1. Steal it
This is easy. Just Google any random topic and you will find thousands of places where you can steal from. Copy-paste and you’re done. Easy peasy. Except it does not work and is a little stupid in this day and age.

Sadly, it is worth noting that a significant number of clients who I have worked with before think this is what they need.

2. User-generated content
The idea here is that you hope people will come to your website and entertain themselves while at the same time filling your website with content. This approach has worked for many websites out there but it probably will not work for you. Sawa?

Sturgeon’s Law says that 90% of everything is garbage. This is even more true when you try to deal with user generated content.

Traditionally in Kenya, sites that depend on user generated content do not fair well at all. This is how zuqka died despite being backed by a whole lot of money. Mgangagenge expounds on this:

…UGC needs 24-hour surveillance of user behaviour to monitor usage trends, offensive content, and most of all, SPAM. Once you neglect a UGC site, it either degenerates into a flame war a la mashada, a porn site a la KenyanList/eastafricantube, or a SPAM farm a la Zuqka.

3. Mass Semi-Amateur Content
You know www.e-how.com? This is their content generation strategy of choice. Basically what you do is pay an army of underpaid freelancers to write articles for your website in mass. Learn more.

Of course the quality of content will be higher than user generated content but I personally do not feel that the difference in quality is very pronounced. I would not recommend this for your website.

Besides, Google is clamping down hard on this. Be warned.

4. Using Talented Expert Writers
In theory, this sounds really good. You can hire expert “artists” to write beautiful stuff, polishing every little bit to perfection. If you can do this consistently, your site will be known for its quality, well researched content. I would recommend this, but I feel it may be too expensive for almost everybody. I am tempted to call this the “New York Times” (NYT) approach.

Speaking of which, have you had a look at the NYT financial performance lately? If the NYT brand cannot make this method work, what makes you think it will be sustainable for your relatively small brand? Pole.

5. Scalable Content Creation
If you are going to be able to generate content that is high quality yet affordable and which advances your business goals then you will have to get creative.

A while back Ok Cupid published an article titled “How Your Race Affects The Messages You Get“. Please have a look at that article again – they received thousands of comments and no doubt many other websites talked about it.

Ok Cupid did something very smart. They used a kawaida user survey to publish an interesting, easily consumable, easily share-able piece of content. Brilliant! And you know what? Ok Cupid can do this over and over again because they already have the tools in place. All they need to do is come at it from a different angle and be the at the top of the social news sites again.

What’s the lesson here?

As a business you should strive to collect (or to be privy to) unique information. In almost every business imaginable, you can collect unique information and with just a bit of creativity whip it into amazing content for your website.

Are you a wedding planner? Whats the most comment color themes at your weddings?; Do you sell spare parts? What item breaks down the most? How can people take care of it better?; Do you sell cakes? Why not share unique recipes? What is bought most often? etc etc

The idea is that if you run any business, stuff that you do every day can be turned into simple and interesting content for your website.

If you have not yet started collection interesting data, you can start analyzing existing data. The recent Open Data movement should get you started! Keep in mind that anyone else can do this, though, so use it as a temporary solution while you build your own unique stuff.

Similar Posts:

• The Mobile Web In Kenya
• We Buy Websites
• Shocking Revelations on Internet Porn
• How To Build A Successful Website
• Zuqka Shuts Down

e-Pay Kenya opened its doors in January 2009 as e-pesa then rebranded in 2010 to ePAY-KENYA. Esther Kimani of e-Pay Kenya reached out to us to provide more information on what e-Pay does. This article is based on her information to us, and on good reports their customers.

e-Pay Kenya offers two ways to withdraw your hard-earned money:

1. Moneybookers
“We have an Merchant Agreement with Moneybookers allowing us to officially run a Money transfer website using their services. This explains why the moneybookers fee is lower (11%) than Paypal. We therefore do not operate under any fear of account limitation as we operate with blessings from Moneybookers. We deliver within the hour but often less,” says Esther Kimani of e-Pay Kenya.

