Written on July 3, 2008 – 10:49 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Remember my ‘Wow!’ post about Nimbuzz last May? The Dutch mobile VoIP and IM start-up then launched a VoIP app that was compatible with more than 500 handsets which allowed free calling in 50 countries. I received a couple of comments on this lyric post, mostly from people who wondered why they should say other mobile VoIP clients like Fring and Truphone goodbye, and start using Nimbuzz. I figured that yesterday’s announcement about their second round of funding - $15 million from a round led by Naspers/MIH and Mangrove (known from Skype) - was a good excuse to dive a little deeper in that.
The Nimbuzz team relaxing
With 500k seed capital, a series A of $10 million in 2007, now another $15 million, 70 employees, and offices opening in Argentina and Brazil, there must be something special about Nimbuzz. Of course you could say they’re the prime example of a new bubble, but that would be a little too simple and cynical. So I’ve contacted Tobias Kemper from Nimbuzz to figure out what they offer that 129 other mobile VoIP start-ups don’t. Turns out it’s a rather technical story.
Kemper: “Fring is focused on 3G and Wifi, Truphone is trying to be more of an operator and isn’t free. And - as no one has understood this yet - we do buddy calling, we’re connecting existing communities. Fring also has buddy calling but nowhere near the seamless experience that we can offer, since we also work on GPRS and EDGE. Again, Fring does work on Edge, but not without credits such as SkypeOut.” Right.., so to sum it up: Nimbuzz has a broader reach as they support more mobile generations.
That’s a good thing, as Kemper told me they’re not just focusing on techies and early adopters - even though these groups are the only ones who know what mobile VoIP is about. Hence their effort to support to reach that number of 500 compatible handsets. Kemper: “We even work in more countries than Truphone with our dial in solution and had it since inception, whereas Truphone only came out with it last month and it seemed to be all the rage.”
As an expansion of their accessibility promise, Nimbuzz will soon launch a “Communicator” widget (terrible name, Kemper agrees) that allows visitors of your site and social profile or readers of your emails to connect to your phone, even if they’re not on Nimbuzz.
So to answer the questions of commenters like Travis and Bram, if you’re happy with Fring and Truphone, stay there. Though you might want to switch when Nimbuzz becomes more popular. I think they will, as they sincerely seem to focus on people who don’t own an iPhone or fancy Nokia phone. Yet we have to remember that the group with less-developed phones might not be interested in this whole mobile VoIP thing, as it’s hard to grasp. Also, the accessibility-mission has a major downside, with makes Nimbuzz - ironically enough - less accessible: the size of their app is around 1 MB - which is way too large. So that aspect needs some work.
Nimbuzz is currently expanding to Latin America and Africa, following the footprint of their investor Naspers/MIH - who already owns a stake in Mxit, a popular South African GPRS and 3G-based IM service. According to Kemper, Nimbuzz is “actively talking with operators and social networks to intergrate our solution and offer our features.” Sounds like they’ve no problems finding destinations for that 15 million.
I hope you like that post!
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Written on April 23, 2008 – 11:31 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Some sessions at the Web 2.0 Expo cover really broad subjects, like the one I’m attending right now: “Global Design Trends“. Instead of covering the whole story, I decided to pick an interesting subject that was part of the discussion.
Moderator
Aaron Marcus weared his open cultural communications hat
Erik Hersman represented the continent of Africa and shared some surprising insights. He grew up the son of linguistic missionaries in Africa, bouncing back and forth between Sudan and Kenya until he left to the US for college. He is now an independent strategy consultant who writes about high- and low-tech change in Africa at AfriGadget and White African.
According to Hersman, developers should consider power availability, mobile access, connection possibilities when developing a service. “Obviously”, Hersman said, “There’s more low-hanging fruit in other parts of the world”. Though he concluded that there are opportunities in the continent. So, what factors should you take in account as a designer?
He used a screenshot of professional East-African portal Zunguka to illustrate the differences between western and African design.
For starters, the design of Zunguka is plain, simple and far from fancy. “The site lay-outs in Africa are very basic, as the connections Africans use are generally really slow. Most people log in from internet cafe’s with low-bandwidth connections. You might also notice that users don’t have to specify an e-mail address when signing up. Since this is not a digital identifier in Africa. Instead of that, the service asks for a cell phone number. Mobile phones are the pc’s of Africa.”
