Having censored YouTube since 2009 when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was controversially returned to power, Iran has now launched its own version of YouTube. The country say that the content on YouTube is “inappropriate” and so the new website targets the Persian speaking users.

The new video sharing network is called ’Mehr,’ meaning ‘affection’ in Farsi, also has its own Facebook page dedicated to providing links to its content. The page also provide Iranian music videos.

The country also censors Facebook, Twitter, some blogs as well as most porn sites. The country has also vowed to create “own intranet,” accusing the current internet of being untrustworthy as it is controlled by not more than 2 countries. Iran intends to launch the wall of information by early 2013.

The country’s information network will be second only to North Korea’s ‘Kwangmyong,’ launched in 2002. The Kwangmyong has its own newsgroups, a browser, an email program and a search engine. Direct access to the World wide Web is largely censored, much like China’s ‘Great Firewall.’

A 16-year old boy from Sierra Leone who created batteries and generators using  acid, soda, and metal parts he scavenged from trash bins is drawing admiration among experts in the U.S. Doe is using his inventions to light-up  his neighbourhood.

Kelvin Doe has became “the youngest person in history“ to be invited to the “Visiting Practitioner’s Program” at MIT.

Doe who calls himself “DJ Focus” has also managed to build a community radio station where he broadcasts news and plays music. He built the generator powering the radio station from an old voltage stabilizer trashed in cans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOLOLrUBRBY

Kelvin’s engineering prowess was noticed by David Monina Sengeh who is a graduate student from MIT Media Lab. David runs an innovation camp in Sierra Leone called Innovate Salon, supported by Global Minimum. David arranged for Doe to visit the ivy-league college .

“It’s an opportunity for him to create the future that he wants to live in,” Sengeh said in the video.

IMG

You have a reliable internet connection and you use Chrome or Firefox. Since you are outside the USA, you cannot watch your favourite shows and series just because of your location. Now worry no more. There is an extension for you for any of the two browsers. ProxTube is just what I have been waiting for. Now I can watch any of the shows I want after having this plugin installed on my computer.

The plugin will unblock all US-only videos for anyone to watch

ProxTube automatically routes your YouTube traffic through a proxy server in the US, so YouTube thinks you’re visiting the site from a US location.

Last year, we detailed such a method which Google later blocked. Check the new plugin/extension and thank me later.

Safaricom has unveiled a new campaign which comes after the much talked about 2010 Niko na Safaricom ad. The new video has different sceneries and the Niko na Safaricom soundtrack is also at a much slower tempo than then 2010′s. Some of the scenes I can pick from the advert are Olduvai Gorge, Hell’s Gate, Lake Naivasha, Mau Escarpment, Mt Longonot, Mt Kenya and Lake Turkana.

It is not clear what Safaricom has spent to create the current campaign but the 2010 campaign was reported to have cost Safaricom some clean $1 Million. Safaricom was even accused of copy pasting from the Spirit of Australia advert.

Check out the advert

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzAMnrjtxIw

What do you think about the new campaign?

After the ‘Kony 2012’ YouTube video which was a great phenomenon, ordinary Ugandans felt that their voice were never heard and their story told. The Invincible Children’s video was viewed more than 100 million times and shared globally like has never been done before.

The phenomenon was said to be the greatest, eclipsing the likes of Lady Gaga and Justin Beiber who were previously considered to be the kings and queens of viral videos. The #Kony2012 is now officially the most viral video / phenomenon in history.

Great that Lord’s Resistance Army rebel leader, Joseph Kony, is now more known to the world, the bad side of the campaign is that the story told on the video was shallow, mediocre and just cements the Western view of Africa. Nevertheless, the video attracted equally as much criticism from the world as from many Ugandans online who mostly felt ignored and unappreciated.

To correct this, a group of Ugandan netizens and bloggers have launched an online project called UgandaSpeaks, to “..recapture the narrative about Joseph Kony and Northern Uganda from Invisible Children and its #KONY2012”.

