Thursday, August 19, 2010

Mambe Churchill Nanje Profiled on B.Spirit an Inflight Magazine for Brussels Airlines

If you are travelling this August 2010 via Brussels Airlines, pick up B.Spirit(July 2010 edition) and turn to page 53 to read up on me ;).

Now that I have made the announcement let me start from the beginning:

A few months ago, while I was busy trying to hack some codes I got a mail from a journalist in UK asking if I was available for an interviewing. He writes for B.Spirit ( http://www.ink-live.com/emagazines/b.spirit ) an inflight magazine for Brussels airlines and he was working on an article talking about broadband internet and its effects on Africa.
Well first I wanted to be like the all busy guy that doesnt have time for interviews and the public eye (my usual self) but then again I said ooh well this is exposure for me so let me give it a try.
We had a couple of conversations and finally he told me he was done with the article. Before I knew it Linda Raftree ( http://lindaraftree.wordpress.com/) got to me on twitter with an @reply saying she saw a profile of me as she read one of the magazines in the plane while traveling back to USA from Africa (Nairobi, Kenya). Immediately I had to recall the interview I had with the journalist.
Basically the article talks of myself, AfroVisioN Group ( www.afrovisiongroup.com ) , how it all started and how its growing now with the internet access getting better.
He told me about 600,000 people read that magazine on board the Brussels airlines every month so I am glad to get such exposure at this time of my business journey.
So if you are travelling via Brussels airlines, pick up the B.spirit magazine this August 2010 and check my swag and show me some love here with some comments...

excepts of the article from the magazine are in the graphics below.

show ya sef

click on the image to enlarge and read



Saturday, August 07, 2010

Android OS Can Go Social and Replace Facebook

Today I was having my usual rants on twitter and facebook and I posted something peculiar about my observations on Google, Google Me and the whole Facebook effect.

if Android OS becomes social...facebook is going to find it hard to catch up... if I was working for Google...Android will become social



But now lets see where I got my theory.

Eric Schmidt(Google CEO) has been talking recently about their Google Me rumors and he says they are not creating something to replace facebook. He said: The problem facebook is solving has been solved, we are solving something else.

I have always known Google as as company that sees a market, and sees a giant in the market...accept the giant and even promotes the giant in the market and build their own solutions that work on top of that giant system and make their own share of the money(this is what they did with MS Office and Windows. they produced Google Docs).

I also know them infamously as a company that knows how to say "if I cant beat you in the air, I will take you to water and land and my overall points from water and land will out weigh the points you get against me in the air" this is a war strategy where you expand the battle field(they did this to the iPhone and released the Droid and they are trying to get non smartphone users interested in smartphones by convincing the non smartphone phone manufacturers to get more smartphones to their clients, Droid, DroiX, Incredible, EVO 4G ).

Talking about Droid and Android...now imagine if the phone turns to become a social gadget that has a login screen when you turn it on (I guess its already using gmail accounts), and as you login you can see feeds of your Android friends network. Once you do some actions and set up your privacy and friend groups for say Co-workers, school mates, family, etc. these groups will see feeds of things you do on your phone in realtime like, snap a picture and save...and your friends will auto see a feed and see the picture and they can comment or share it (Android device to Android Device over the internet)...taking what happens on facebook right inside your phone. Other actions may include when you shoot a video, download an application, buy an application, use a website and other preying/privacy intruding things that facebook does to us now...

well thats the concept I think they might use to expand the market since facebook is king of web social networking, they will push hard and expand the field into social networking on the handset where in facebook will not be able to catch up...take facebook from its comfort zone(web) into a new zone where Google and its Android OS determine the rules and beat them like a pinata lol ;)

If you doubt my theory please see how they are taking Microsoft from Desktop Office tools into cloud office tools...Microsoft is dancing to Google's tune and following the steps of Google while they were leader in office tools, now Google determines the future of office productivity. Thats the kind if turn I can bet on. Also they are the ones deciding the future of smartphones now not Apple, because for the past 6months Apple iOS has only been playing catch up and they are not yet fully recovered lol

See the response and conversation I had on facebook with friends:

Saheed Taiye Adepoju: how should android go social?

Mambe Churchill Nanje: well the OS needs to have a friends app...that keeps your friends on their phones posted about some things you do on your phone...like I snap a new picture, the people I have added to my friends list will be notified of the picture and they can comment right from their phone...then expand it to games, apps, as I do this on an app just like facebook...my friends see a feed of some of my public actions...then they can comment or share it to their own friends...login to facebook is synonymous to login to your android phone

Saheed Taiye Adepoju: they got all that via android apps. The OS is very open and can customise it to be social. You got friendStream on the HTC UI sense which allows one to automatically update twitter and facebook and flickr. I can easily share links from within my android phone, i can pretty much do "social" thing due to the tons of apps on Android market. At the moment, logging into Gmail is same as logging onto ya android phone. If you havent got a gmail acct, the phone is pretty much useless to ya.

Mambe Churchill Nanje: cool...but I dont mean twitter, facebook...I mean ANDROID to ANDROID.... keeping facebook and twitter out of the whole scenario...friend to friend...like phone calls but now friend activities communicated to friends and they can comment and get notifications on their phones...no email, no facebook just phone and internet access

Saheed Taiye Adepoju: Ok, understood. That's just another blackberry initiative. Would be boring :).

Mambe Churchill Nanje: well nothing is boring if well implemented...

Saheed Taiye Adepoju: well i guess keeping with the android initiative of being open, someone might just implement android messaging, that wont be too hard.

Mambe Churchill Nanje: well its more than messaging...the files you save in your phone memory and apps you install, get shared with a couple of people...facebook pretty much is an os...where you have a profile, you login, you see what others are doing on their own space...so this is what I mean...what you save on your phone can be commented on by others...think pictures, videos, text, etc

Saheed Taiye Adepoju: Ok.

Tabi Tabe Ebot: ‎@mambe Google can come up with something like but the probe is will the mass be able to get phones such the nexus with it price tag? i mean here in africa not everyone can afford one.

Laurantine Endah Tatah: ok sa!

Mambe Churchill Nanje: ‎@Tabi its the Android OS that will get this feature...and when naijaborn phones, camerborn phones, encipher tablets get the updated ones...these features come into the device...and you automatically part of the social network and you start building your friends

Tabi Tabe Ebot: ‎@mambe Google can come up with something like but the probe is will the mass be able to get phones such the nexus with it price tag? i mean here in africa not everyone can afford one.

Tabi Tabe Ebot: ‎@mambe well for thats very possible to engineer, i mean you see what i'm talk Google can do it, and someone of your quality can dev that since Android is open, its very possible, i see it even possible to push data at real time, since its pure android to android. Great idea man.

Mambe Churchill Nanje: if I develop it, then I have to push it right inside the next Google Android public release...but its good as Google is asking developers to submit their products

Tabi Tabe Ebot: that will be good. then i should be eyeing an android handset then.

Mambe Churchill Nanje: ooh well...I dont have the right investment to do this...but I can push it so Google does it...I am even thinking thats Google Me

Tabi Tabe Ebot: if thats Google me then there is alot of problem for the others social media company, anywhere lets hold our hands closed and wait on GoogleMe then.