a Diamond Ring from Anyone, Under Any Circumstances, Even If They Really Want to Give You One

1. You’ve Been Psychologically Conditioned To Want a Diamond
The diamond engagement ring is a 63-year-old invention of N.W.Ayer advertising agency. The De Beers diamond cartel contracted N.W.Ayer to create a demand for what are, essentially, useless hunks of rock.

2. Diamonds are Priced Well Above Their Value
The De Beers cartel has systematically held diamond prices at levels far greater than their abundance would generate under anything even remotely resembling perfect competition. All diamonds not already under its control are bought by the cartel, and then the De Beers cartel carefully managed world diamond supply in order to keep prices steadily high.

3. Diamonds Have No Resale or Investment Value
Any diamond that you buy or receive will indeed be yours forever: De Beers’ advertising deliberately brain-washed women not to sell; the steady price is a tool to prevent speculation in diamonds; and no dealer will buy a diamond from you. You can only sell it at a diamond purchasing center or a pawn shop where you will receive a tiny fraction of its original “value.”

4. Diamond Miners are Disproportionately Exposed to HIV/AIDS
Many diamond mining camps enforce all-male, no-family rules. Men contract HIV/AIDS from camp sex-workers, while women married to miners have no access to employment, no income outside of their husbands and no bargaining power for negotiating safe sex, and thus are at extremely high risk of contracting HIV.

5. Open-Pit Diamond Mines Pose Environmental Threats
Diamond mines are open pits where salts, heavy minerals, organisms, oil, and chemicals from mining equipment freely leach into ground-water, endangering people in nearby mining camps and villages, as well as downstream plants and animals.

6. Diamond Mine-Owners Violate Indigenous People’s Rights
Diamond mines in Australia, Canada, India and many countries in Africa are situated on lands traditionally associated with indigenous peoples. Many of these communities have been displaced, while others remain, often at great cost to their health, livelihoods and traditional cultures.

7. Slave Laborers Cut and Polish Diamonds
More than one-half of the world’s diamonds are processed in India where many of the cutters and polishers are bonded child laborers. Bonded children work to pay off the debts of their relatives, often unsuccessfully. When they reach adulthood their debt is passed on to their younger siblings or to their own children.

8. Conflict Diamonds Fund Civil Wars in Africa
There is no reliable way to insure that your diamond was not mined or stolen by government or rebel military forces in order to finance civil conflict. Conflict diamonds are traded either for guns or for cash to pay and feed soldiers.

9. Diamond Wars are Fought Using Child Warriors
Many diamond producing governments and rebel forces use children as soldiers, laborers in military camps, and sex slaves. Child soldiers are given drugs to overcome their fear and reluctance to participate in atrocities.

10. Small Arms Trade is Intimately Related to Diamond Smuggling
Illicit diamonds inflame the clandestine trade of small arms. There are 500 billion small arms in the world today which are used to kill 500,000 people annually, the vast majority of whom are non-combatants.

By Liz Stanton, CPE Staff Economist - The Ultimate Field Guide to the US Economy

It is not just simply a case of eliminating CONFLICT DIAMONDS ie diamonds produced and sold to finance armed conflicts and gross violations of human rights. We also need to look at what is happening in those non-conflict zones, in the mining of diamonds and human rights violations for the workers in the mines. More to follow on this subject…………….

Calling all Africans: Lets make a change

2006-12-15T12:32:00.000-08:00

I have a new project in mind, its a non-profit organization. SO if anyone out there in the blogosphere is interested in getting the youth of today interested in influencing our youths. LETS let the world know that AFRICA SPEAKS

Contact me if you are interested, View profile for contact details

Nigerians: our responsibility to Africa

2006-12-15T12:17:00.000-08:00

Nigeria is the most populous nation in Africa, so its kinda easy for us to get caught up in ourselves. The African man for one I'd say is quite selfish, for reasons behind my comprehension, maybe its just a human thing but when the African man does it it gets blown up. Such like in this video

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2705157

My post today is about Nigerians, and our responsibility to Africa. Although Nigeria has its problems, on an African scale things are going good for us Nigerians.

Sometimes I go online and want to find out about whats happening in Africa, in Congo, in Chad, and I want it from a bloggers point of view. I see one or 2 bloggers with something to say but not that many people out there listening. I have read a few blogs from Nigerian bloggers on their dismay that the world (or should I say technorati isnt ranking )isn't listening to what they have to say. WHich is true but even more true of the little African countries everybody seems to have forgotten about. Or the 2 guys left in jail in Angola Louisiana everyone seems to have forgotten about.

