Category Archives: Google

Skunkworks: Nairobi March 4

A Skunkworks (blog) meeting yesterday was hosted by (7 month old) Google Kenya, and it was attended by an interesting mix of engineers, webhosts, designers, admins, bloggers and rivals of Google, – who all listened as Google employees explained their aps and maps.

some scribbled notes

  • There’s an ongoing Google East Africa competition for students to develop gadgets for Google (closes March 17)
  • They are mapping the country with Google map’s – started with Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu and Nakuru, with a Kenyan team, doing the mapping work, using the tools. Ideally the next step will be for maps to stream into local yellow pages
  • Safaricom has the largest customer base of any kind in Kenya – 8 million strong – and so Google partnered with them to give all their subscribers free e-mail. Many people’s introduction was and still remains, accessing an email account.
  • Ushahidi was cited as an example of enhanced use of a Google platform.
  • Google in Africa for the long term, with an altruistic motive of sharing local content & information – and currently get less than 1% of revenue from Africa. They helped NTV set up a Youtube platform that has been a big success in terms of Kenyans abroad now able to watch local news online. They monetize in three ways – videoads, adsense, search box advertising. Kenya/Africa needs to get more local content up. Already some local web sites are making good money off adsense that is enough to sustain their online operations.
  • Hot point #1 was bandwidth; or the performance of connectivity, service providers and other operators. They are known in the industry for short-changing consumers who are not wary and in the face of a regulator (CCK) who does not seem to care. There was a call for users to take the initiative, to test bandwidth speeds, and identify those with superior speeds and those who were short-changing consumers (a model from Australia called Whirlpool to test broadband was mentioned as a model that could be used to do this)
  • Hot point # 2 was the lack of investment in infrastructure/or the wrong kind of investment. Examples: There are 4 ethernet cables in Nairobi, but no cooperation between providers. Government is building data centers, but with no servers there. Local loops are not benefiting end users. It would be nice if government required new building developers to also install connectivity in buildings
  • Other challenges with local advertising – does it work? Yahoo never advertised in Kenya; yet have more e-mail accounts through word of mouth. Google is working with universities to give them free e-mail as a way of building a long term relationship. There’s also a move to alert local advertising companies to the presence of local sites to advertise on.

There were many other conversations but they were drowned out by sounds of mouths slurping pizza slices and mshikaki’s.

Kutwa Tuesday: Jan 22 Pot Pourri

All Safaricom:
Good: An IPO from Safaricom could be the tonic that will restore investor confidence in Kenya that has been damaged the political events over the last month.
Good: Safaricom has partnered with Google to offer free email (6GB worth) to all their customers.
–but not good Have Safaricom raise their data costs? Internet browsing by phone seems to chew up airtime a lot faster these days

Air wars:
– Fly cheaper: Kenya Airways flights to Mombasa are now 3,000 shillings ($45) one way and 5,000 for roundtrips (plus tax) – about ½ of what they were a month ago
– There’s a new airline on the Kisumu route, as another airline, Fly 540 has also acquired new aircraft to embark on flights to other regional African countries.

Mitigating political risks:
– There was a notice in the paper by the Association of Kenya Insurers (AKI) confirming that political risks/riots are not covered in their policies. However, members will discuss loss compensation on a case by case basis.
– But there’s a green light for some; Today’s Daily Nation has an (offline) story about the Africa Trade Insurance Agency – a World Bank subsidiary that covers political risks that has been largely dormant in Kenya until this month when corporates like Kenya Airways, Telkom and Nakumatt have been flocking to enquire about political risk cover. The story has an ominous warning that election violence could be an event that recurs every five years in Kenya in future.

Phantom exchange: Owing to a system hitch, there was no trading at the Nairobi Stock Exchange on Monday – though someone at the Standard says there were some trades. The exchange appears slightly inflated with all that’s going on around in the country.

