Archives for August 2009

Online Jobs!

August 31, 2009 by Leave a Comment

More Freelance Jobs

Blog writer – We’re looking for several talented blog writers to join our team of writers at www.webdesignerdepot.com, a popular blog dealing with web design. Compensation for each article accepted varies depends on length and complexity (average $150) and the position is available on a freelance basis only. Articles must be about web design topics as well as tutorials for Photoshop, Illustrator and others.

Web design – We are looking for someone to create a clean/corporate website design for a dedicated server/colocation hosting company. We also have a custom panel in development, that we would like to get skinned. Please contact us for any additional details about this project.

Mobile phone programmer – Butterfly Works is interested to find someone who can program and test a game to work on mobile phones in East Africa. We will design the game and send you the specs, it needs to work on all phones with a color screen from different manufacturers. We wish to find someone with experience in programming who also knows the mobile phone usage in East Africa specifically Kenya. The game is about peace keeping and is aimed at young people. If you are interested please contact us with your bio and previous experience, thanks!

Abode Air Developer – We are currently looking for a Adobe Air Developer or Desktop App Specialist for an upcoming contract job. We are seeking candidates with extensive experience developing desktop apps that are compatible on both MAC and PC platforms. The app is going to be used in conjunction with a upcoming global entertainment-based online initiative.

Google Wave Development – Intellum is looking for an experienced Rails and Java programmer, who has an interest in OpenSocial and Google Wave development. The job would be for an initial consulting engagement of 3 months with an opportunity for transitioning to a full-time position.

AppAfrica Hiring – Appfrica.net is a blog that wants to be Africa’s leading source for news related technology, culture and development when it grows up. =)Right now we’re looking for a savvy writer who wants to reach a broad audience covering social media, African startups and technology, as well as offer personal insight and opinions to the blog’s community.

Tech & Gadget blogger – Are you a talented blogger? Do you like tech and gadgets? Have you been dying to share your thoughts on many of the great gadgets, websites and mobile applications currently on the market? If you answered yes to these questions, we want to hear from you! Yulmedia is currently looking for passionate writers to write blog posts for a major Canadian Tech and Gadget blog (www.sync-blog.com). You will be asked to write posts at least two times per week, and your posts should have an average of 250 words.

Portfolio site design – Are you an aspiring designer? Good with types? Want a cool site in your portfolio? This project might be for you. The project is simple: build a clean portfolio site based on WordPress. You would have complete creative freedom, as long as the site used a dark background and supported video embedding.

Finally, Some Hot Freelance Jobs


Need help?
How to get an online job.
How to avoid online scams.

This post is a weekly feature – we post a list of online, work-from-anywhere, jobs every single week. Be sure not to miss the next list of jobs. Subscribe to Like Chapaa today, or sign up to receive free email updates.

Filed Under: Online Jobs Tagged With: , , ,

500 Million Dollars, Gold Farming, And A Death Cry

August 29, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Nearly 500,000 people in developing nations earn a wage making virtual goods in online games to sell to players, a study has found.

Research by Manchester University shows that the practice, known as gold-farming, is growing rapidly….Professor Richard Heeks, head of the development informatics group at Manchester who wrote the report, said gold farming had become a significant economic sector in many developing nations.

“I initially became aware of gold farming through my own games-playing but assumed it was just a cottage industry,” said Professor Richard Heeks from the University of Manchester who wrote the report.

“In a way that is still true. It’s just that instead of a few dozen cottages, there turn out to be tens of thousands.” Prof Heeks said very accurate figures for the size of the gold farming sector were hard to come by but his work suggested that in 2008 it employs 400,000 people who earn an average of $145 (£77) per month creating a global market worth about $500m. But, he said, the true size of the sector was hard to estimate – it could easily be twice as big. – BBC NEWS.

I used to run a video games’ arcade near Pangani in Nairobi – the business was good and the experience quickly made me realise that kids in Kenya nowadays are very much into games. We don’t have a shortage of people who can play games in Kenya. But many of these people who can play games are on the street and unemployed. Why isn’t gold farming working here in Kenya? I think that it can be a significant source of income for young people.