2. Paypal
Esther continues, “We use a third-party gateway to avoid the direct interface with Paypal because we have experienced the danger of doing so (when we operated as e-pesa). This explains why the transaction charges are higher (14%) than Moneybookers but then our users enjoy the following benefits:

1. Peace of mind when dealing with us as there is no possibility of our users’ accounts being limited by PayPal
2. Our third-party gateway does fraud tests on our behalf to minimize fraudulent transactions.
3. We have a strict KYC (Know Your Customer) policy. All our users have to send Identification Documents in order to have their accounts verified, thus allowing them to make transactions.
4. We demand that users forward their Paypal Transaction Confirmation emails before they can cash their money. We use this document to authenticate the bona fide account holders. We have caught up with fraudsters who hack into unsuspecting paypal account holders’ accounts.
5. Delivery within 24 hours but often less.”

Charges
The bulk of the fees are charged when you deposit money from Moneybookers/PayPal into e-Pay Kenya. Their charges at this time are as follows:

Moneybookers:

• Deposit 11%
• Withdrawal USD 3 irrespective of the amount

Paypal:

• Deposit 14%
• Withdraw USD 3 irrespective of the amount

Conclusion
It seems to me that e-Pay Kenya has a very well thought-out service. It is the best of all such businesses that I have come across so far. It is a bit pricey, but as we wait for PayPal to open itself up, e-Pay Kenya remains a good and reliable alternative.

What do you think of e-Pay Kenya?

ALERT
As far as I know, the REAL e-Pay Kenya is at: www.epay-kenya.com

NOT: www.epaykenya.com

Similar Posts:

• PayMPESA Helps Withdraw Your PayPal Funds to MPESA
• PayPal Stops Working For Equity Account Holders
• How to Withdraw Money From PayPal in Kenya
• How To Receive Payments Online
• TrINC Money : MPESA-PayPal Service [Updated]

In fact, “You’re a second-class citizen if you don’t know how to read and write today, and in twenty or thirty years the same will be true for people who don’t have basic computer programming skills. Those who don’t understand–at the very least–the concepts of order-of-execution, variables, data structures and recursion will be as socially and economically disadvantaged as the illiterate are now.

There was a time when literacy and basic arithmetic were skills reserved only to intellectuals and monks. Today our monks are programmers who know how to wield magic and illuminate scrolls of code. If you don’t understand what an array is today, or how to loop over it, then you’d better learn or you’ll be screwed tomorrow. The reasons unfold below.” – The Future of IT (click to read more)

Do you know the basics of programming? Are you ‘literate‘?

In case you want to learn the basics of computer programming, then you are in luck. Renown Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun is going to be running a free online course that promises to teach you the basics of computer programming in just seven weeks.

The course is:

CS 101: BUILDING A SEARCH ENGINE
Learn programming in seven weeks. We’ll teach you enough about computer science that you can build a web search engine like Google or Yahoo!

You can sign up for free here: www.udacity.com

Similar Posts:

• Confessions, and the church of Google
• Keyword Research For A Simple Blog Business
• Strategic SEO
• Don’t Be Left Out – Learn How To Make Money Domaining
• An Experiment in Kenyan Movies Part 2 – SEO

Trinc Money seems to be a new service that allows you to transfer money to and from PayPal via MPESA. yes, this means that it lets you both withdraw and deposit money into PayPal using MPESA. Sounds good, eh?

Costs
Apart from the usual PayPal and MPESA fees, Trinc Money charges what seems to be a used to charge a standard flat Kshs 1000 transaction fee. Depending on how much you send, this can work out to be extremely cheap. But is it sustainable?

They have since updated their fees to 6.9% + KES.250

Sustainability
I worry about this service. Does it have the required blessing from PayPal? As far as I know, PayPal does not allow this kind of money transfer service. If your remember correctly, other services got around this issue by packaging themselves as selling “vouchers” which could be redeemed for money. This seems not to be the case with Trinc Money.

Additionally, PayPal is rumored to be very very close to launching fully in Kenya. Would this not outright kill TrincMoney?

I have reached out to Trinc Money for comment on both of the above.

I am sorry if I feel overly critical of TrINC Money, I am just being prudent. I am aware that PayPal frowns upon this kind of “money transfer” business working through PayPal and I would not want the readers of Like Chapaa to suffer any loss as a result of reading this article.

So, dear readers, what do you think of this? Has anyone tried to use Trinc Money?

