The hackers group Anonymous,  scored a major victory on the F.B.I last month when they listed to a call between the law enforcers and their British counterparts, Scotland Yard. The group then posted the16-minute recording of the call on the Web on Friday and crowned it with a tweet:

NYT is quoting an F.B.I Source indicating that the group did not hack any of the agency’s systems but gained access to an email which was sent to more than 36 US, UK, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands and Swedish security agents indicating when the conference call would be made. The email was sent on Jan. 13 and one of the foreign police official is suspected to have forwarded the notification to a private account. The forward to private account was then intercepted by Anonymous.

Anonymous later took responsibility for hacking the web site of a law firm that had represented a US Marines soldier, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, who was accused of leading a group of Marines responsible for Haditha killings in 2005. The group promised to make public what was in the mails and faxes obtained during the hack.

Google has reportedly fired its Country Lead in Kenya, Olga Arara-Kimani, according to Nairobi Tech. The action is said to have been taken as a measure to assure those who read the Mocality saga. Not much detail is available but Google’s VP for EMEA, Nelson Mattos, indicated on Friday on his Google+  page that action had been taken in Kenya regarding to Mocality data scraping saga.

He wrote;

We’ve concluded our investigation into the serious allegations about our use of data from Mocality’s website in Kenya. We’re very sorry this happened. We’ve taken appropriate action with the people involved and made changes in our operations to ensure this doesn’t occur again.

Google had to find a sacrificial lamb regarding the data scraping issue. The issue got the attention of international media and tech blogs that even Mocality which was almost getting irrelevant in the Kenyan tech scene was getting as a start-up underdog which was being bullied and exploited by the big bully in Google.

The potrayal of Mocality as an underdog is very wrong since the company is part of Naspers which also owns products like Mail.ru, Nimbuzz, Tencent and Tradus. Mocality has also been accused by rivals of scraping data to feed its directory pages. MIH Internet group which is the subsidiary of Naspers which owns Mocality, has also been accused of stealing data from other niche classifieds sites to feed pages in Dealfish.

Google has not officially released statement over the reported sacking of Olga Arara but is expected to do so in the course of the day. We have made contacts with Google Kenya and hope to get a statement soon.

Update: Nation reports that Olga has claimed to have left on her own terms.

“I confirm I have left Google Kenya. As the leader of the Kenya office, I felt that the buck stopped with me and I decided to leave,’ she wrote in a phone message to the Nation on Monday.”

One of the world’s largest file-sharing sites was shut down yesterday (Thursday), and executives arrested and charged with violating piracy laws. The US authorities accuse Megaupload.com of costing copyright holders over $500 million in lost revenue. It is funny that the indictment comes just almost 24 hours after thee online community protested the two proposed anti-piracy laws.

The US authorities said that the move has nothing to do with the SOPA / PIPA outrage:

Investigators said there was no connection between arrests in their two-year investigation and the political firestorm that erupted this week over a pending vote on the Stop Online Piracy Act.

Megaupload executives, Kim Dotcom, formerly known as Kim Schmitz, and three others were arrested on Thursday in New Zealand at the request of U.S. officials. It is reported that two other defendants are at large. After the arrest, property of the executives including luxury vehicles and home entertainment systems were confiscated. It is also reported that US authorities are pursuing bank accounts with more than $150 million all over the world.

Forbes has reported that Swizz Beatz who is married to Alicia Keys is the CEO of Megaupload.com but is not being pursued by US authorities because he does not own any stock in the entity. This move surprise anyone since the accusations against Megaupload are of criminal nature and it is hard to fathom why US authorities would pursue foreigners but not its citizens.

Megaupload has had the support of many entertainment figures like Diddy, Chris Brown, Kim Kardashian, Mary J. Blige, Kanye West, and Black Eyed Peas

Cyber Hactivists, Anonymous, has claimed that the group has taken down the websites of U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Universal Music Group’s, MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and the U.S. Copyright Office.

#OpPayBack Target: DOWN justice.gov – 15 minutes after feds announce arrest of Megaupload 7, #Anonymous strikes #svpol

— Anonymous Sweden (@AnonOpsSweden) January 19, 2012

Before Megaupload was taken down, it posted a statement saying;

“The fact is that the vast majority of Mega’s Internet traffic is legitimate, and we are here to stay. If the content industry would like to take advantage of our popularity, we are happy to enter into a dialogue. We have some good ideas. Please get in touch.”

The site claims to have more than 150 million registered users.

Iran’s highest court, supreme court, has upheld the death sentence for a web programmer (Saeed Malekpour ) who developed software for uploading photos on porn sites.

Saeed Malekpour was arrested in October 2008 and taken to a prison in Tehran. He was put in solitary confinement for more than one year without even access to his lawyer nor any charges being conferred on him. A year later, Saeed appeared in a state TV programme confessing to all many crimes related the porn site charges. He was later convicted by a court in Tehran on the basis of his TV confessions and handed down death penalty.