The following video is an in-depth look at the realities of gold farming in China:

Most MMO players hate gold farmers and it is not hard to find “All gold farmers must die” videos on youtube. Mostly, though you get them as all “Chinese” gold farmers must die. I think this is sad, and wrong. People have to realise that different people play for different reasons – some for fun, and some for a living.

When you get people with more money than time and others with more time than money the two will find a way to meet. What do you think?

Filed Under: Internet Culture Tagged With:

There’s Money To be Made…

August 27, 2009 by 6 Comments

Just a short post on the ongoing Biashara 30 program. We recently had the first B30 participant make $30 online by getting a writing job. Congratulations to Maria! That concludes the first (and boring) part of Biashara 30. We had been taking a look at how to get online jobs. Now, we move to the more interesting bit on how to actually start an internet business.

Getting a business started online requires some of the same business principles that need to be adopted in a traditional business for it to be successful.

1. A niche Market of People that require a product or service.
2. A Product or service That Fills Their Need
3. An outlet Where They Can Find the Product or Service (Your Website)
4. A Way of Letting That Market Know You Have The Product
5. An Offer
6. A Way to Deliver the Product
7. A Way For Your To Get Paid.

This is where Biashara30 gets interesting! We’re going to go through each of the above steps together and, if things go to plan, launch a few new businesses!

Stay tuned. If you’d like to learn more on how you can participate in Biashara 30, please click here.

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Tagged With:

Do You Also Want To Be A Successful Freelancer? [Interview]

August 26, 2009 by 20 Comments

For the readers that don’t know, our interviewee today is an accomplished freelancer from right here in Kenya! She’s one of the most successful local freelancers I have heard of, having won a one year government tender to offer writing and editorial services for a regulatory state corporation recently. Imagine that! Our interviewee pens her thoughts at: http://kenyanfreelancer.blogspot.com. You can also find her on her website: www.smurtnotes.com

Q. You’re quite an achiever, tell us about you.

Thank you for having me here. I am writer, blogger, editor and proofreader. I found my passion in writing about a year ago and decided to pursue it, at first on a part time basis before taking it up full time at the beginning of the year.

Q. How did you start?

I started freelancing by chance. I had been working in corporate Kenya since leaving collage and my last FT job was in the banking sector. Upon leaving the bank and back into the overcrowded job market, I was searching for a job when I chanced upon an online magazine (nairobi.tujuane.com; I still write for them) searching for contributors/freelancers for their business magazine. With little knowledge about online writing but a salient passion and determination for writing, I put forward my application and like they say, the rest is history.

Q. What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?

The people over at tujuane were very supportive, understanding and offered the much needed help. However, the reality of working as a freelancer hit me so hard that it took me a while to adjust. Without a regular work schedule, daily commuting and no boss to answer to, at first it seemed like an easy thing to do, but it took an enormous amount of determination and self-discipline on my part to make it work.

I was also battling with the idea of telling people that I freelance which I must say is somewhat new here in Kenya. (Interestingly, saying you freelance is coded to suggest that one has no regular FT job hence searching). But after much thought, I realized what I did/do is no different than what people with a 9-5 do, just that I work from a home office with my own set of rules, structures and schedules and a very demanding boss-me. This has helped me greatly.

Q. What are the challenges of being a freelancer in Kenya?

Getting people to understand that being a freelancer is not about lazing around the house in your pyjamas and a bowl of pop-corn seated in front of the TV, while others are busy working out there. It’s still difficult to explain to people that I work from my home office, at times working 10-12 hours a day.

There is also the notion that one is not a professional or cannot deliver to par as those working in an office setting.

Finding clients has been an uphill task as Kenyans have been socialized to believe a 9-5 or operating an office outside your house is how one should be making a living. But, I must say this perception is changing, thanks in part to technology that has made it easier and fast to communicate with one’s clients anywhere in Kenya and/or the world.

Q. What was critical to your success?

Having a vision and believing in my abilities. I have also continuously sought to improve my skills by reading widely and attending workshops that can impart the necessary skills needed to be successful.

I am also a risk taker as I believe one can only know the extent of their abilities by taking wise and well calculated chances. Toss in a bit of luck, passion and drive; and you have a winning formula.

I do not view my freelancing as a hobby but as a business, thus putting in place the necessary business structures to support it.

Q. What about the competition and marketing? Do you need to advertise, print flyers participate in conferences or is it mostly through word of mouth?