Response from TrINC Money:

Trincmoney is neither a money transfer service nor a currency exchange service. What we do provide is a platform for registered PayPal users to send electronic PayPal value to the Trincmoney PayPal account. These funds are not withdrawn and are valid PayPal transactions initiated by registered PayPal users.

Upon a customer’s request, our service sends our customers electronic monetary value depicted in ones M-PESA Account representing an equal amount of Cash held by the MPESA Holding Company Limited and which may be redeemed through an M-PESA Agent for an equal amount of legal tender in the Republic of Kenya, to their MPESA registered mobile numbers. Note that MPESA electronic value is NOT legal tender.

With regard to money laundering, Trincmoney carries out the required due diligence on customers who send us money and who receive money from us.

If PayPal were to open up shop on Kenya it would be a blessing to a lot of people who use the Internet to send and receive money. Trincmoney will survive simply because a PayPal withdrawal takes 4 working days to effect while our service is effected within the hour. Also chances are that the charges will be higher.

I hope I have answered your queries. I have also read your blog on our service. Please note that we changed our rates and are now charging 6.9% + KES.250. Check out our Facebook Page and Twitter handle and sample some of our customer reviews.

Similar Posts:

• Another Way to Withdraw Money From PayPal in Kenya
• Opportunity: Online MPESA Agent?
• Receiving Online Payments In Kenya
• PayMPESA Helps Withdraw Your PayPal Funds to MPESA
• How to Withdraw Money From PayPal in Kenya

I get clients asking me for this everyday. The problem is, of course, no one knows how this works. A while back an angry client was up in arms for making their brand seem “cheap”. They could not understand why their brand did not come up when you searched for certain words on Google. (In fact, they went on to call Google Kenya so as to make a complaint). But I digress…

How do you make you site pop up first in the search engine results pages? You can click here to read a detailed answer. Basically, what you need to do is to prove to Google that your website is relevant to the topic being searched and important relative to other websites.

If you company is ABC Ltd and your main competitor is XYZ Ltd, it is fair to assume that you’d both get pretty good websites. After a (hopefully short) while you would both realise that it is important to be found on Google and you would start investigating this. The first thing you’ll likely come across is that you have to optimize your websites. This is sometimes called “on page” SEO. Everyone does it perfectly (or they should!).

Going back to our example, the CEOs of XYZ and ABC would both ensure that their on page SEO is done perfectly if they are reasonably good as CEOs. What next? How does one get an advantage over the other as far as SEO goes? If you ask me, gains from on page SEO are marginal because everyone does it well. The important part of SEO is what you do after you have optimized your website.

Invariably, the other part of SEO can be boiled down to one thing: making sure that as many other websites as possible point a link to your own website. This works this way: when example.com publishes a link to your company’s website, it is taken to mean that example.com is voting for your site’s importance. The more such links you can get, the better!

The problem is that getting these links is expensive and/or time-consuming.

So how do you do this in a scalable way?

Subscribe to Like Chapaa today, or sign up to receive free email updates so that you are notified as soon as we publish part 2 of this article.

Similar Posts:

• SEO Success For Like Chapaa
• An Experiment in Kenyan Movies Part 2 – SEO
• Build An Online Shop You Can Be Proud Of
• Freelancers & SEO – What You Should Know
• How to Start a Niche Website

Like Chapaa 2011 Website Statistics (click for larger image)

PC Operating systems
Of course it is no surprise that Windows is far and away the most popular operating system in Kenya. But it was VERY surprising to me that there seems to be more Mac users than there are Linux users. Does this seem strange to you?

1. Windows – 74.31%
2. Macintosh – 3.88%
3. Linux – 1.76%

I haven’t taken mobile into account above, see blow.

Mobile Operating systems
As you can see in the graphs, the leading mobile operating system is “not set”. I will assume that this can be attributed to the “kawa” phones such as your Nokias, Samsungs and whatnot – i.e. “feature phones”. These feature phones contribute a whopping 11.46% of the visitors to Like Chapaa.

It is interesting to note that the Android operating system is at a respectable 2.71%

1. Feature phones – 11.46%
2. Android – 2.71%

According to this data set, the most popular mobile operating system in Kenya:

1. Symbian OS
2. Unknown
3. Android
4. Samsung
5. Sony Ericsson
6. iOS
7. Blackberry
8. Windows mobile

Most Popular Browser
Firefox is the most popular browser with Internet Explorer coming in second and Google Chrome third. Interestingly, the lead that Firefox has is huge, being more than double its nearest competitor. Another interesting thing is that Google Chrome is almost at par with Internet explorer.