Saeed later sent out a letter to the court from prison retracting every confession he made saying they were made under duress. Saeed  is a permanent resident of Canada and is a programmer. He also said that his software was used by porn sites without his knowledge.

Maryam Nayeb Yazdi, a human rights activist based in Toronto spoke to The Guardian about Saeed’s case:

“Saeed is in imminent danger of execution. He has never been provided with a fair trial at any point during this horrific and twisted ordeal. There are various discrepancies in Saeed’s case file that were supposed to be reviewed and investigated by the revolutionary court, but the judge ignored the discrepancies and reissued the death sentence anyway. Saeed is being used as a scapegoat in a string of political games led by the revolutionary guards.”

In his letter, Saeed said that proportions of his confessions had been “extracted under pressure, physical and psychological torture.” He also accused the interrogators of torturing him to confess to the charges.

IMG

Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, is so riled by SOPA / PIPA that he has tweeted about it. Mark has not tweeted since March 2009 and the anti-SOPA / PIPA tweet is his 19th. The tweet links up to a Facebook post where he calls SOPA / PIPA ”poorly thought out laws.”

Tell your congressmen you want them to be pro-internet. My Facebook post is here: facebook.com/zuck/posts/101…

— Mark Zuckerberg (@finkd) January 18, 2012

“The internet is the most powerful tool we have for creating a more open and connected world. We can’t let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the internet’s development. Facebook opposes SOPA and PIPA, and we will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet,” the Facebook CEO said in the post.

Facebook has also set up a special page where the whole issue of online piracy is addressed and Facebook point of view fronted.

Some of us cannot do without Wikipedia. It is a great source of information. But now,  the great repository of general knowledge is participating in the SOPA/PIPA protest. This means that you cannot access the English pages of the site in your usual manner. There are ways to go round this though.

The mobile version of the site has not been blacked out as the SOPA and PIPA protests continue.

To access Wikipedia page today;

1. Just disable JavaScript in your browser. This means that the block page won’t load as it happens after full site load.
2. You can just let Java run but make sure that you press “Escape” on your keyboard as you load Wikipedia.Alternatively, keep Javascript running and just press the Escape key on your keyboard as a Wikipedia page loads.
3. Use this bookmarklet as it will unblock any Wikipedia page.
4. Or you can go to en.m.wikipedia.org from your mobile phone and access the site

Chrome

- Click on the Spanner icon on the top right
- Go to Options
- Click on Under the hood
- Then go to Content settings
- Under JavaScript category just select Do not allow any site to run JavaScript

Firefox

- Go to Preferences
- Click Content
- Then Just Uncheck Enable JavaScript

Safari

- Go to Preferences
- Click on Security
- Go to Web Content and then uncheck Enable JavaScript

The Internet’s largest repository of general reference material has totally blacked out its English site to stop the passage of Stop Online Piracy and Protect Intellectual Property Acts.

The two acts, SOPA and PIPA, have not even made it to the Senate floor, but have already caused public outrage. Google, YouTube, Yahoo, AOL, Reddit, TwitPic, Mozilla, WordPress and many other internet giants have protested the bills and equated them to China-style censorship.

There are those who support the protest but disagrees with Wikimedia and others on the manner of protests. Some of the Wikipedia editors have been reported to have disagreed with Jimmy Wales on Wikipedia blackout.

Robert Lawton who is a US based computer consultant and editor of Wikipedia is reported by NDTV as having said, “My main concern is that it puts the organisation in the advocacy role, and that’s a slippery rope.”

WordPress has also urged bloggers hosted on WordPress.com to use the “protest SOPA/PIPA” setting to black out pages or the whole of their blogs today. All the SOPA/PIPA protests will last for 24 hours. Twitter has also openly opposed the manner of the protest with its CEO, Dick Costolo, saying  ”That’s just silly. Closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish.”

You can learn about SOPA and PIPA from http://americancensorship.org/

We are still investigating this but there is a guy who is claiming that he/she has hacked some 113 Kenyan government websites. The listed websites are for government ministries, departments and programmes.

Message posted on Code Security Website reads;

“I have exploit from cs web, and i attacking to server Goverment Kenya,,,, and then,,, success full… this is deface in this night…”

None of the listed websites can be accessed from out end which makes authenticating the “hacking” very hard. Still I can access State House and Kenya Police websites.

