Hey everyone. I’m still undecided whether we should do this on Friday or Saturday. We’ll see how it goes. But right now, here’s what crossed my radar this week.
1. MTN strikes back at Twitter haters? No, it’s just a really hilarious parody account that tweets funny insults back at people who complain about MTN. Quite a lot of its tweets are NSFW though, which probably adds to the overall appeal. But I don’t expect the fun to last long…these parodies don’t have a really long life span around these parts. The account had just over 5k followers the last time I checked, but it probably won’t be long before its owner gets bored and moves on.
2. Full speed ahead – 88mph is revving up to move into Nigeria, according to this feature on How We Made It In Africa. I know that there’s an interesting conversation going on in Kenya about how much mileage in terms of startup success the accelerator has achieved since it first started its engines there, but I haven’t had the time to look into it yet.
3. Also from Kenya, the Permanent Secretary of ICT, Dr. Bitange Ndemo might be leaving the position very soon. According to Rebecca Wanjiku, Dr. Ndemo ” is probably the most clued PS in the country”. I’m inclined to agree…just check out his Twitter feed.
4. Incidentally, Ory Okolloh just left Google too. She tweeted as much yesterday, and her bio is updated accordingly.
5. Kuluya 2.0 or 2 No? Jason’s much vaunted gaming protege has announced a second iteration. Did you try it yet? Is it any good?
6. In a continent full of one-man startups, here’s great advice on how to find a startup co-founder.
7. Ding dong, the switch is dead? Maybe not just yet, not even with Mastercard’s latest internet payment gateway offering for SMEs. But if I were Interswitch, I’d be working on much more than UI/UX improvements at this point. It will take much more than that to appease a disgruntled ecosystem that is desperately in search of the messiah that will save them from the “wicked switch of West Africa”.
8. Good news for Airtel travellers. Now you can roam wild and free on the Airtel One Network in South Asia and Africa. No more crazy roaming charges while you junket.
9. Ushahidi’s Crowdmap’s got an update and this version is called Bamako. Got to love how they name their software release versions after cities in Africa.
10. Anonymous is in Africa. Apparently. OAfrica has a list African hacker cells that appear aligned to the global hacktivist organisation…although, it’s not clear if these local groups are the real deal, or if they are just famzing.
11. Dear African VC, angel: international investors are stealing your lunch – a must read from Ventureburn
12. Bitcoins! Coming soon to a market near you. If you live in Egypt, Angola, Ghana, Libya and South Africa, you might soon be able to partake in the latest, greatest, albeit now dampened digital currency mania. There’s even a Bitcoin exchange in South Africa already
13. Like a boss – Warren Buffet joins Twitter. Bow down and worship the oracle of Omaha, all 347,034 of you (and counting)
14. Tablet business doesn’t make sense — said the boss of the company that couldn’t sell tablets. I gave BlackBerry boss, Mr. Heins a piece of my mind here.
15. Your internet history isn’t complete if you don’t visit the very first website in the world.
16. Mobile Web West Africa 2013 is going down from Tuesday the 7th next week till the Friday the 10th. Find out more here.
Not a lot going on Naija-side this week, it seems. If I missed something, please let me know. Thanks for reading, enjoy the rest of the weekend!