To be honest, these stats are very much unexpected. Globally, the most popular browser by a huge margin is Internet explorer. Perhaps this means that visitors to Like Chapaa are more ‘sophisticated’ when compared to the average Internet user.

1. Firefox – 40.68%
2. Internet Explorer – 17.20%
3. Chrome – 16.28%
4. Safari – 2.70%
5. Opera – 1.91%

Mobile Vs Desktop
It is interesting to note that Mobile visits were at 14.17% only. I’m sure we have all heard that “mobile is the future of Africa”. I agree with that statement to some extent, but the data just does not seem to back it up, does it?

Like Chapaa is an “information/”news” type of website and I attribute the relatively high number of mobile visitors to this fact. I would argue that if you look at the visitor stats of a normal company website, you would get much fewer numbers of mobile visitors.

What does this mean? I am not sure, but, to me, clearly personal computers are still the dominant Internet device among Kenyans. Further to this, if you are building your company website do not put a significant amount of resources into developing a “mobile” version (unless you can afford it).

What do you think of all this?

Similar Posts:

• The “Kenyan App” Market?
• 7 Easy Ways To Access Blocked Websites
• Mobile Survival Kit
• The Mobile Web In Kenya
• 2 Things to Think About When Making Your Website

At the end of the day, Google issued a statement which read:

“We were mortified to learn that a team of people working on a Google project improperly used Mocality’s data and misrepresented our relationship with Mocality to encourage customers to create new websites. We’ve already unreservedly apologised to Mocality. We’re still investigating exactly how this happened, and as soon as we have all the facts, we’ll be taking the appropriate action with the people involved.” – Nelson Mattos

However you think about it, this is wrong. Terribly wrong. It is unacceptable for Google or anyone else to do this. Mocality should definitely press for legal remedies. However, as much as this is wrong, it is also stupid.

Google is a huge organisation. Surely what they stand to gain from doing this in Kenya is pocket change compared to their other earnings, right? Why risk so much PR damage for such little relative gain? This makes me feel that this was not ‘sanctioned’ at the highest levels of Google. It makes me feel that this was done at the ‘Kenyan’ level i.e. at Google Kenya. Of course it does not make it okay in any way, but it makes more sense than trying to think of why Larry Page (Google CEO) would agree to such a stupid plan in the grand scheme of things.

The ‘web directory’ industry in Kenya is very competitive right now (think of Nsoko, Craigslist, Mocality, and the tens and tens of other competitors) so of course what Mocality has managed to do is impressive and rightly so. Clearly, when Google set up KBO someone at Google was put in charge of this project and given the ‘orders’ to grow it aggressively.

Rumors flying about seem to suggest that Google hired an Indian company, iridium Interactive (they have since denied having any part in this), to help in the job of growing the KBO initiative. My guess is that iridium Interactive and possibly one or two people at Google Kenya:

• Saw Mocality as a big competitor OR
• Saw Mocality as an easy way to get people to use KBO (i.e. steal from the Mocality database) OR
• All the above

So what did they do? They set up what they thought was a clever plan to use Mocality’s large database to their advantage: they started contacting the businesses listed by Mocality and offering them free websites via KBO. Makes sense, in a way, because most of the businesses listed at Mocality have no website. Here’s what one of the businesses contacted in this fradulent way had to say:

“OMG!!!!! We received a call on the office line (the one listed on Mocality) from India stating that they were offering website services. I think the guy on phone was Deepak or something (it sounded almost like a scam) the guy said he was from Google Kenya blah blah, we refused the offer as we already have a site. Then few days ago I was just searching our page when I stumbled upon our site on .kbo.co.ke site…I mailed them n told them to take it down! aaaaaaaarg!!!!!!” – Lucia

So, well, the ‘Google’ guys contacted this business and offered to move them to KBO. This initial contact is important because at this point you can offer to sell a domain name to the business (because just building a website with KBO is free). So after the business declined this offer, the ‘Google’ guys went ahead and built them a site on KBO anyway. From this, it seems that the goals of the Google fraud were:

1. To get as many businesses on KBO as possible. This was the main goal.
2. To sell domain names to businesses which get on KBO (if possible). I believe this is why ‘Google’ did not just go ahead and build the businesses KBO sites without first contacting them and trying to sell the additional optional domain name.