Some of the listed websites as having been hacked are;

http://www.administrationpolice.go.ke/index.html

http://www.aideffectiveness.go.ke/index.html

http://www.bungomacounty.go.ke/index.html

http://www.businesslicense.go.ke/index.html

http://www.cak.go.ke/index.html

http://www.commstaskforce.go.ke/index.html

http://www.cooperative.go.ke/index.html

http://www.crd.go.ke/index.html

http://www.crisisrcentre.go.ke/index.html

http://www.ditkenya.go.ke/index.html

http://www.doshs.go.ke/index.html

http://www.economicstimulus.go.ke/index.html

http://www.eldoretmunicipal.go.ke/index.html

http://www.emu.go.ke/index.html

http://www.education.go.ke/index.html

http://www.environment.go.ke/index.html

http://www.filmservices.go.ke/index.html

http://www.fisheries.go.ke/index.html

http://www.forestryandwildlife.go.ke/index.html

http://www.gender.go.ke/index.html

http://www.governmentpress.go.ke/index.html

http://www.greenenergy.go.ke/index.html

http://www.housing.go.ke/index.html

http://www.ifmis.go.ke/index.html

http://www.immigration.go.ke/index.html

http://www.industrialization.go.ke/index.html

http://www.isc.go.ke/index.html

http://www.iprs.go.ke/index.html

http://www.itentambachtowncouncil.go.ke/index.html

http://www.itmis.go.ke/index.html

http://www.kenao.go.ke/index.html

http://www.kapsabetmunicipal.go.ke/index.html

http://www.kenyayearbook.go.ke/index.html

http://www.kerugoyakutusmunicipal.go.ke/index.html

http://www.kesi.go.ke/index.html

http://www.kipi.go.ke/index.html

http://www.kisumucountycouncil.go.ke/index.html

http://www.kirinyagacountycouncil.go.ke/index.html

http://www.kitalemunicipal.go.ke/index.html

http://www.kituimunicipal.go.ke/index.html

http://www.kkv.go.ke/index.html

http://www.knfparms.go.ke/index.html

http://www.knsdi.go.ke/index.html

http://www.kntc.go.ke/index.html

http://www.laikipiacountycouncil.go.ke/index.html

http://www.lands.go.ke/index.html

http://www.leatherdevelopmentcouncil.go.ke/index.html

http://www.limurumunicipal.go.ke/index.html

http://www.livestock.go.ke/index.html

http://www.lodwarmunicipal.go.ke/index.html

http://www.maraguacountycouncil.go.ke/index.html

http://www.mariakanitown.go.ke/index.html

http://www.maurestoration.go.ke/index.html

http://www.migoricountycouncil.go.ke/index.html

http://www.minesgeology.go.ke/index.html

http://www.mirp.go.ke/index.html

http://www.monitoring.go.ke/index.html

http://www.moyalecountycouncil.go.ke/index.html

http://www.murangacounty.go.ke/index.html

http://www.murangamunicipal.go.ke/index.html

http://www.nairobicity.go.ke/index.html

http://www.naivashamunicipal.go.ke/index.html

http://www.nakurucounty.go.ke/index.html

http://www.nationaldisaster.go.ke/index.html

http://www.nationalheritage.go.ke/index.html

http://www.nccs.go.ke/index.html

http://www.nec.go.ke/index.html

http://www.northernkenya.go.ke/index.html

http://www.nyandaruacountycouncil.go.ke/index.html

http://www.othayatowncouncil.go.ke/index.html

http://www.pec.go.ke/index.html

http://www.pfmr.go.ke/index.html

http://www.pghnyeri.go.ke/index.html

http://www.pharmacy.go.ke/index.html

http://www.prisons.go.ke/index.html

http://www.psrpc.go.ke/index.html

http://www.publichealth.go.ke/index.html

http://www.publicservice.go.ke/index.html

http://www.publicworks.go.ke/index.html

http://www.reformskenya.go.ke/index.html

http://www.refugees.go.ke/index.html

http://www.regional-dev.go.ke/index.html

http://www.roads.go.ke/index.html

http://www.rprlgsp.go.ke/index.html

http://www.scat.go.ke/index.html

http://www.scienceandtechnology.go.ke/index.html

http://www.singlewindow.go.ke/index.html

http://www.sprogrammes.go.ke/index.html

http://www.tabakatown.go.ke/index.html

http://www.tanathi.go.ke/index.html

http://www.tfdg.go.ke/index.html

http://www.technologycentre.ac.ke/index.html

http://www.theenergytribunal.go.ke/index.html

http://www.thekenyawewant.go.ke/index.html

http://www.thikamunicipal.go.ke/index.html

http://www.transformingkenya.go.ke/index.html

http://www.treasury.go.ke/index.html

http://www.ugunjatown.go.ke/index.html

http://www.ukwalatown.go.ke/index.html

http://www.westernkenya.go.ke/index.html

http://www.vihigamunicipal.go.ke/index.html

http://www.works.go.ke/index.html

http://www.youthaffairs.go.ke/index.html

Google is having a very hard time explaining what it was thinking as it scrapped data from a rival’s database. But that is not surprising because Google might be getting a barrage of calls from all major media houses in the world to get some explanations on the happenings and so it has to explain it. Getting calls is one thing but the scary part for Google’s always arrogant PR machine is that 90% of those calling already believed the Mocality story. Spinning that around might be very hard because few of the blogs and media houses would have the guts to say “our initial reporting was wrong. Google did not commit this.”