The bloggers then released this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eONJChJv1xE

Invisible Children said that their video not meant for the Ugandan audience but for the US audience.

Invisible Children started working in Uganda in 2005. Then, Ugandans were relied on on slow and expensive internet connections. A home internet connection was a luxury which could only be afforded by the elite while most Ugandans relied on cyber cafes. That has changed.

4 sub-marine cables have connected the East African coast to the rest of the world bringing down the cost of internet connection and so leading to greater uptake. Now most of the East African middle class can afford the internet meaning that the #Kony2012 video could not be only popular in US and not seen in Uganda.

It is now harder for Western visitors to distort the African story.

The upcoming movie will chronicle Steve Jobs from his early days as a wayward hip teen to a co-founder of Apple. It will be directed by Joshua Michael Stern (“Swing Vote”) while the script was written by Matt Whiteley.

It will be financed and produced by Five Star Institute’s Mark Hulme. Production scheduled to start production in May while Kutcher is on leave from his hit CBS series.  CAA, which represents both Kutcher and Stern, will represent the pic’s domestic distribution rights.

Sony Pictures is also currently developing its own Steve Jobs film, based on the bestselling book by Walter Isaacson.

Airtel Uganda seems to be the first East African country to use the flash mob marketing. The company recently staged a great mob marketing in one of the Kampala’s premier shopping mall. Within a few days. the flash mob has gained more than 10,000 YouTube views on the Airtel Uganda’s official YouTube channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtWkWdAp37w

Other users have also uploaded the video on YouTube and Facebook. It is interesting to see East African consumers show love for Flash Mobs which is a popular marketing mechanism in the west.

Airtel Uganda used the professional flash mob to market its new ‘Tsup tariff which offers savings on voice, data and SMS.

Is East Africa ready for cool marketing? I think we are, only that our marketers have not done much apart from the occassional import use of adverts meant for other markets. Rarely do we see use of local talent in marketing.

Kony 2012 is not even one week old in the internet. The video was unlashed some 6 days ago and has now been viewed more than 115 million times. The video has beat others by Justin Beiber, Lady Gaga, Beyonce and others to be the world’s most viral video of all time. There has been mixed reactions about the producers and NGO behind the video but that is besides the point.

Going through some statistics of the video by video metrics firm Visible Measures, you realise that Kony 2012 has been a phenomenon. A release from Visible measures reads in part:

As of this morning, the Kony campaign has generated well over 100 million views, 112 million to be exact. The views come from over 750 clips across the web, most coming from video responses to the campaign. There are even translated and subtitled versions of the documentary popping up in Spanish, Italian, French, and Chinese. There are over 860,000 comments for the campaign.

The goal of the campaigners was to raise awareness of what Kony has been doing in Uganda. It is hard to argue if this has been achieved going by the available stats. We just hope that with the response, we will highlight whatever happens all over because Kony might have just been resurrected by this video.

He was already irrelevant. We need to highlight Dafur and other areas like we did Kony 2012

Lovely

This is why I always say that it is great to have a CCTV camera in a shop with very high traffic. The video below is evidence enough. Two smartly dressed women enter a store in the Dar-es-salaam shopping mall, Milimani City, pretending that they want to buy some jewellery.

One who is plus size is pretending that she is sampling the different items available while the other schemes on how she can make her way with the cash. The second woman is successful in her mission and so she nudges the other to finish and they make their way out. The shop attendant realises the theft after sometime and rushes outside.

I wonder if she really got them. Watch

The video has gone viral with more than 3,000 views within the last few days.

Google is set to launch a Nigerian YouTube version today. Nigeria will become the eighth country after Kenya, South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Uganda, Algeria and Tunisia to get their own version of YouTube with localised look and content. Officially, Google has only announced the launch of Youtube in Uganda, Kenya and South Africa

It is not clear what Google will do after the launch of the localised YouTube sites but it has not made a difference to me. When I visit the Kenyan YouTube link, I get the same content listed as popular as when I visit South African, Nigerian and any other.

