Archive for July, 2011

Amazing Turn Out -July Meetup

Author: Gachigi

26 Jul

The July Mobile Monday meet up had a great turn out with lots of new faces and lots of exciting stuff showcased. Here is a recap of what was covered during this July Mobile Monday Meet up. First up was Dale Zak who is the main developer of the Ushahidi iPhone and iPad mobile apps giving a presentation on Mobile Design Principles. Dale highlighted some of the important and simple design principles one should use regardless of the target platform. Some of the design principles he highlighted are :

Simplicity- where each screen should focus on doing one task very well and less is more
Familiarity- Users should instantly feel familiar to the application and tasks
Consistency-this included have same color or font throughout the applications and using similar layout of the same buttons like cancel
Fast-app should be quick to open, be responsive to actions and allow cancellation of actions

These are among some of the design principles that highlighted the effective use of interfaces to be used on small screens.

The next speaker was Comark Onami from Pamoja Media, a local company that offers Online Marketing, Creative Development (both Mobile and web) and Consulting. Comark presented Ukulima.net, an Open Mobile Social Network for Farmers.

Ukulima is Swahili for “Farming”

The platform is intended to provide market for the small scale farmers, making it easier for them to interact with their buyers. The services included. Comark highlighted that the platform is built on CodeIgniter which is an open source MVC framework. They have also created an API that allows developers to build applications on the Ukulima.net platform.

A few interesting questions were posted by the attendees i.e.
@jwesonga asked Is Ukulima.net competition for the M-Farm platform recently launched by IPO48 winners, Akirachix? Comark responded by pointing out that they view Ukulima.net as a complementary service to the M-Farm platform.
@torooti asked a question on how the platform would ensure that products ordered through it are actually delivered and whether the platform offered some form of guarantee against such occurences. Comark pointed out that in its current state the platform is not geared up for delivery and payments for products ordered, future iterations may incorporate this.

Some resources offered for this Ukulima challenge are:

GitHub Repo of the platform: Ukulima
Beta Site: http://www.ukulima.net/
Dev Resources: http://www.ukulima.net/dev/
API Sign Up: http://www.ukulima.net/developer/
API Documentation: http://www.ukulima.net/developer/wiki/

Lastly we had a presentation from Isaak Osiemo a hilarious upcoming developer who talked about the MsemaKweli(Meaning telling the truth)android app, a constituency development fund (CDF) monitoring application. Hot on the heels of the recently launched Open Data Initiative (https://www.opendata.go.ke), the application is able to take photos, add comments and also share with 3rd party social network. This is not the first application of its kind, just recently Nokia launched a CDF monitoring app on the Ovi Store. The application though not similar to the MsemaKweli application in terms of functionality, also allows users to get data on CDF projects in a particular constituency.

To interact with the Beta version of the Msemakweli android app download by clicking here.

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BlackBerry Playbook now approved by U.S. Federal Government.

Author: juuchini

23 Jul

The BlackBerry Playbook becomes the first ever tablet to be certified by the U.S. Government as a good quality of service and data security capable device.

In a statement release, RIM announced that:

“RIM is pleased to announce that the BlackBerry PlayBook is the first tablet approved under FIPS for use within the U.S. federal government,” said Scott Totzke, Senior Vice President, BlackBerry Security at Research In Motion. “This certification demonstrates our continued commitment to meeting the needs of security-conscious organizations and enables the U.S. federal government to buy with confidence knowing that the PlayBook meets their computing policy requirements for protecting sensitive information.

This article was first posted on the juuchini website.

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mLab East Africa, Interview with John Kieti

Author: kachwanya

15 Jul

mLab East Africa, interview with John Kieti

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Whive and its significance to your marketing

Author: kachwanya

4 Jul

This post originally appeared on Kachwanya.com

We interviewed John Karanja of Whive and here is what he had to say about Whive and its significance to Kenyan mobile marketing.

You have 5 Social Media Applications that provide Social Marketing tools for the African Market, what exactly does this mean for a marketer?

Yes we do have 5 Social Media Apps namely Whive.com,Whive.mobi,facebook.whive.com,twitter.whive.com and apps.whive.com. These applications provide multiple marketing channels that marketers can use to market products and services to the Kenyan Internet user. This is because the Internet is growing rapidly as a Medium of communication and business in Kenya today. Whive is essentially a Communication platform for Africa that is integrated with other fast growing platforms such as Facebook and localized through language and content.

Who is your target market? Micro, SME or Major corporates?

We have products that cater for Individuals, Small and Medium Enterprises as well as Corporations. To date we have over 600 organizations using our SMS Termination services. However we do offer special social media marketing services for businesses who want to reach Kenyans via our network. So if you want to advertise or send SMS to many contacts at once you can do so through our platform Whive.com.

What does your location based initiative entail for marketing?

Location is a key metric in advertising if your customer can tell you where he is at any given time it would be possible to offer him or her the best deal possible from affiliated businesses. We plan to offer this service to our subscribers.

How soon should we be expecting this?

This is something that is in the works and we can’t give a definitive date at the moment.

Why is your working with Nokia key for the market?

Nokia has the largest market share in terms of smartphone distribution in Kenya at about 60%. They are a big player and continue to actively engage developers in the country including ourselves. They also have a promising partnership with another active player Microsoft which will come with a lot of opportunities for their developers in the future. At Whive we recently launched our Multilingual Nokia Applications at Pivot25 and you can download them at apps.whive.com. They will be available in the Ovi store from July 2011.

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From Idea to Creation – Create for Millions for Consumers

Author: kachwanya

4 Jul

Competition and competition ..I love competition. Nokia announced last week “Create for Millions” a global competition that brings consumers and developers together to create applications for Nokia’s Series 40 mobile phones. A million Euro prize money is in store here, Kenyan developers take note..

In this competition, developers are invited to submit Java and web apps for Nokia Series 40 phones in four categories:

In the Know – News and locally relevant information apps
Fun & Games - Games and entertainment apps
Emotional Closeness – Social networking apps
Access to Knowledge – Life improvement apps, for example education or health

For each of the four contest categories listed above, there will be 10 cash prizes, with a top prize of 50,000 Euros in each category. Top apps in each category win a variety of non-cash prizes such as user experience reviews and app marketing assistance. In addition, special prizes will be awarded to apps that showcase the best touch feature in an app, the best location-aware app and the best overall Series 40 web app.

Regional versions of this global developer competition with additional prizes will be announced soon.

Consumers are not left behind on this.

Nokia’s Create for Millions challenges consumers to submit their best ideas for the applications they’d like to see on Nokia Series 40 mobile phones. Authors of the winning entries may see their ideas come to life in person at Nokia World later this year and can meet the developers who created them. In addition to a free expenses-paid trip to Nokia World, winning consumer’s can play with their new app on the latest Nokia Series 40 phone given during Nokia World.

Consumers are encouraged to submit ideas in one of three categories: health & education; social networking & location; and games & infotainment. Additionally, consumers can vote on entries and comment or collaborate on ideas already submitted.

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Filed under: mobile