Updates On AfroVisioN Group's One Website For Every Cameroonian

Last time I told you we launched a scheme wherein we make websites cheap and affordable to Cameroonain firms and individuals as low as 50,000FCFA/year [ about 110USD ]. Well we have been faring with soo many SME's benefiting and getting some web presence thanks to AfroVisioN Group and God.
We have just hosted the following site for a client and working on a couple of others. What is pushing is the fact that this goes a long way to sensitize business men in Cameroon.
We are currently working on six other websites, which means we are working hard to represent six cameroonian initiatives on the internet.

Damwo CIG (www.damwo.org) - a site representing an organisation fighting for women empowerment. it cost our client 110USD per year to keep this site running.


I will keep posting about the success or failure of this "one website for every cameroonian firm or individual " program launched by AfroVisioN Group and if you need a site visit www.afrovisiongroup.com/contacts.php send us your request and we will host your site in 7 days. At AfroVisioN Grouip, we work hard everyday to improve computer systems awareness in Cameroon and later Africa ;)

www.afrostarups.com | a new place for african web business men

After surfing the web and talking with a couple of friends, I decided to launch a community web solution for Young Entrepreneurs who are interested in setting up their own Business' in Africa, and also Africans out there who are doing something on the web.
So I had to launch www.afrostartups.com
Like every other web venture, it takes time for it to get the users, and personally am ready to post hot articles on the site just like a blog till many others start responding and contributing.
The site talks about "hot Startups in Africa", "Startup Frequently ask Questions in Africa", "Marketing your African Startup", "fund raising and venture sources for you African Startup", "getting co founders and HR for your African startup".
But with time there will be more forums as the site grows and more people register. I love to see many web gurus come there to share knowledge so others can learn and grow their startups. If Africans can invest in the Internet they can make some money to fight Malaria, HIV and the rest.
Welcome to Afrostartups.com

Business and Fun Trip To Douala

Yesterday(May 31st 2008( I had a good trip to Douala where I met soo many interesting friends of mine, including FEE ( kerawa.com ), Enstine Muki of Njangi Host Cameroon ( betterplanning, enstine.net njangihost) , DJ Rene Cool ( So Sound Records), Mr AkoAkere Che Mone ( MTN Cameroon ), Mudjock Judith ( weboptimal.net), Suh Calvin ( a friend and prospective software developer ) and a couple of 'passerbys' who are always present in every city here in Africa.
The travel was initially intended to sign a partnership agreement between WebOptimal Cameroon ( www.weboptimal.net) and AfroVisioN Group ( www.afrovisiongroup.com ).

I got up from bed at 6 am after working on some codes for www.studentnetworks.in overnight till the early hours of the morning. So I had to continue coding till about 10 am, because I knew while in Douala, the day will go by without me working on any codes ( trying to maximise the day business wise ). After that I went online to check out a couple of mails and also meet Nino ( http://nino.akopo.com ), so we talk out some business regarding some projects we are working on.
After that, I took my bath, and got dressed up in a white shirt and pair of jean trousers (blend of young and responsible haha ).
Called my friend Steveslil ( www.steveslil.com) because we had to travel together, handling business you know how it is. After that I made a couple of calls to some guys and finaly my girl friend ( Wenie Taila -unfortunately she has no web blog or personal site, she is into the medical stuffs and far from computers)
The next thing I can remember is seeing myself at Web Optimal offices, where I had a long and very interesting discussion with Mudjock Ouafo ( which made Steveslil leave us to watch his football Match Cameroon vs .... ) and we had concrete terms on how our partnership will go along ( hey I cant tell you more than that :D).
After the business talk, she accompanied me to meet FEE, who made me stand for about 25 mins infront of his office waiting on him to come meet me down stairs but he was in another building, so he had to take a cap to join me and the rest is history.
We had to walk around Dla with FEE ( 'promene' comme on dits en francais ), where we talked on topics like African entrepreneurs and internet, building a startup, less is more, introvert, nairaland - yes we talked about nairaland.com vs blueworld.co.za but I will save it for another post.
Most of the talking was in his office, after that I recieved a call from Mr Che Mone asking me to meet him at his place. At his place it was fun and chat and fun and chat again with FEE making a reunion with his high school pals. After discussing for about an hour or so, men we had to 'sqwalleee', and meet Steveslil at Rond point, Deido. From rondpoint had to go meet Enstine Muki at his place in "Bonamoussadi".
Men the table infront of me was filled with a blend of fish, soft drinks and technology talk; very very interesting. I am not the outgoing type but I think if I go out with Software / Web developers its much fun.
The most interesting topic and center of the table ( Enstine, Myself, FEE, Steveslil) was 'information technology in cameroon and web business'. The difficulties and the work arounds, man I must say we need an official gathering like that where web developers and entrepreneurs can meet and make contacts here in Africa.
Then FEE left us because he had to go Cinema with someone. later we went to meet D J Rene, where Enstine left us but Suh Calvin was with us at this point. We talked some business with DJ Rene and he made me realise how the music industy in Cameoron was in need of serious music promoters and marketers. In his words " the Music industy in Cameroon be it Makossa, Hip Hop, Bikutsi needs marketers soo badly and the fake marketers here have no network..." but he concluded that it was better in Nigeria than Cameroon which we all accepted.
Finally we hit the road back to Buea.
The trip to Douala and back lasted about 8 hours but soo many things happened that I cant recall all.
Thanks Judith, FEE, Enstine, DJ Rene, Calvin for the wonderful time you made me spend alongside Steveslil.
"Piss Out"

