Interview by KTN’s Larry Madowo with Mark Kaigwa and Kahenya Kamunyu. Watch and share 🙂
Archives for November 2009
Kisstv.co.ke – whoooops!
November 16, 2009 by 5 Comments
Spot the difference: KissTV Vs JA Tube.
It looks like whoever made the Kiss Tv website used a Joomla template. Joomla is one of the leading content management systems so, at the very least, the Kiss Tv website is build on solid ground (code). However, this means that the designer hired/tasked to make the Kiss Tv site did little or no ‘designing’. What do you think about this? People have made millions from Joomla in exactly the same way…
What do I think about this? Well, it is a little embarrassing when people learn that a major website was made using a publicly available template but I have absolutely no problem with this. Using templates/themes means we can drastically cut website development time and costs as well as have elegant, well designed websites instead of the absolute eyesores that we used to see.
How much do you think the person who made the Kiss Tv site was paid? Why can that not be you? All you need to do is learn how to use WordPress, Joomla or Drupal and you’re well on your way. Making websites using these systems is easy. Good luck!
As a parting shot, will the designer of the Kiss Tv site please fix the top navigation bar?
What The Hell Is Cloud Computing?
November 15, 2009 by Leave a Comment
Cloud computing is one of those topics that confuses and confounds people. But it’s a hot topic so there is need to explain the topic in simple terms that pretty much anyone can understand.
Fortunately, the following videos completely demystify cloud computing. Watch and share 🙂
Other interesting videos on cloud computing:
Banks and Bank Loans in Kenya
November 11, 2009 by 22 Comments
This article is written by Bonface Kamau, who is going to be writing on banking right here on Like Chapaa. Is there anything that you’d like to know about banking in Kenya? Bonface is the man, just contact us with your questions.
Money makes the world go round. Based on this principle, banks have seized the opportunity to bridge the gap between the financially surplus and the financially deficit through loans and overdrafts (bank credits). Since banks are actually businesses with a profit motive, they charge interest on the credit, calculated on a compound interest basis.
This interest that banks charge must cover their bad debts and non-performing loans – referred to as the interest exposure – which is calculated by professionals before banks come up with a standard interest rate.
Commercial banks’ having defied a directive to reduce their interest rates by the Central Bank of Kenya has led to customers being offered loans at very uncompetitive terms. The only banks offering competitive interest rates on their loans are K.C.B and Southern Credit Bank (which unfortunately operates in Nairobi only). However, the Central Bank of Kenya issues directive to banks to subsidise their interest rates on loans meant for nation building like loans to start a business and currently to farmers which is at about 15% p.a as compared to 17-21% offered on normal loan terms.
It is worth noting the tremendous growth in our non-banking financial institutions which offer loans at a much lower interest rate. However, any transaction entered into with these institutions such as a loan agreement, should be weighed heavily as this non-banking financial institutions are not regulated and/or scrutinised thoroughly as banks. This leads to questions being raised about their integrity and accountability. One may consider the youth and women’s fund if you want do not meet the requirements asked by the banks.
This should not discourage you, however. If you have a viable idea and a burning desire to transform that idea into a lucrative business, then go for financing. Business owners and entrepreneurs are known as risk takers – just bite the bullet and go for what you think works for you.
As we review the merits of bank loans, acquiring one should not lead one from a bad situation to a worse one. Ask your banker all the relevant questions not forgetting to inquire about any hidden charges. Let the banking hall be the birth place for success.
Take What You Can Get? Really?
November 10, 2009 by Leave a Comment
I love Seth Godin, he writes articles that make me really think. Below, I have reproduced one of his articles, in full. It’s just that good.
When you’re just starting out or when your organization is struggling or when the economy isn’t hot, it’s very tempting to take what you can get.
You just graduated from law school and you have a lot of debt and the best job you can get is doing collections work. Should you take it?
Your consulting firm is organized around providing high-value work for large corporations, but the only gigs you can get in the consideration set for are small, struggling companies looking to spend a few hundred dollars a day. Should you take them?
The list goes on and on.