The only plus for the new YouTube with respective country extensions is just the look and the addition of the country link down there means that I can now see which are the trending, most popular or most viewed videos from a country or region.

I expect the localisation to go deep and have an African link or the ability for a user to add countries which he/she wants to aggregate. It is being done on Facebook and internally on Twitter. I would also love to aggregate videos uploaded from Kenya or on Kenyan channels vs those viewed by Kenyans no matter what channel or location they were uploaded from.

The current localisation of YouTube is just too basic.

Some of the changes you should expect in the refreshed YouTube are;

• Further integration of YouTube with Google+ with you discovering more of what your Google+ Circles have shared on YouTube. YouTube believe that you might just like what your friends share before anything else.
• Left column to let you discover what you subscribe to, featured videos and recommended categories.
• Single column view for homepage view
• Ability to shrink videos or make them fullscreen
• Updated Favicon

We met with Jonathan Gosier, founder of Metalayer and Apps4Africa, at the just concluded Tech4Africa conference in Sandton, Johannesburg. Apps for Africa is the competition which rewards innovative solutions to African problems. The competition is in its second year and the first of this years series will be held in East Africa.

The challenge has attracted interests from far and wide but our hope is that we don’t turn it into a challenge for rewarding comrades like all others have been.

Watch the video;

Contest Dates

• West/Central Africa  (Begins Oct 1, 2011 – Ends Nov 30, 2011)
• Eastern Africa     (Begins  Oct 20, 2011 – Ends Dec 20, 2011)
• Southern Africa  (Begins Feb 1, 2012 – Ends Mar 30, 2012)

Apps Categories;

- Agriculture (Distribution),Early Warning and/or Disaster Preparedness, Resource Management,
Forestry/Deforestation, Transportation/Traffic/Emissions, Food Security, Livestock, Health and Sanitation

Countries Hosting Events -

Mali, Senegal,Nigeria, DRC, Ghana, (West Africa) Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, (East Africa) South Africa, Botswana, Madagascar and Angola (Southern Africa)

For more info, check this link http://bit.ly/vNaS4r

You should watch this video;

Check out the Video below

At the ongoing Children Protection Online conference organised by CCK in Nairobi, these kids did stand out with a clear message to the participants. The message was that they are young, gullible and needs protection from the society and the government. Parents have abdicated their responsibilities to maids, the media and friends in school. These kids were crying out very loud.

Wael Ghonim

Wael Ghonim, the Egyptian Google Executive who started the Facebook revolution which toppled Mubarak recently had a very interesting interview with Jon Snow of Channel4News. In the interview, Wael talked about “Wael the person” saying that the screen barrier brings out his bravery. He also says that the revolution should neither be called a Facebook revolution or an Arab spring. It should be called Arab Revolution. Wael was appearing at Google’s European Zeitgeist 2011.

Watch the interview below

The same line of argument has been fronted by Bob Collymore who is the CEO of Safaricom. But today, despite problems with English language, Orange CEO said that he thinks that Airtel is behaving like a vegetable company. Listen above.

The CEO of Orange also said how the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) at Orange is Ksh 100. Orange is also making good money in data and voice according to him.

He fought the cop with kicks, blows and stones and the public was enjoying it. I have had two big fight with cops. But the fights I have had is when cops try to use unorthodox means to arrest me. One happened just 3 months ago and the 6 cops had to call in re-inforcements of Flying Squad unit to arrest me. I was seriously beaten but I gave them my mind and they apologised and demanded that I pay Ksh 3,000 the next day.

There is a problem when we try to disobey law enforcers. I think that we must still maintain respect for them. Watch the video above. The video has now close to 9,000 views on Youtube.

Standard Group, Royal Media, Nation Media and radio Africa are simply not ready to spend on quality internet connection which can basically stream a video.