Why Social Networks / Media Sites Cannot Get to Millions of Users in Africa [ part 2 ]

I wanted to continue "why web 2.0 ventures are not making it big in africa", so I decided to drop this post. Please read on ...

There are soo many issues why a social network/media site cannot get to millions in Africa as a whole, although the number of internet users in Africa is up to 50+ million.

[Challenge: can your venture make an African who is not interested in the internet use the internet ?]

- How many Africans have access to internet at home ( luxury )?

- How many langauges do we have here in Africa ( minimum two : internationalisation starts from day one )

- How cheap is it for our users to go to the cyber everyday just to have fun on a soo called social network where they do not make any thing out of it ?

- Are the Ventures (web 2.0 sites ) having the right networks ( business , marketing, HR, IT ) to handle such growths to millions of users, and do they have the "big problem" Venture Capital ?

- How many Africans know the importance of the internet or how to use computers not to talk of your soo called social media site ?


If you are in Silicon Valley and you have a crazy idea like twitter.com, it can explode within two years but if you are in West Africa, who is ready to invest into a "war torn zone" ( as they address us ), thinking that when a war breaks all their servers will be turned to dust ??
But I think if you offer Africans a place to meet people to better their lives( jobs, marriage, career networking ) just like what we are working on with www.webyfolio.com ( still a work in progress ) or what FEE is putting forth www.kerawa.com ( classified ads - jobs 100% important to unemployed Africans) , they will come there and also tell their friends, and with time you might get the VCs coming or you might get the traffic to make some money out of.
More to that:
If I was unemployed I bet you I will visit www.kerawa.com everyday to see what opportunities God has for me somewhere in Cameroon or Africa.

My Proposed Solutioins:

- African web entrepreneurs should take some time to study software engineering and the business behind it. Remember this process will take you about two years before you can be able to build a good solution. Go to school or hit the browser to www.w3schools.com, most of us started from there

- Before starting a web 2.0 site, look at Africa, see what they value and what they dont value, what they have and what they can afford, dont build your site because its a social network, but build your solution because it has value to give to the average African no matter his poverty. Africans dont have money and they pay to access the internet, if you want them to use your site, then it should be something worth the small pocket money they have.

- Ensure that you make a bilingual solution ( kudos kerawa.com), so that most Africans can use the solution from day one.

- Market your solution via TV, Radio, Magazins, Blogs ( pay for the marketing ) else you wont get those users. Here in Africa, we watch TV, and listen to Radio and if you tell us something on Air, we will see it. You can hit MNET African Magic, and some other stuffs like Canal + horizon.
In business if you dont pay in something you wont make anything ( correct me if I am wrong ).
But if you count on online marketing: Abi we are not in Yankee (USA), and we dont want only tech savvy guys in Africa using our ventures

- While growing your web venture indulge into something else that will give you money for the time being else you will give up. You can get a regular job, which is not the best because its bad for the growth of your venture but good for the money. You can offer other services to firms in your area like build websites and softwares ( good one but very much strainous to your team), then get part of the money and experience and contacts as positive effects to your venture.