That effectively means that whatever Google decides to say about the whole fiasco, it must first admit liability in even a small part. The story is juicy for everybody, especially the scandal hungry blogs and media houses. It is juicy because Google is such a BIG company and because Mocality is looking like an underdog here. Nelson Mattos, Google’s VP of Engineering – EMEA Region, was admitting everything on his Google+ page (they also had to try to woo traffic to Google+).

First, I trust that what Mocality’s claims are well grounded and happening all the time. The only problem is that the people Google has been doing such things to does not have the influence and contacts to arouse the attention of the international media like the Naspers Group which Mocality is under. And the second problem is that Mocality is not a victim but also part of the fraud. Guilty by association. read on.

Naspers Group is no small company. It is a leading multinational media group with roots in South African but its tentacles is spread and felt in almost all continents of this world. Naspers group which owns MIH Internet company (the mother company of Mocality)  has business interests in internet, print media, pay-tv and technology companies all over the world.

On Mocality operations in Kenya only and with no revenue structure, Naspers group has spent more than US $1 Million in just under two years to get its Mocality and Dealfish business up but earn nothing in return. Just like Stefan says in the blog post, you wont be surprised to find that MIH Interenet is biggest spender on online advertising in Kenya. The company also spend a great deal on TV, radio and physical banner display advertising in Kenya. MIH Internet has no clear strategy on when they will break-even or even start generating even an insignificant amount of revenue. It looks like it’s all charity now.

Before the Mocality vs Google fiasco, Mocality and Dealfish have been limping. However much Stefan and former Dealfish General Manager would want us to believe there has never been any differences between them, these people had a fight. Moses left Dealfish a very bitter man. He would want to show that he is not one who burns the bridges by consoling Mocality or MIH Internet (Mocality and Dealfish are under MIH Internet which is owned by Naspers Group) in hard times like this. The truth is that MIH Internet mostly poked Moses Kemibaro in the eye and he wasn’t happy.

One blogger, Kahenya, tweeted something worth noting;

Its ironic, Google may have just saved Mocality from certain death.

— Kahenya (@kahenya) January 13, 2012

MIH Internet had even to close one of its local offerings, Kalahari Kenya and Nigeria, because the businesses were not sustainable. Kalahari was part of the business of MIH Internet which could generate its revenue and pay its costs even if it was not making profit. The group shut it down because its main focus was traffic and they believed that the directory business and classifieds would get more people on its platforms than an e-commerce offering. So it decided to shut down what was starting to pay-off and leave two well marketed products but with no revenue to their names.

So when the opportunity to “smoke Google out” as a data thief presented itself, MIH Internet had to dispatch its General Manager who sits in South Africa to come and carry out the task himself. It presented an opportunity for Mocality to earn that publicity of being a start-up which is being brought down by a bully with huge amounts of money.

So the Mocality blog post has not been re-tweeted more than 6,000 times. The original reads and retweets from the sites like Guardian, The Verge, Mashable, TNW, The Register, Boing Boing, BBC, PC Mag, Venturebeat, Forbes and others provides a great publicity for Mocality. It might just be the lifeline for Mocality now.

It is not wrong to shout-out for help when you are being bullied but what should we do when you also bully others? MIH Internet’s own Dealfish has been scrapping listings from other classifieds portals in Kenya. The company has also not solved the issue of fake listings. Take for instance a search for Nexus from the system. That will draw almost 85% of very fraudulent listings which are posted by con men based in Asia, West Africa or Eastern Europe. The listings are not consistent in pricing nor even contact information provided.

Example;

When you go to motor listings, you will realise that Dealfish has more than 20,000 vehicle listings on its database and most of them are being updated every morning and almost at the same time. Dealfish is scrapping data from rivals to fill up its listings. There is no way a classifieds system will have 20,000 vehicle listings in Kenya and they are not reducing even when the year changes. Having more than 20,000 vehicles listed on its database means that a random call of 5 motor dealers in Nairobi would see 3 of the dealers saying they know Dealfish. That it not the case. So I believe that either most of the auto listings on Dealfish are duplicated or fraudulent or they are just data stolen from rival classifieds portal to fill up the pages.

Example – why are the listings almost at the same time?;

The classifieds market in Kenya is getting strong competition. Many players including South Africa’s Naspers, US-based Google, Swiss-based Ringier, internationally backed Kenyan player Cheki and a number of other South African players including BidorBuy, Junkmail, PNet and so on have recently entered the market. Two other players, Swedish media company Schipsted and India’s Verse, are expected to join the fray soon.

Unethical behaviour is being used in most of the verticals – jobs, real estate, auto classifieds and so on – to fight rivals. Most of the classifieds strongly believe that “volume of listings = success”. Google Trader, Dealfish and PigiaMe are all engaging in the mal-practises. You cannot monetize false listings, duplicate listings, scraped content from your competitors. If you use false listings or dirty tricks to get to an artificially inflated number of listings, it is impossible to then go back to ‘truth’ and ‘trust’ when you try to turn your business into an actual business that makes money. This article on Business Daily talks of almost the same issue.