Anyway, that was not teh issue. The issue is that ICC Chief Prosecutor will be addressing the media from ICC HQ, Hague, and the whole event will also be streamed onling through this link. The link is ffor those speaking English but for the French speakers, check HERE.

For those who have been waiting for a chance to know who is in the envelope, please check on the link.

The campaigns looks similar in every bit and it is very hard for Safaricom to convince anyone that their is an original concept. If at all Safaricom copy pasted, then this is going to be one of the most expensive copy pasting campaign ever.

Qantas the Spirit of Australia – TV Ad 2009

Niko na Safaricom – 2010

What do you think?

It’s such a funny creation and worth watching. Watch it

UK’s Dr Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary,  called for retailers to ban the game. He told the Sunday Times that “It’s shocking that someone would think it acceptable to recreate the acts of the Taliban. At the hands of the Taliban, children have lost fathers and wives have lost husbands. I am disgusted and angry. It’s hard to believe any citizen of our country would wish to buy such a thoroughly un-British game. I would urge retailers to show their support for our armed forces and ban this tasteless product.”

EA  has defended Medal Of Honor, arguing that “The format of the new Medal of Honor game merely reflects the fact that every conflict has two sides. We give gamers the opportunity to play both sides. Nobody who plays video games is going to be shocked or surprised by this. Most of us have been doing this since we were seven: someone plays the cop, someone must be robber”. The game maker also added that there are no British Troops in the game.

Is this war too raw for video game treatment?

The latest web-based trend in transmission of information and communication across the globe is the next frontier in the advertisement world even as the most efficient internet connectivity hits Kenya’s mainland. Advertisement platform in various World Wide Web (www) and search engines are gradually threatening the traditional form of advertisements including the Newspapers, Magazines, Radio, Television and Outdoor advertisements.
Telephony service provider Safaricom is already setting the online mood in the country as websites including ‘Whereis Enterprices’ venture online advertisement. ‘Where-is’ web gives business organizations, industries, institutions a platform to market themselves among target clients.

Country’s mainstream media is also seizing the online space with rapid web traffic both in the country and among the international community. This therefore provides an apt forum to catch another set of audiences in the brave new world packaged with latest technology.

Availability of cheap computers and efficient internet enabled cell phones besides high literacy level in Kenya is already paving way for an outburst in technological convergence and rapid information transfer to vast but specific audience.

With almost every organization, company, business, institution owning a website, it is much easier to direct clients to your home page where they can have a direct platform to get information on your products and services, discuss with you, post comments on how they have experienced with you products and even discus them with other clients.

Online advertisements offer flexibility and cuts down on cost and yet can reach target audience especially the learned groups, the youth and also those in working systems.

Depending on your products, the advert will root for a platform most frequented by their target audiences. Social networks including facebook, Tagged, Twitter among others offer free or chargeable space to put up an advertisement.

Such platforms are most suitable in catching youth’s eye therefore fueling traffic to your website. Search Engines including Google, Yahoo, MSN among others are the most effective I advertising as ads are packaged with searched words.

Google for instance boast of 27 million search per day thus chances of targeting audience getting to your web will largely depend on how witty and keenly you tag your advert. This also calls for liking up your advert with your website.

Media news-based websites are also vital in putting up ads. With flexibility, one will be assured of cutting a niche in the business community. To fuel up a whooping wed traffic, you have to attach your link with the advert.

With link providers including WillMaster’s ProLink, AdTrackz, Link Counter, Tracker Disguiser, you will be able to attach a link to your ad I otherf websites directing prospective clients to your homepage. Such link providers also count traffic hitting your web page, tallying clicks on ads as well as page impressions on your host website.

To cut a niche in online advertising, your ads should the eye of audience who usually scan through the web’s information. This calls for a perfect hand in writing headlines a bit of body content and outstanding link to your homepage.