I can say most of my clients are through word of mouth, networking, knocking on people’s doors and contacts I make at conferences. Having a presence online (blog) has greatly contributed to my marketing efforts. My business card acts as my marketing tool by clearly stating what I do and how I do it.

As for competition, I do not worry about it as the market is large enough for any one person, let alone a multitude, to fully exhaust it. It also depends with one’s line of work, how specialised, demand and market forces.

Q. Do you think that in order to “make it big” online you have to live in a Western country? Or does Kenya offer more or less the same opportunities?

I do believe, as long as you have high speed internet, patience, persistence and good judgment when it comes to making a living online, it does not really matter where you work from. I personally started writing online and still do, before sourcing for clients’ offline.

Q. Where do you see yourself and your business(es) in the next 5 years?

When I made the decision to freelance full time, I ensured to put in place a strategy that will chart my path to accomplishing my goals and vision such as working with a large corporation or even the government-but in the distant future, say, in three years time. But, this came sooner than expected and have had to make adjustments to my plans for bigger things. In the next five years, I hope to have made significant strides by having a freelance agency where businesses, government and NGOs can come to and source for highly skilled freelance professionally for their projects here in Kenya.

Q. If you had to do it all over again, what would you do differently?

To be honest, I wouldn’t change a thing as I have learned so much during my short stint as a freelancer and still do. The only thing I would say… why didn’t I start this sooner!

Q. What advice do you have for internet business entrepreneurs in Kenya?

Just choose an internet service provider that charges for unlimited usage on a monthly basis. This will save you the first headache of working online/remotely without running a huge bill on internet usage. Trust me on this!

Have a contingency plan just incase things do not go as planned e.g. the current power rationing or how to meet your deadlines and other obligations when you are under the weather.

Last but not least, there are so many scams out there and one has to be very careful when venturing into internet business. Google is there to help you filter companies/individuals that want to make you a statistic of scammed individuals online. Just search for companies that you feel are not genuine or suspicious. You maybe surprised what comes of it.

For aspiring freelancers, one thing that needs to be clarified and understood is that not everyone can/should freelance let alone do it successfully. It takes guts, passion, determination and vision, and of course, an entrepreneurial spirit to make it.

Good luck and all the best.

That’s all for today readers. If you’d like to read more, please visit:
Smurt Notes Editorial
http://kenyanfreelancer.blogspot.com
twitter.com/kenyafreelancer

Filed Under: Interviews Tagged With: ,

How To Make Money Playing Games

August 25, 2009 by 1 Comment

“Not long ago, a 43-year-old Wonder Bread deliveryman named John Dugger logged on to eBay and, as people sometimes do these days, bought himself a house. Not a shabby one, either. Nine rooms, three stories, rooftop patio, walls of solid stonework – it wasn’t quite a castle, but it put to shame the modest redbrick ranch house Dugger came home to every weeknight after a long day stocking the supermarket shelves of Stillwater, Oklahoma. Excellent location, too; nestled at the foot of a quiet coastal hillside, the house was just a hike away from a quaint seaside village and a quick commute from two bustling cosmopolitan cities. It was perfect, in short, except for one detail: The house was imaginary.” – Wired.

Yet, there is nothing particularly unusual about this transaction – people buy and sell imaginary items everyday and it is already a billion dollar industry. Crazy, eh? Welcome to the world of massively multiplayer online (MMO) games! As an online gamer, I’ve experienced first hand the potential of making money from MMOs and in this post, I’ll share four main ways you can make money playing online games. The beautiful thing is that I know many, many excellent gamers in Kenya and so it is not hard to imagine that many people can earn money from MMOs right here.

Sale of In-Game Items
In almost all games, there is a game ‘currency’ (this goes by many names depending on what game you are playing and can be something like gold, gil, wood etc) which you can use to purchase other in-game items such as potions, weapons etc. Every player of every game needs these items. One way to get ‘game money’ is to grind it out and do things inside the game to collect the ‘money’. These things are often repetitive and, well, boring. Another, easier and faster, way to earn ‘game money’ is to buy it using real world cash. Therfore, if you can collect huge amounts of ‘game money’, you can sell it at a profit to people who do not want to go through the boring process of collecting their own ‘game money’. This is called ‘gold farming’.