As one man I can offer little, but if we join hands and work together we'll see that we can make AFRICA proud

Africa: Where do we go from here

2006-12-15T11:55:00.000-08:00

Take Some time and watch this video. Listen to the words

Thats Song's a true life story of 3 guys jailed for 34 years in solitary confinement. Now as a 22 year old, I could say that doesnt concern me and being a Nigerian, there are enough problems in Nigeria to worry about. This 3 guys jailes were are being helped out by Anita Roddick, the founder of The Body Shop.

As he went through Angola fields he saw a solitary cell

The devil was pleased, For it gave him a hint

for improving his prisons in HELL

We here stories like these and move on thinking we can't save anyone and in this case no individual can probably create a huge impact. The people who have stood by this men during their 34 years are probably tired of fighting on, its our responsibility as youths to carry on the cry to get their case heard. The guys behind the video have done alot to appeal to the youth today.

Facebook embraces adsense

2006-12-12T09:13:00.001-08:00

Every body loves facebook but the downfall of that is that their cpc must be low users use it as the utility it claims to be, clicking on ads is a no no.

But today to my suprise adsense ads are now on facebook, showing their adrevenues my not be what they seem

The Road to Riches Leads to Africa

2006-12-11T05:06:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wanted or wondered what it was like to be rich. The next Bill Gate or maybe Warren Buffet. Make so much money your great grand children will be driving Maybachs. Statisticly most blog readers / writer want to be rich. At first I wanted to be a banker, work at some prestigious investment bank, do some ugly hours, make a lot of money, but then I thought about it, Bloomberg didn't make his money from working at Salomon Brothers, he worked to the top no doubt but he only ever became loaded after starting his own company.

Well you might say, if you earn a lot and invest wisely. True back in the day the american and european economy was hot, money was being made. Warren Buffet was getting rich, but today Africa is where its at. Some say the emerging markets are China and Brazil, but think about it, am not lecturing Goldman Sachs executives here. Those markets are already saturated with investment banks waiting to steal money off you the minute you invest there. In investments recognize for every looser there's a winner (Not sure who the winner was in the Enron case). And in Africa the players are regular people like me and you.

In summary if you want to make money loads of it, go to Africa. In fact if someone designed a site where I could buy and monitor stocks on africa today i'll be on it everyday and am sure quite a few people will to. SO if anyone out there is interested in such a project. Dont hesitate to leave me a message.

My Africa Web 2.0 List

2006-12-08T04:41:00.000-08:00

Starting from the Africa2point0 Web2.0 List I have gone hunting the web for the hottest african owned,associated or audience intended sites.

I can truly say We are progressing

Leading the way

African YouTube - Mooziko

African Digg - Afribian

African Facebook / MySpace - Afriville

African Page Creator - Synthasite

African Match - YesNoMayB

African Reddit - Muti

African Digg Swarm NewzBuble

There are many more and I will add to the list as we go along

Afriville a true African Social Network in Colours

2006-12-08T04:22:00.000-08:00

This week or last, I got an email announcing the death of Caramellounge.com. At first, I tought the lack of traffic had forced its owners to shut down. And then there was a mail about it being sold. Why anyone would want to sell at this point it time worries me. But nevertheless with this sale comes also a name change and a lot more features than I bargained for.

When benchmarking african sites, it is simply inconceivable to look at them performance wise in western standards. But this new site is one that begs to be compared, to the likes of facebook and myspace. My reasoning is that, in comparison with The Caramel Lounge This new site is one of effortless efficiency. No more wasted bandwith on loading site images. Something I was going to blog about which made the old one very displeasing. So today we say welcome Afriville.com An African Caribbean Social Network

My review of each of the sites on a one by one basis with pictures of what they have to offer inside is on its way

Kenya: Using the Web to better a Nation

2006-12-08T03:44:00.000-08:00

A couple of months back I ran into a site mzalendo. The word means patriot in Swahili. Not that I would know better but thats what it says on their about page ;-).
Their aim is to watch the Kenyan parliament. A noble cause with wide implications. While government of African countries try to have their dealings in closed doors, and will probably try to persecute media companies within the nation who write stories that do not favour them.

In my opinion the Media in Africa is controlled by the Government in Africa

This site is a triumph for all Kenyans at home and abroad. Holding your leaders accountable for their actions. Letting them know that YES

We are watching you

Its a new dawn in Kenya, and other African countries most follow

Where does Africa begin on the web

2006-12-08T03:03:00.000-08:00

As africans we have failed. We have sat down and watched the internet bloosom and make fruit. When the first wave of internet business began where were we. When google and yahoo were in the making where were we. At the clubs partying maybe? At weddings enjoying ? Working those 12 hour shifts?

WHen the rest of the world saw oppurtunity we saw nothing. And rightly so, given that internet usage is not pervasive in Africa we may be right to think any business model tuned for the african audience will not work. But then again does it have to be for the african audience. Surely English is a univeral language (apologies to french and portugese speaking african countries) and the whole world listens in.