Since you have a split second to grab your audience attention, write your adverts with passion, excitement and brevity; create curiosity, provide details and call for action. Create an urgency to act now. An effective headline will literally force you ………

Selling headlines usually have the one of the components including; how to (How to increase sales….), Question (Are you Sick and tired working for someone else….), Command (Double your income within six months…) News (Announcing a brand new dress in town…) Testimonials (Our sales have increased….)

They have also set up a Facebook Group which has grown to close to 10,000 members within one month.

After snatching the program from the sleepy NTV, Citizen Tv seems to be doing all the right thing with this program and Rauka is broadcasting the sermon live from Mavuno Church throughout Kenya, Uganda and now online.  Local bandwidth might not allow them to have many local neties join them online but it will catch on with Kenyans in USA, Europe and Asia where bandwidth cost is cheaper.

It is interesting to watch how this will unfold. Hope Fm tried to go online but I dont know what happened.

In every hood, street and ghetto there are victims and villains. Those growing in Kenyan urban centres had a guy who would kick-ass and bring all bullies to repent.

Such a guy was the Makmende and he would pull stunts like the legendary Jim Kelly, Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris or Silvester Stalone. The stunts would make all bullies run when they spot a Makmende.

Now Just-A-Band has made a movie themed in the 70s and 80s character of Makmende. And the band has hit the right note with the twitter generation many who are in their 20s and 30s and identify with the charcter alot. They are the generation which tweet and facebook alot. A seach of Makmende in Facebook and Twitter will bring lots of results.

It was unexpected but for now, Just-A-Band just clicked with the youth here and Makmende has gone viral. Edited by Mbithi Masya and Jim Chuchu, the music video is a great addition to the band’s collection. The main star in the video is Kevin “K1″ Maina and has others like TPF3 star, Patricia Kihoro, Mbithi Masya, Kibugi Wamae and Mugambi Nthiga among others. The stage names goes like starring Wrong Number, Askyua Matha Militants , First Bodi, Abscondita,  Taste of Daynjah, Britannia Zimeisha.

A popular forum, KenyanList, even went ahead and made a collection of the famous Makmende quotes.

UPDATE:

Makmende Anthem:

Eh ngumi nguvu yetu,
zilete haraka kwetu, … See More
haki huna mbao mshenzi,
naupae ka kunguru,
ntakuchimba ka sururu kwa mateke ukienda!

Rich broke the news of the impending retirement in a podcast featuring an interview with Joseph. It will be interesting to watch who will succeed MJ as he is famously called in the blogosphere and forums.

Under Michael Joseph, Safaricom has grown from a small company of 5 people hosted at Norfolk Towers in June 2000 to a multi-billion shillings enterprise. The first employee he hired, Tabby, is his PA upto now and the company has around 3,200 employees.

It is such a wonderful story which you can only get by watching the 3 part interview with Aly Khan Satchu

Catch the whole interview on RICH TV

I retorted in a twitter post that African Media cannot tell African story when all we get are copy paste of stories from Reuters, AP, CNN, Aljazeera and news agencies which are not African.

Ethics is not a preserve of mainstream media since they have contributed much more in social injustices like RTML in Rwanda did support the killing of moderate Hutus and Tutsis.

So I don’t see why Wangethi Mwangi of Nation saying that there citizen journalists lacks ethics which is wrong since even some some are trained journalist. And when does a citizen media become mainstream.

The leaders present have has a cry that the media should be more reasonable which to me translates to “please go slow on us”.

But the whole media wont be forgotten by many Kenyans when Kibaki first uttere “Facebook”, “Mespace” (myspace) and Youtube.

The paragraph from President Kibaki’s statement reads;

The increased access to mobile phones and the internet has given rise to new media that resonates well with our young population. However even those of us born before the computer age, appreciate the contribution of these new avenues of communication. Indeed, the advent of citizen journalism has become possible because of tools such as SMS, blogs, and social networking websites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Myspace.

I know that President Kagame is on twitter and PM Raila is on Facebook. Kibaki should start using social media.

Please find the full presidential speech here