So who is to blame? Google is. But I think that this ‘fraud’ was not sanctioned by the whole of Google. To me, it seems that iridium Interactive (they have since denied having any part in this) and some Google Kenya employees thought this scheme up as a clever (they thought) way to build up their new service quickly. It is sad that the whole of Google now has to deal with the mess of a few greedy individuals.

What do you think of all this?

Update
Comment from iridium Interactive:

Dear Sir/ Madam
In the context of the latest conversations regarding the Scraping & Calling operations done on Mocality’s databse by Google, Iridium Interactive officially & categorically denies any involvement in these operations. Any allegations/ rumors indicating our involvement are baseless, false and grossly misinterpreted.

Juliet Gateri
Business Manager

Similar Posts:

• Google Being Evil in Kenya
• DOG/FOG
• 7 Easy Ways To Access Blocked Websites
• Using Google
• SEO Success For Like Chapaa

For those that do not know, Mocality is one of Kenya’s largest business directories with over 170,000 verified businesses in its database. it has been in Kenya for a number of years.

Late last year, Google launched the “KBO” initiative to get Kenyan businesses online by offering them ‘free’ websites built on Google technology.

Clearly, Google had seen and concluded that Mocality is one of their biggest competitors as far as KBO goes. So what did they do? They hired/sponsored/authorized a team of people to systematically go through Mocality’s database and call each business listed therein. The caller then pretended that Google was in partnership with Mocality and asked the business to move to KBO. So, in effect, Google was lying to these businesses to get them to move from Mocality to KBO.

I’m sorry…. what? I thought Google’s mantra was “don’t be evil”?. I guess they thought they would not be caught since we are in, you know, Kenya.

Read more about this here: GOOGLE, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

Update
Nelson Mattos, Google’s Vice-President for Product and Engineering, Europe and Emerging Markets, writes:

We were mortified to learn that a team of people working on a Google project improperly used Mocality’s data and misrepresented our relationship with Mocality to encourage customers to create new websites. We’ve already unreservedly apologised to Mocality. We’re still investigating exactly how this happened, and as soon as we have all the facts, we’ll be taking the appropriate action with the people involved.

Similar Posts:

• Who Was Behind The Google Mocality Shenanigans? [Updated]
• Find A Small Problem, Provide A Simple Solution
• Using Google
• DOG/FOG
• SEO Success For Like Chapaa

“It’s the first month of a new year and at this time I’m itching to start new web ventures both for fun and profit. I usually do up a list of possible startup and site ideas and narrow them down into those with the highest potential. But success depends on execution and not just plans so I tend not to be too hung up about having a complete vision of what I want.

A little vagueness won’t hurt. I can always muddle through and change things up in response to market conditions or personal interest. No need to be perfect from the start.

I looked at many websites to study their methods, to learn what made them a success. I started planning what specific niche I wanted to explore and suddenly realized that I was thinking about the whole thing in a roundabout way.

There’s really no need to think hard about having the perfect idea. The foundations of popular and profitable websites/services are deeply related to the basic reasons why people get online and use the internet. Let’s do some reverse engineering from that perspective.

So, why do people worldwide use the internet?

1. To communicate and socialize
   This is very much a fundamental human need. People like to meet and talk to other people through the internet. They use it to maintain new or existing relationships. They want to communicate ideas and find solidarity with others who share similar interests. So do something which facilitates communication. Hyper-local or cross-border communities, social networks, virtual worlds, apps or services built on existing communication/social protocols and services. Bring human social activities onto the internet grid. Socialize existing web functions, emphasize on connecting people.




2. To find information, learn new things and be entertained
   The internet is a massive archive of new and old information. It is also a source of pleasure, giving immediate gratification in the form of images, sound and interactivity. As an educational tool, the web is essential for people who are seeking to learn.

   People want to find things online. So help them. Create a system which provides information or filters existing content. Monetize the flow of data. Blogs, training courses, social news, aggregated news, paid membership sites, online journals, one-stop entertainment portals, video, image and game hubs with a specific focus.