Similarly, you can sell game items such as potions, clothing, amour, weapons and, in the case of , John Dugger, even houses! So how do you do it? You collect the in-game virtual items and sell them for real money, mostly to people in the West who are willing to pay high amounts for such goods.

Undead Warlock - World of Warcraft

Undead Warlock - World of Warcraft

Power Leveling
In MMO games, the characters usually progress through a series of levels, from the lowest one to the highest one – with each level increasing the character’s abilities. ‘Leveling up’ a character is usually time consuming and, well, boring. Therefore, another way to make money from MMOs is to offer ‘power leveling’ services where clients give you access to their accounts, and some money, and you play for them and increase the levels of their characters – you have to be really good and fast so that you do it in a fraction of the amount of time the client would have done it alone.

Do note, however, that there is significant competition from China on the two methods mentioned above.

Account Renting
In most MMOs, there are usually servers which represent different realms in the game. This is to mean that a player in server A has no access to server B, even though it is the same game. This presents a problem to gold farmers – what if you have 20 farming accounts in server A and only 2 in server B yet there is huge demand for gold in server B? This is the reason why many gold farmers rent accounts. They look for respectable accounts in different servers to use to farm their gold. If there is a gold shortage in one server, they can rent more accounts in that server and so be able to supply the needed gold.

How do you make money? You provide the rented accounts. You can earn a steady $10 a day for renting out a single account. The more accounts you have, the more you earn. What if you had 10 accounts rented out earning you $10 a day, each? That’s Kshs 7,000 a day jameni!

Account Selling
In my opinion, this is where the really good money is. In every game online, the characters you play are tied to one account. That means that if the character has really good experience points or other in-game perks, the character is valuable. It takes a lot of time and effort to create a good character in any game and they are people willing to just buy an already established game character. The value of these accounts ranges from $50 to $1,000 or even more. Imagine that!

What do you need to do? You need to play hard to create a properly leveled character and then find people willing to buy that character. Such people are in no short supply, fortunately. 🙂

Where Can You Start?
Okay so you know how money can be made from playing online games. But where and how do you start?

First of all, you have to find a marketplace where you know you can sell your stuff. I recommend MD although many other marketplaces exist. Some others are: MMObay, Accountbar, accountsbay, and livegamer.

Next, find a game that interests you and start playing, or working, as the case may be.

Can This Be Done In Kenya?
Of course. I know very many people who are excellent gamers and who, incidentally, have a lot of time on their hands. I bet you know such people too. Well, such people can make good money doing what they love.

In China, making money from MMOs is huge business. People don’t just do it individually, whole businesses are built for this purpose. Do you own a cyber cafe? Why not hire some of the neighborhood teens to play for pay during the night? Just think about it. Read this.

Filed Under: Make Money, Online Jobs Tagged With: ,

Looking For A Job?

August 24, 2009 by Leave a Comment

More Freelance Jobs

Bloggers Wanted – We’re looking for several talented blog writers to join our team of writers at www.webdesignerdepot.com, a popular blog dealing with web design. Compensation for each article accepted varies depends on length and complexity (average $150) and the position is available on a freelance basis only. Articles must be about web design topics as well as tutorials for Photoshop, Illustrator and others.

Adobe Air Developer – Kerosene Creative Services is a Chicago/Los Angeles based digital advertising firm specializing in the entertainment and lifestyle business sectors. Were create innovative strategies and executions for some of the biggest Hollywood films.

Front-end Developer – Collaborate with developers, designers and product managers to produce an advanced, envelope-pushing UI for a Alexa Top 50 video-sharing portal used by tens-of-millions of users daily.

Photography Blogger – www.Digital-Photography-School.com/ is looking for a feature writer to provide content for it’s blog on a weekly basis (from 1-3 posts per week – to be negotiated). Posts need to be of a high quality and display a knowledge of digital photography.

Blog Writer For Employment Site – Employed Online is hiring for our work from home blogger position. This position is home based and so reliable internet connection and a computer are necessary to being hired. What you will be doing is researching various topics and information that will be given to you, such as job trends, articles, and other information. You will then write short descriptive articles on your findings. You will be paid bi-weekly through PayPal if available or through other means decided upon after hiring.