Written on February 19, 2008 – 3:21 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Yesterday, Reuters published an article that provides another interesting view on the advantages of blogging. Editors Andrew Dobbie and Sara Ledwith have interviewed several gay Africans and Arabs about how blogs allow them to discuss and describe what they have to hide in daily life. As homosexual acts are illegal in most countries in Africa and the Middle East. Some leaders, like President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, even deny the existence of gays.
“If you haven’t heard or seen any gays in Sudan then allow me to tell you ‘You Don’t live In The Real World then,’” Sudanese blogger Ali wrote in a message to other Sudanese bloggers on his blog Black Gay Arab. The blogging scene have become one of the safes ways for suppressed men like Ali to meet. Gug, writer behind the blog GayUganda, told Reuters that he ‘looked around for others until I found others’. Gug: “Oh yes, I do love the Internet, and I guess it is a tool that has made us gay Ugandans and Africans get out of our villages and realize that the parish priest’s homophobia is not universal opinion. Surprise, surprise!”
This blog was created to allow access to the psyche of me, who represents the thousands of us who are unrepresented
Next to supportive comments, the gay bloggers also receive hostile messages. Yet they keep up their diaries and news blogs, proving to their fellow citizens that African and Arab gays do exist. As a Kenyan man says on Ali’s blog: “The Kenyan gay man is a myth and you may never meet one in your lifetime. However, I and many others like me do exist; just not openly. This blog was created to allow access to the psyche of me, who represents the thousands of us who are unrepresented.”
Written on December 24, 2007 – 9:45 am
Guest blogger, sharing views on The Next Web
As you might expect, almost every technological development starts in developed countries. Almost. Because one of the latest developments, mobile micropayments, is unheard of in the United States and Europe but is already up and running in developing countries like Kenia and India.
In Kenia, for instance, the mobile micropayment service M-Pesa launched in February. M-Pesa allows workers in the capital of Nairobi to transfer small amounts of money to their rural relatives, using their mobile phone. It’s a simple service based on text messaging, the only things needed are a PIN and a national ID number for identification. The receiver can collect the money at any small shop or petrol station nearby that acts as an M-Pesa agent (there are already hundreds around the country). A home address or a banking account is not necessary, which is probably the biggest advantage, because many Africans lack both.
Evidently, that is why mobile micropayments aren’t very popular in the US or Europe. Americans and Europeans both have home addresses and banking accounts, on top of that there is a large concentration of banks in the US and EU-countries, which makes micropayments somewhat redundant. Tim Jones, principal of innovation consultancy Innovaro in London says: “It’s unlikely that such a service would have taken off in Europe or the United States, where banking alternatives are already in place. But combine a rarity of banking services with the growing prevalence of cell phones and, much to the surprise of those focused only on developed markets, Africa is leap-frogging ahead of Europe in the area of micropayments”.
“Africa is leap-frogging ahead of Europe in the area of micropayments”
Meanwhile, the worldwide GSM Association and Mastercard partnered to develop an identical service in India. And Western Union, the dominant player in global remittances, is developing a micropayment service for Latin Americans to transfer money to their home country relatives. Mobile micropayment services skip banking services, which makes money transferring much more accessible for people in developing countries with few banking facilities. It makes banking easier, it stimulates low-income people to manage their funds in a more efficient way without having to open a banking account. Micropaying is helping them to put a safety net under their family, it gives them the ability to build a stable income. Eventually they might be able to start their own business and even grow their income. Mobile micropayment services overcome the problem of few banking facilities and gives underdeveloped countries the possibility to strengthen their economy.
An interesting question is: When will charity organizations jump in? Wouldn’t it be great if we could send money through our mobile phone directly to our fellow African entrepreneurs that just have the disadvantage of operating in a tough economy? We could personally stimulate them to succeed! Not just by sending money, we could call them, text them like we do with any other friend or colleague. What could be more satisfying than personally helping someone in need, without an organization or person in between? It’s the ultimate altruistic dream.
This is a guest post by mobile marketeer Peter Evers
3g, Africa, fring, gprs, latin america, mobile, mobile voip, Nimbuzz, south-africa, tobias kemper, truphone, wifi
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