The reasons Kenyans are not online and conducting e-commerce is precisely because they do not trust the internet as a medium. So for these players to be pursuing a strategy of ‘let’s con Kenyans into believing we have more ads than anyone else’ is a total fail as a strategy in that they are undermining the industry as a whole not to mention their own future ability to have a profitable business.

Mocality or MIH Internet group should not shout how they are the victim here. They are very much part of the fraudulent system. They con users and it is eroding trust. I am so certain that Mocality did not get 100% of their data from its own efforts. And most of the data looks old. Most of the time I find Kenya Plex reliable.

Google is fighting accusations by Mocality that it has been using deception to get businesses to list on its KBO website. It is not clear if the same schemes are being used in Uganda and Nigeria but they are not surprising. if you have seen the listings on Google Trader, you would know that Google must have been involved in these schemes. The same scheme Google used to try to win communities to Google Baraza and it failed because the platform is not even popular as the intentions were not clear.

Google is ignoring the accusations and has just launched an initiative to get Ghanian businesses online. The scheme targets to get SMEs to tap into the online marketplace and realise the potential of the virtual community. On the site, Google provides a “free and easy to use tool which SMEs can build a website, get listed on Google Maps and your site analytics”.

The launch partners in Ghana include Zenith Bank Ghana, Ghana Tourism Authority, BusyInternet, Vodafone and IPMC.

A group which has been calling itself the NaijaCyberHactivists have hacked and defaced the website of Nigeria’s Ministry of Transport. The group have posted message on the defaced site saying that they will continue to inflict damage on the government assets online until when the demand of the Nigerian people would have been met.

A message posted by the hackers on the website partly reads;

Greetings Nigerian Government, 

We are NaijaCyberHactivists. 

The fetid empire of corruption and consumption that you have created is stifling the lives of hard working Nigerians. 
You have sabotaged this country into a monolithic tyranny, yet in doing so made the ties that bind its people brittle. 
You shattered this country, liquidating it piecemeal for your own selfish interests. 

The group draw inspiration from the Anonymous hackers and have previously hacked Nigerian government websites including the website of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) which is the government body fighting crimes like Advance Fee fraud (419).

More

Google has today announced that it will be holding the first ever G-Tanzania on February 2nd and 3rd at Milimani City Conference Centre and G-Ethiopia on February 7th and 8th at the Hilton Hotel and Conference Centre.

The g|Days are special days where Googlers (Google Staff) come to interact with the local communities including content generators, developers, business leaders and investors.

Googlers have previously attended g|Days in Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, and Angola. In 2011, the outreach expanded from 5 countries in 2010 and from 2 in 2009.

g|Days are unfortunately very boring if you are not passionate about any of the Google products as they are more of sales pitches of Google platforms like Android, Chrome, App Engine, Maps, Webmaster Tools, and Others. On some instances like the Google Android Developer challenge, Google has looked like it is looking for real innovation.

The problem is that whenever a strong product has emerged from Africa which promised to change the game on any sphere of web technologies, Google has always launched a whack program to compete with the game changer. Since Google has the money and influence to even fake in Google Page rank, it is hard to compete with them especially when coming from an emerging market.

At g|Days you will also get lots of ass-kissers whose mainstay is singing yessir to Google so that they might get freebies while not challenging Googlers on real issues. I have written about Google’s Net Colonialism, check it out.

Registration is now open for these events. Register for G-Tanzania and G-Ethiopia and then tell us what your experience is.

We are just a day or two away from 2012, depending on where you are. It has generally been a great year at Techmtaa as we have grown from that small blog where I occasionally posted rants to a source of breaking and trending news as well as trusted reviews blog. We have covered most of the news from Kenya just by the fact that we are located in Nairobi and so we have bias for Kenyan news.

Below are some of the posts which made great impact the whole year.

Safaricom Launches Webbox, Conencting Every TV to the Internet

Safaricom launched its Webbox device which is adopted from Vodafone Webbox. It turns any TV into an internet accessing TV or a smart TV if you will. The experience is not as great as those you might find if you bought a real LED smart TV. This is a great device to which can push internet connectivity numbers in Kenya.

Safaricom Unveils Huawei IDEOS U8150 Retailing at Ksh 8,500  

In January 2011, Safaricom officially announced the availability of the cheapest smartphone in the Kenya market. The Huawei IDEOS U8150, popularly known as IDEOS, is currently the best selling smartphone with more than 130,000 units sold since launch. Other better variations of the IDEOS smartphone are being introduced like the X5 and X3. Techmtaa breaking this news pushed the traffic to the site so high.

How to Read Daily Nation’s Digital Newspaper Online Without Paying a Cent 

In May, we documented how it was easy to bypass the Nation Media’s paywall to get to read the full digital copy of Daily Nation, East African and Business Daily for free. It did not take Daily Nation just a few minutes to see the gaping hole and seal it. Sorry friends!! We thought we were sharing. Kumbe we were spoiling.