There are two things worth remembering here:
- Like bending a sapling a hundred years before the tree is fully grown and mature, the gigs you take early will almost certainly impact the way your career looks later on. If you want to build a law practice in the music industry, you’ll need to take on musicians as clients, even if the early ones can’t pay enough. If you want to do work for Fortune 500 companies, you’ll need to do work for Fortune 500 companies, sooner better than later.
- The definition of “can get” is essential. Maybe it seems like this gig or that gig is the best you can get because that’s all you’re exposing yourself to. Almost always, the best gig I could get is shorthand for the easiest gig I could get.
Surviving is succeeding, no doubt about it. Doing the work is better than not doing the work. Waiting for perfect is never as smart as making progress. But, and it’s a huge but, you define yourself by the work you do, and perhaps you need to redefine what you’re willing to take and where you’re looking for it.
The lesson that I take from this is, don’t settle for what you have – always, always strive to get what you really want. I’m talking to you if you’re stuck in that job that you’ve been wanting to quit for years; I’m talking to you if you’ve been “planning” to start your own business forever. Do something, start now.
Pesatupu Vs Peoplestring
November 9, 2009 by Leave a Comment
Peoplestring isn’t your average social network. Yes, it is a social network site much like Facebook, but with a surprising twist: you earn money for just using the website.. Interestingly, the makers of peoplestring pledge to share upto 70% of the site’s earnings with its users. They will make periodic payments to members for doing things that we all do anyway: read email, invite friends, surf the net, etc etc. Cool eh?
Read more about peoplestring. I think it is pretty cool – you should try it out.
What about pesatupu.com? This one is interesting. If you visit www.pesatupu.com, you will notice that it looks exactly like peoplestring. Weird? Yes, very weird and possibly criminal. I do not know why the people behind pesatupu have done this – my guess is that it is some sort of subtle ploy. Notice that people string pays its members whenever they invite their friends to use it. I am guessing that when you sign up to peoplestring from pesatupu.com, the makers of pesatupu get paid. Of course, I could be wrong.
Whether I am wrong or not, pesatupu is a sham. Making money is good, but not like this.
SEO Success For Like Chapaa
November 9, 2009 by 4 Comments
Like Chapaa on the Google gravy train. (Click to see larger image)
When we launched Like Chapaa, one of our goals was to get onto the first page of Google search results when you search for “make money in Kenya”. This is because, well, Like Chapaa is about making money in Kenya. As you can imagine, that was quite a task – “make money” is one of the most competitive search terms in the whole world.
Sometime recently, we achieved our goal! Like Chapaa is now #5 when you search for “make money in Kenya” 😀 We also rank pretty well for other search terms that we had been targeting.
Why is this important?
Well, when you have a website, your visitors can come from two main ‘places’: you can have people visit you by typing in your url into their browsers, or you can have search engines like Google refer people to you.
By far, search engines send a well established site the bulk of its visitors. It is therefore important to optimise your site such that when people search for certain terms on search engines, they find your site. This is called search engine optimisation (SEO) and it is super important for any website. For example, if you search for “Like Chapaa” on Google, you will find this website.
So, how do you do SEO?
At the basic level, there are two interlinked factors to consider when you think of SEO. These are:
1. Relevance – this is simple to grasp. For instance, If you want people who search for “golf” to find your site, then your site must be about golf. If your site is about oranges then people who search for bananas cannot find you.
2. Authority – this a bit more complex and is interlinked to “relevance”. Let’s say that in the whole world, there exists 10 sites about bananas. Now, when someone searches for “bananas” on Google, she is going to find all ten sites. But, Google will rank the ten sites and list them sequentially. Why does Google do this ranking? No one really knows. However, we do know that Google uses, among other factors, links to rank websites. Look at it like this, if another site, say www.fruits.com writes about bananas and places a link to your website, Google takes this to mean that www.fruits.com has ‘voted’ for and vouched for you to be a website about “fruits”. Now, the more such votes that your website has, the better your rank according to Google and other search engines.
To get Like Chapaa to where it is, we first of all made sure that we talk regularly about making money in Kenya. Then, we used any and all means available to us (some of these are here) to get some authority for our voice, our website.
Guess what? Being on the first page of Google results for several nice keywords has really boosted the number of visitors to Like Chapaa. This Google thing really does work, hehe 🙂
We would be happy to answer any questions that you may have.