3. To do work, generate income and run a business
   People use the internet to make a living. It is essential to many businesses that want to increase brand exposure or sell a product/service. They also use the web to help them work better. There is a market of webmasters, entrepreneurs and small/big businesses out there who are willing to pay to boost their revenue. Consultancies, design firms, freelancers, enterprise software, business-specific tools/apps and services. Think of ways to help people work smarter and more efficiently online.

And of course, there’s the e-commerce industry and the buying/selling of products. There’s really a lot more specific reasons why people get online. Everyone of them is an idea for a product/service/website. Most likely there’s already someone out there in the same niche doing the same thing. The question is not how many competitors are there but how saturated and fulfilled are each web user’s reasons/needs.

Differentiate by presenting alternate solutions. Or stand on the shoulders of giants and improve existing services/websites even more. Learn to do some clever marketing and you should do fine. Cut your losses early by quitting when you’ve lost the passion or will to work hard. Because one rarely gets profitable or influential without interest or perseverance.”

Similar Posts:

• Earning Money From Niche Websites
• We Buy Websites
• How To Find Profitable Internet Business Models
• The Big Secret To Success
• Keyword Research For A Simple Blog Business

Juliani's advert

While surfing the web, I was very intrigued to see a Google Adwords advert of Juliani. As an Internet lover, this excites me! It is good to see that the ‘net has penetrated the country so much to the extent where musicians take out Google Adword ads! Nice, eh?

So I clicked the advert to see what, exactly, Juliani wanted to say. I was a little disappointed to see that the link led to Juliani’s profile on Google+. What does Juliani stand to gain by having his adverts lead people there?

• He obviously will get his ads out on the big Internet and people will see them
• People may watch the two music videos on the Google+ profile
• He might get more fans/followers on Google+ (but keep in mind that relatively few people use Google+ in Kenya)

Now let’s think about this rationally. Was it really effective online marketing to have the adverts lead to a Google+ profile? I would argue that this, in fact, is a big mistake on Juliani’s part. Why? In my opinion, the return on investment is too low to be justifiable.

Think about it. Every single time that advert is clicked, Google charges a certain amount. So when I clicked that advert, Juliani paid Google. Now, Juliani is good at what he does and so he is fairly popular – how many more people clicked the ads? It is very easy for the costs to Juliani to skyrocket.

What is he getting out of it?
Before I saw the link, I already knew about and loved Juliani. I went to his Google+ profile, watched the videos and left. That’s just about as much as you can do. In my opinion, the purpose of marketing is to earn you money – directly or indirectly.

Juliani’s advert should have led to some sort of “call to action” which has a measurable relationship to something that can earn Juliani some money. Where can we buy his music online? When is his next concert, and where can I get a ticket? The sad thing is that Juliani already has a pretty good website which answers these questions. You can even buy his music online right now!

Why not link elsewhere? Is it really prudent to pass up an opportunity to show potentially thousands of people that they can purchase your music online?

Who made the decision to link the advert to Google+? Why not Facebook or Twitter – where I imagine many more Kenyans reside? What is the purpose of Juliani’s own website if not to be the center of his online marketing efforts?

A lot of people think that social media is the end all be all. No! It is not about getting more fans/followers. It is about placing your self/business in a position where you can easily and conveniently communicate and engage with your market so as to further your goals. As a business, the centre of all your online activities should never be on twitter or facebook, it should be on your own website. Social media is meant to engage with and funnel people to your website.

What should have Juliani done?
He should have created a custom landing page on his own website where those people who clicked ont he advert would be directed to. On this custom page, people would:

• be given information on who Juliani is
• be given the opportunity to follow Juliani on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ (it makes no sense to limit their interaction to only one network)
• be given the opportunity to buy Juliani’s music online
• be showed where to keep up to date on Juliani and his upcoming events

I would go as far as saying that right now Juliani is needlessly losing money!

Similar Posts:

• The 9 Worst Ways to Use Facebook for Business
• When Makmende gets a nature call, he hangs up!
• How NOT To Make Money Online
• Hustling Is Over. Now You Can Sell your Music Online.
• Interesting Kenyan Sites #22