Kenyan Prostitute’s Blog Nominated for Deutsche Welle Best Blog Award

Early 2011, we saw a very controversial blog, Nairobi Nights, nominated for Deutsche Well Best Blog award. This was such a great news that we thought it was best to share it with all. It generated lots of interest from all sides and reactions from social media were both positive and negative. But we have not heard much about Nairobi Nights after that. Nairobi Nights was one of the top blogs in Kenya when it lasted. It has been featured widely in international media.

You Can Now Get iPad 2 in Kenya Courtesy of PC World

The iPad arrived in Kenya as always, first through the grey market then through the official channels, gaining lots of interests from readers. It was great though that finally the iPad was officially selling in Kenya. The grey market copies have continued to sell cheaper than the officially copies unlike in US and other markets where the officially re-sellers are cheaper than the grey market ones.

M-Kesho: “Super Bank Account” from Safaricom and Equity Bank 

This was one of the biggest news stories in 2011. What later happened to M-Kesho, we can’t say but we hear that the deal is off and there is nothing much happening on M-Kesho recently. We hear that Safaricom was not so happy with Equity over this but details are sketchy. M-Kesho is still active but not being marketed as a service by both Equity and Safaricom.

The Somen Brothers and the Looting of AccessKenya after the IPO  

This is a story which we told and has earned me threats from both Jonathan Somen or some Access Kenya employees. I still stand by this and believe that Access Kenya has the right of reply or a right to point out sections of the post which they think was wrong. Threats, intimidation and promises of thuggery on myself is just stupid. The direction this case takes in 2012 will be one interesting thing to watch. I hear Jonathan Somen is digging for a fight. He has promised some of his junior employees hell on me. We are waiting.

We will be posting out 2012 predictions here and what developments in tech we should look out for.

It was such a surprising news both for me and the eventual readers. We got wind of what was happening in Kakamega while visiting the Western Kenya town. I decided to get the evidence with the help of locals. In the end, I had more than 300 photos of locals together with even policemen in full uniform having sex in the open.

When we did post the pictures and the story on Walalahoi, the whole country responded in furor and we even got politicians issuing threats. Others accused us of being out to soil the name of the government. But Kenyans on Facebook and Twitter shared and reshared he phenomenon. It has become part of the national jjoke. Rarely would you mention that you visited or come from Kakamega without being asked if you have visited Muliro Gardens.

Muliro Gardens was edited from the official Google list but you can still see it from Google Search Insights site where the Zeitgeist is derived from. Google’s annual Zeitgeeist release is some kind of PR for the same. This year, Google only released Zeitgeist for Kenya, Egypt and South Africa while omitting Nigeria, Morocco, Tunisia and other African countries with very high net subscriptions.

From the Google Zeitgeist 2011 Kenya list, Youtube was listed as the most searched term which is not surprising since Google launched its Youtube Kenya link which it hopes to market by playing with the psychology of Kenyan net users. I doubt if Youtube would come top in searches above Kenya, Facebook, Google and M-Pesa.

You can find the Google Zeitgeist 2011 for Kenya here and check the Google search insight for Kenya also here.

Those who have been trying to access the KNEC exam link have not been able to go through since when the exam results were officially announced. Both the website and the premium SMS service, 5052, cannot handle the volume of queries so they have either been returning errors or simply going blank.

Meanwhile, KCPE trended worldwide as the results were being announced as witnessed in the image above. You can learn how to access KCPE results through this link http://bit.ly/uJsTBJ

Google is launching some products but they are still limited to few locations. One such device is the Flipboard competitor, Google Currents. The app which is available in the US and few other regions on iOS and Android is great but not like Flipboard from my first impression.

Google Currents lets users access articles from more than 180 publications .  Flipboard displays great full-length articles from CNET, Forbes, PBS, Huffington Post, Daily Beast, Fast Company and other publications on smartphone and tablet displays.

U.S. users can download the app from the Android Market and the Apple App Store and begin subscribing to the available publications.

If you are from any other region, try using this link http://t.co/coFAtyh from your mobile or from the PC then uploading it on the phone. The app works great but the Flipboard experience is at another level.

Once subscribed, users may then add RSS, video and photo feeds, as well as Google Reader subscriptions they’re already following, to make the app’s content more comprehensive.

IMG

A court in Oregon USA has ruled that bloggers are not journalists and so they are not protected by the same laws which protects journalists. The District Court judge ruled in a case where a blogger was who was sued by an investment firm, Summit Accommodators,  for defamation after the blogger, Crystal Cox, wrote a piece accusing the firm of fraud. The judge ruled that the blogger needs to pay the Obsidian finance group a compensation of $2.5 million (Ksh 22o Million).

Summit Accommodators went to court with the argument that the post was defamatory also demanding to be paid US $10 million (Ksh 885 million) by  Cox in January 2011. Cox disputed that and argued that the post was factual saying that she had a source which she had to protect. Summit Accommodators demanded that she reveal her source

Cox represented herself in the case and refused to reveal her source, arguing that she was protected by “Oregon’s shield law” which is designed to protect journalists from revealing their sources.