Freelance Flash Work – I have 5 .swf files. I need to have them play in order within one .swf. I don’t have the original .fla. This is a one time project, but I will keep your contact info on hand for future work. Give me a quote and time frame for the project. If you need more info just message me. Thanks and I look forward to working with you

Talented Freelance Writer Wanted – Suite101.com is looking for talented writers who can write a minimum of 3 non-fiction articles between 400-600 words each month. As a Suite101 writer, you can enjoy the freedom to write what you want, when you want and earn a competitive income off your articles over the lifetime of your career – even if you decide to stop writing for us.

Drupal Developer – We’re looking for an experienced Drupal developer to work together with our development team in Toronto. We’ve been developing Drupal sites for almost 3 years, we’re growing and we’re looking for new talent to join our team.

Engineering Blogger – Knovel (www.knovel.com) is an online technical resource that helps engineers innovate and solve complex problems faster by providing instant access to trusted technical information. We are looking to expand our online presence, and are seeking an Engineer, or Engineering Student, to be a featured writer on our blog (www.knovelblogs.com)

Freelance Web Designer – create a website for a band to fit many genres of music.

Finally, Some Hot Freelance Jobs


Need help?
How to get an online job.
How to avoid online scams.

This post is a weekly feature – we post a list of online, work-from-anywhere, jobs every single week. Be sure not to miss the next list of jobs. Subscribe to Like Chapaa today, or sign up to receive free email updates.

Filed Under: Online Jobs Tagged With: , , , ,

Sunny Bindra’s Sunwords.com – What It Can Be

August 22, 2009 by 7 Comments

So I’ve been poring over Sunny Bindra’s articles really heavily recently. I love his writing and he makes excellent business sense every time he writes. I always, always end up comparing his ideas to those of Seth Godin. In all honesty, they think quite alike on how a business should be properly run. Don’t take my word for it, have a look at their websites and decide for yourself. For those who don’t know, Sunny Bindra writes in the Sunday Nation. Seth Godin is based in the USA and is a renown best-selling author.

So, did you have a look at the two authors’ sites? What do you think? I’ve followed both writers for some years now but it was only recently that I noticed that sunwords.com is, in my view, not all that well developed. I say this with all due respect to Sunny Bindra – I don’t mean to bash him in any way! However, I am an avid reader of his writings and I just wonder, why isn’t his online presence as big as it could be?

Just think about it. How many people LOVE his Sunday articles? I bet a whole lot of people love and respect his work. This is his introductory blog post. See that? 46 comments on day one! However, the rest of his 100+ entries (all beautifully written) have just a handful or no comments. Contrast this with bloggers such as Shiko or Mama whose comment count goes into double digits regularly.

Okay, okay one could argue that Sunwords.com gets a lot of visitors but very few leave comments. That would explain things, right? I thought so too, until I had a look at sunword’s visitor stats. According to Statbrain (hint: Statbrain is really useful to carry out e surveillance on other sites), Sunwords gets 320 visitors a day. Now, I’m nowhere near as popular as Sunny Bindra but Like Chapaa gets 570 visitors a day.

Now, I don’t know about you but I think that Sunwords should be a lot more successful than it is. I have my own thoughts on how to build a successful website but I bet Sunny has access to people much much better than I am at doing this. The big question in my mind is this: why isn’t Sunny doing more with his website? I do not know. There are probably very valid reasons for this. I would, however, like to point out some reasons why it may be of benefit to make Sunwords.com more successful.

Sunny Bindra is already very very successful by any means. However, more success won’t hurt, surely. Ama? Let’s take a look at Om Malik. Om Malik, in my view, is a classic example of the opportunities that the internet can bring. I’m no authority on this but Om Malik has been a writer for a long time. At some point, he set up a website and grew it. Then he set up another, and another……now he owns GigaOm, which is among the top 50 blogs worldwide by Technorati Rank, and is part of CNet‘s 100 Most Influential Blogs. And what about Seth Godin? I believe that, over the years, his blog has been one of the key, if not the key, ‘things’ that sell his books so widely. One of his books is even based on his blog’s writings.

I believe in Sunny Bindra’s wisdom so much that I know he can do something similar. He is already popular, all that’s needed is a little more focus to build an online brand. The possibilities would then be endless. What do you think?

Picture by arturodante.

Filed Under: Blogging, Case Study Tagged With: ,