- I have realised that most internet users in Africa are mostly tech savy guys who work in the IT industry, but the guys who dont work in the IT industry need to use our sites too. Do something that can convert the non internet user in African to become an Internet user on your site [ VERY VERY BIG CHALLENGE ]

Web Gurus of Africa this is what I want you to remember:
online ventures need patience
Nairaland.com started in 2005 but its getting 200,000 users in 2008,
Facebook started in 2003 and it became big in 2007,
Google started in 1999 and it became big in 2003,
Myspace (2003 - 2006 ).
Blogger started in 1999 and Google bought them in 2005.
So don't expect to start today and in a year you get 20 million users, but you should expect a Geometric Progression kind of thing.
like Facebook was with 15 million users in 2007 and it converted that figure to 70million users in 2008. but it took them 2003 - 2007 to get 15 million users.
I think I have exhausted all the reasons why web ventures don't grow that big in our continent.

Why Web 2.0 ventures are not making it big in Africa

I was on nairaland the other day and someone asked if the idea of setting up a Nigerian or African wide social network was a good idea.
Personally I think its a good and bad idea. Its good if it helps people share what is valuable to them but it will be bad if its just for fun like facebook.com or myspace ( Africans dont have money and they dont have free internet ).

These are some of the things to consider to make a successful web 2.0 solution in Africa:

- Daily service : Do they need something from your site everyday, I personally don't visit facebook.com or myspace.com everyday but I visit www.google.com and www.google.com/analytics everyday ( I guess webmasters know why )

- Innovations: if your site keeps getting some innovations, it will cause news and bloggers around will write about you and people will turn to visit your site. Facebook launched the platform and after that new applications have been coming up which make bloggers, journalists write more about facebook and hence giving their site more attention

- updates: if your site gives users some updates by email or phone or TV or , then the users will keep coming to your site.

Those are some of the things I believe are hindering web 2.0 ventures here in Africa. Mainly because Africans just want to replicate success stories in USA back here, but the situation here is different. Build things that will benefit the audience you target and also consider what they have and what they dont have.
For example, Africans will prefer to watch news on TV free of charge than to pay for internet to read the news. I hope you get the reason why some web 2.0 stuffs can work in USA and Europe and not Africa.
Please give me your own views towards this issue by commenting

Google Adsense is not working in Africa

Google Adsense the biggest ads network on the planet, which is also known as the "Google money making machine", seems to be a total failure in Africa[IMHO - anyway thats why its on my blog...].
Dont rush to comment yet, read on to get my points.
I have been running www.ubstudents.com and its having atleast 20 unique visitors per day, with such traffic in USA I guess I will be having atleast 2 USD per day, but here in Africa I get 0.1 USD on the average per day. I have also placed adsense on this blog http://mambenanje.blogpost.com, www.bushfalling.com and www.kupexsans.com , but the overall revenue from the four sites is barely 2USD per week on the average.

I have some small explanations for this though:

- Adworks is not yet used by most African firms, so most adverts that get served to adsense publishers in Africa are mostly for international viewers which is not higly targeted for our African audience and it results to low click through rates.

- A friend of mine who owns www.webmastersofafrica.com gave his own explanation as follows: African publishers are abusing the adsense program thinking its free money and thus Google has put high restrictions to the African part of the Adsense/Adworks network.

If there is any person out there with an African venture that makes a great deal from Adsense, please place a comment so I could know if its me or its Adsense not getting it right in Africa.

For example, a big website as www.nairaland.com with 200,000 registered members and an estimated daily traffic of about 50,000 unique visitors, I guess the 25 year old owner of the site would be making about 1 million USD per annum but I bet he barely makes 500K USD per annum which can clearly justify my claim that "Google adsense is not working in Africa".

I personally think African web publishers need their own ads network which will be highly targeted to advertising African products so that the African users of our sites will get to see adverts that make more sense to them. This will lead back to my open source Adverts solutions for publishers (code named admark), which I talked about in a previous post below.