Oregon Shield Law States;

No person connected with, employed by or engaged in any medium of communication to the public shall be required by a legislative, executive or judicial officer or body, or any other authority having power to compel testimony or the production of evidence, to disclose, by subpoena or otherwise: 
(a) The source of any published or unpublished information obtained by the person in the course of gathering, receiving or processing information for any medium of communication to the public; or 
(b) Any unpublished information obtained or prepared by the person in the course of gathering, receiving or processing information for any medium of communication to the public.

The presiding judge disputed that arguing that, “although [the] defendant is a self-proclaimed ‘investigative blogger’ and defines herself as ‘media,’ the record fails to show that she is affiliated with any newspaper, magazine, periodical, book, pamphlet, news service, wire service, news or feature syndicate, broadcast station or network, or cable television system. Thus, she is not entitled to the protections of the law in the first instance.”

The judge further argued that even if the shield law applied, they would not have protected the identity of the source of and entity in a civil trial.

“Because this case is a civil action for defamation, the defendant cannot rely on the media shield law,” the judge ruled.

Cox says she will appeal the decision and represent herself again.

Source

We told you guys about borderlinx in April. It was a great service where you could register and get a UK and US address. The borderlinx guys would handle the product shopped from the two countries till delivery to the owner. Before buying anything, borderlinx helped the buyer calculate the shipment and tax on the goods which was great.

We have an email from borderlinx which shows that the service is no more.

The service has sent out an email to Kenyan users which reads in part;

“After several months of investigation and attempting to reduce the incidence of fraud, we have found ourselves in the unfortunate position of having to cease providing cross-border delivery services to Kenya with immediate effect.  We have considered a number of options to avoid this action, but the incidence and risk of fraud for Kenyan transactions is too great for our business to absorb. Regrettably, we will be closing the accounts of all Kenya customers. ”

DHL stopped the former arrangement with borderlinx where DHL used to market the services under the name Easy Shop Kenya. You could also get the borderlinx services from any any DHL shop in Kenya. This is no more as DHL customer care personnel will give I have tried to get more info from DHL on why they ceased their arrangement with borderlinx but we are yet to get a reply.

Borderlinx is also not giving other info on this. Some users claim that it is borderlinx which tried to defraud them. They claim that borderlinx has been inflating the shipping and taxation paid to the authorities.  Some of the comments on this article we did way back in April will give you a perspective of the problem the users might have been having with borderlinx. Some clients have had nasty experience with borderlinx as shown here.

We are waiting for a word from both borderlinx and DHL. We will update when we get some.

Yahoo has launched its portal for South Africa. This is a late move since there was a time when Yahoo was the only website which Africans knew until when the executives grew big heads and did not take emerging markets seriously. Google took the opportunity and stopping it will be so hard.

Anyway the za.yahoo.com portal has gone live now after much speculation. The only people who should be really scared of the Yahoo’s foray on to South African localized content in the News24 and Microsoft’s MSN. The Yahoo South African portal syndicates news from the likes of M&G, AP, Reuters, Independent and AFP.

Yahoo will also be offering free email on the co.za domain extention.

Opera software has today released Opera 11.60. This is the latest update for the company’s desktop web browser. You can now grab a copy of the new Opera browser through Opera downloads page . Opera promises that you will see faster performance on secure pages and less memory usage in the new version of the browser.

Opera had previously planned to release an Opera 12 as its next version after 11.50 but it later decided to add the interim 11.60 to get out few of the finished features out to users while it works out more advanced features for Opera 12.

Opera 11.60 also promises to be faster in startup and shutdown than its other predecessors.  There is also a new HTML5 parsing engine which also makes it easier for developers to handle incorrect code.

The Opera built-in e-mail client also gets a slight makeover in the new Opera 11.60. Upgrading to the new Opera 11.60 will make it impossible for you to downgrade to the previous version of the built-in email client.

Virtual youth community movement, YoungAfricaLive, has launched in Tanzania through Vodacom mobile. Young Africa Live is a mobile community that entertains and educates young people on topics of love, sexual health, gender and relationships which are issues adversely affecting the youth in Tanzania.

The portal gives the youth a platform to speak their minds, through a medium that is accessible, and encourage conversations on topics that impacts their lives positively. Hopefully, this will get conversations going, ideas shared and internalized thereby creating behavior change around relationships, good love, safe sex and HIV.

Praekelt Foundation runs YoungAfricaLive and the launch was meant to coincide with the December 1st World AIDS Day date. The same community which has been very active in South Africa was launched exactly two years ago.

YoungAfricaLive: Tanzania is available free to Vodacom subscribers through the Vodacom Mobile portal http://m.vodacom.co.tz. The URL attract no charges meaning that Vodacom Subscribers are able to be on the YoungAfricaLive portal even if they don’t have airtime. Praekelt Foundation and Vodacom believes that the community impacts the lives of the youth so positively that its should not be left to only those who can afford to pay for mobile data.