I am tired of watching the news on Africa where nothing good comes up. I am tired of browsing to the CNN Africa news page to see the same old stories of hostages, war, poverty, AIDS, elections, oil, dictators and corruption. I am tired of Africa being everyone elses constant reminder that things are good in their own country. I am tired of Africa being used as a way to make others feel better about their situation. I am tired of those OXFAM ads asking for money to save Africa. I am tired.

I am tired not because those things are bad, but because I hear NOTHING good about Africa

Not just Africa, people of the caribbeans as well. Who stands for them, who speaks for them. The internet is the new media for speech. To be heard you need to shout and this means traffic traffic traffic.

Blogging is where Africa begins on the web. And I'd like to take this oppurunity to praise the Blogs I have read some time or the other over the last year or so, for taking Africa where the African man never dreamt of venturing.

PS I'll list the Blogs soon the list might be exhaustive

The Thumbnails of the contestants

2006-11-24T05:16:00.000-08:00

The African Social Networks : How they Measure

2006-11-24T03:44:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Alexa Traffic Monitoring we have a little benchmark on this sites to help us see how they compare againts each other. Before I dive into these sites one by one and discuss their strong points and shortcomings

Which I will have to wait for my next post

, Lets take a deep look at what we see in the alexa graphs.

What I can infer from these graphs are as follows

None of these sites are major presently, as it seems they have yet to make an impact on the web top 100,000 site list. They sometimes make brief appearances, with the exception of Caramellounge.com

Caramellounge.com leads the pack by far with Afriqueka.com following but quite far behind. The other 2 its kinda hard to tell as they don't have that much stats

From the thumbnails, Afrinity I would say looks best but on further inspection that is easily disputed

As am looking at social network scripts it and Phpfox happens to be a popular one. I notice that MyAfricaSite.com has not been redesigned or modified and its just a plain simple installation of the script

African Social Networking - The battle for supremacy

2006-11-24T01:49:00.000-08:00

Today I decided to go on a thorough search of the internet for African Social Networks or community sites as they are seldom referred to.Sites that are obviously explicitly dating sites have been excluded. Also sites which are mainly African American are not in the list
I searched the usual places google, myspace, facebook, the tools most webmasters use to promote their wares. After searching far and wide. The list narrowed down o his major contenders

Caramellounge.com

MyAfricaSite.com

Afriqueka.com

Afrinity.com

My next immidiate review will lookat them one by one

Africa is Speaking (Blogging)

2006-11-14T15:02:00.000-08:00

Today I officially became a blogger. Why you may ask? I guess the same reason millions of pther blogger are out there, to earn a living, for amusement, to tackle an issue, to be heard.

Yes TO BE HEARD

Why else, if I go to the streets of Africa with a megaphone and shout will I be heard, Yes, but will I be HEARD No. They'll hear the noise, they throw things at me, some will even listen. But all in all what I speak falls on deaf ears. Thats the power of blogging I will be heard. People will feel what I say , they'll forward it to their friends. They'll come back for more (hopefully).

I went on to Global voices today and I see that, Africa is speaking and the world is listening.

To all my fellow bloggers out there. Keep blogging

Africa, Web 2.0 & Social Networking

2006-11-14T14:39:00.000-08:00

Over the last couple of weeks, I have noticed how social networks are prevalent on the new internet era (or could it be bubble). You can make new friends, articles, listen to music, and all sort of other internet savvy things.

The web is back and this time its back to stay. There's social networks for musicians (Pure Volume & (MySpace) , students ((Facebook & (Bebo), for Golf, Cars, Business, Books, Italians in fact almost any imaginable group of people. And these site receive an amazing stream of traffic. It is only rational to start a blog to watch comment, review and encourage social networking as it filters through into African homes, workplaces and ultimately their lives.

What comes to mind first is WHY. Why should there be an African social network? and why the word african and not black. Only thing I can think of is WHY NOT. There's every other imaginable grouping out there, so why not african. ANd the notion of blackness and African are different but alike. In my mind calling it african is not segregating from other blacks but instead an attempt to unite black people all over. Whether caribbean, black british, african american, white south african, a ghanian man, they are all africans. And the african social network brings them all together. So from Jamaica to Johannesburg, where ever you are from where ever you are. An African Social Network is for you.

Surely we have Blackplanet, isn't that enough. Blackplanet? I hardly know anyone outside America who has head of Blackplanet. Web 2.0 is a web movement without boundaries, Blackplanet is an African American Social Network and for good reason. To them their advertisers are more interested in people in the US so why try.

As of writing there's no major African Social Network around, but as we go they will arise. And we will follow their rise and fall. Their triumphs and trials. Africa will speak and the voice will be heard.