“Over the past two years, what started out as a desire to provide young South Africans with free access to information on HIV/AIDS through their mobile device has turned into a vibrant community of engaged young people who use YoungAfricaLive to gain information, discuss issues – and also have fun,” says Gustav Praekelt, founder of Praekelt Foundation.

YoungAfricaLive in South Africa currently has over 656,000 users.  The Johannesburg based Praekelt Foundation is a leading developer of mobile solutions to improve people’s lives. It was recently named the winner of the Social Impact category of the Mobile Marketing Awards for Innovation, Creativity and Leadership in Los Angeles in November 2011.

Praekelt Foundation believes that Vodacom Tanzania’s over 10.5-million subscriber base is an attractive client base for the community.

MIH calls it Dealify in South Africa and Mocality Deals in Kenya. The company is reported to have shut down the group buying service in SA. Dealify launched almost the same time Mocality Deals was going LIVE in Kenya. Mocality is believed to have not picked up well more to do with strategy than economic factors.

“MIH has decided shut down Dealify, that I can confirm,”  MIH CEO of Platforms Stephen Newton told Memeburn.

Currently there is no available deal on Dealify with the last deal which was a 60% saving on 36Boutiques’ online shopping vouchers sold out. Dealify is showing that 89 coupons were bought on thee last deal.

The same could be replicating itself in SA but it has more to do with the overall economic situation than strategy. It is not clear if Mocality Deals will also be affected but many of the Kenyan tech pundits believe that between Mocality, Mocality Deals and Dealfish, survival might just be short-lived just because of their strategy for the market.

MIH internet recently shut down Kalahari Kenya and Nigeria while they also have strong challenges in running their operations with the recent notice of resignation by Regional Manager, Moses Kemibaro, being a case in point. Moses is reported to have disagreed with top MIH managers on their East and Central regional strategy.

The same group (Naspers) has also recently launched its News24 service in Kenya.

WordPress last night announced that they have been thinking of how to better the experience of the many bloggers using WordPress platform. They found the solution through a partnership with Federated media. The web publishing solutions company is rolling out WordAds which is more like Google’s Adsense.

The program which is optional and is only available for publicly visible with custom domains is such a great idea. We just hope that it will work and not be a non starter like most of the Adsense competitions like Adbrite, Chitika and Tribal Fusion. WordAds might not work for the African publishers or even any WordPress blog owner outside the USA since most of the ads delivered through Federated Media network target US based web visitors.

WordPress said;

Over the years one of the most frequent requests on WordPress.com has been to allow bloggers to earn money from their blog through ads.

We’ve resisted advertising so far because most of it we had seen wasn’t terribly tasteful, and it seemed like Google’s AdSense was the state-of-the-art, which was sad.

You pour a lot of time and effort into your blog and you deserve better than AdSense.

But we sure need such a offering in Africa. Google’s Adsense is thievery in many sense and the fact that the company has no caring customer support team makes it even worse. Selection for the WordAds service will be based on “level of traffic and engagement, type of content, and language used on a blog”.

You can express your interest for the program here.

Royal Media has been nudged into action by the recent entry of South Africa’s News24 into the Kenyan media market. Citizen news has had very uncoordinated way of delivering news online but that looks to change as the group is set to launch www.citizennews.co.ke which will have both text and multimedia news.

The portal developed by Verviant runs on Joomla and is set to give Royal Media a platform to fight competition on online news. It is only Nation Media and Capital Fm which has at-least some strong footing on online news. Royal Media snatched Julie Gichuru from Nation Media to strengthen their footing on digital front but most of these old-age journalists and media managers believe limit their idea of digital news to premium SMS, a sketchy website and some Facebook present.

None of the companies have strongly thought of superior apps for tablets and mobile with the current apps being just bookmarks of the websites. We hope that they will change in time. The great dinosaur of news delivery in Kenya is the Standard Group whose website looks like a museum of news.

I really doubt if Royal Media’s new news portal was the best they could do but I still know how the mainstream media lacks out-of-the-box thought. I can point out 50 better templates for both Joomla and WordPress which could beat the new portal Royal media is to launch.

Senator Joe Lieberman  is one funny man. I don’t know if he is a simple extremist or just plain stupid. The guy once called for the internet to have a “Kill Switch” where the US government can switch of the internet and disconnect the US economy from the WWW in case some rogue state decided to engage in cyber warfare.

The senator is at it again. He has decided to write to Google asking that Google’s Blogger platform should have a “terrorist flagging button” feature. Senator Lieberman decided to make this recommendation because of  Jose Pimental who was suspected of attempting to build a pipe bomb to attack the US military hosted his blog on Blogger. Jose Pimental hosted his blog on blogger and that is why Senator Lieberman thought it best to write to Google.

Talking Points Memo acquired the letter and published it earlier today. Read it here http://bit.ly/triSAh