Boycott averted: I was in the second week of my personal boycott of national broadcaster Kenya Broadcast Corporation (KBC) for shoddy programming and outright disservice to Kenyans in the post-election period. But they have won me back temporarily with their belated offer to broadcast soccer matches from the Africa Cup of Nations in Ghana. Having a variety of channels to watch is however a luxury that million in rural Kenya do not have as they only have the national broadcaster to tune to for news and entertainment.

Opportunities
Consult with Pricewaterhousecoopers: Kenya jobs include Transfer Pricing Manager, Consultant (Internal Audit) Senior Consultant (Internal Audit Services) Specialist (s) (Public Sector), Manager (Financial & Operational Effectiveness), Consultant (s) (Financial & Operational Effectiveness), Manager (Assurance-Audit), Consultant (IT Effectiveness), Consultant (CCH TeamMate), Associate Director (Mergers and Acquisition), Analyst (M&A), Manager (M&A). Also, other positions available in Uganda and Tanzania – D/L for all is 31/1.

Google discovers the NSE

Google finance has begun covering the Nairobi Stock Exchange. It’s still in beta so it can only get better. Some information (mostly company managers) and financials are outdated, and it would be nice to see some blog contributions in addition to the news feeds like at Reuters Africa

Job & numbers

Citizen TV: 000’s are the reasons that several media stars have decamped to Citizen TV. For the KTN crew it was about playing one house against the other to raise the salary stakes before they moved on, but not for as much as they had hoped. For those left at KTN salary caps are now in order on a take it or leave it basis.

KCB: Deputy CEO Martin Oduor Otieno got elevated to lead KCB this month, despite the KCB board erroneously including a clause that CEO candidates should be under 50 years of age which the new MD is over by about a year.

Jobs available
most from the daily papers in the past week

African Development Bank: Research Economist, Senior Research Economist, Financial Management Specialist, Principal Environmentalist, Senior Gender Specialist, Principal Socio-Economist, Senior Statistician. Apply to recruit@afdb.org by 10/4

Barclays: Direct sales agents (ref: DSA07), direct sales team leader (DSTL07) D/L is 30/3

Brand & technologies Limited: managing director, finance manager, commercial manager, logistics manager, procurement manager, internal audit manager, hr & admin manager, ICT manager, brand managers (4). Apply through Deloitte at esd@deloitte.co.ke by 6/4

Senior financial planning coordinator at Celtel . Apply to hr@ke.celtel.com by 30/3

I & M Bank: Cashiers/Tellers, IS Security Administrator, ICT Management Trainees, Credit Administration Officer (Securities and Documentation), Credit Administration Officer (System Input and Maintenance), Credit Administration Officer (Monitoring and Control),

Young professionals (10) at KIPPRA. Details online and D/L is 20/4
– Also at KIPPRA – research consultants/associates, research assistant, editorial consultants in fields of macroeconomics, productive sector, private sector, social sector, infrastructure & economic service. Apply to eoi@kippra.or.ke by 20/4

Kenya Tea Development Authority: brand executive and a web administrator. Apply to recruitement@ktdateas.com by 10/4

Regional information & communication officer at Oxfam and D/L is 4/4

Senior Manager – Financial Systems & Analysis at Safaricom. D/L is 2/4

Management trainees at the Standard D/L is 11/4

World vision: Africa advocacy director, Africa Christian commitments director, and Africa communications director. Details online and D/L is 13/4
Also National Director, Uganda, Programme Director, North Sudan, Programme Director, Somalia. D/L is 20/4

Transition into 2007

2006 was a great year thanks to blogging.

Looking back

  • High point: the great people I met through the KBW buffet park meet ups
  • High point # 2: getting invited to the digital citizen indaba in South Africa – my first real visit to another African country and I got an idea of what to expect at the 2010 World Cup.

Low point: getting booted from adsense by Google – which happened just as I was getting used to having blogging provide some supplemental income through advertising. Thanks to Stocktrends and Alex Gichira (Ed. Business Post) for their support of my efforts since then.

Traffic

  • Used statcounter (& still do) but it doesn’t provide much historical data so I also signed up with Google analytics in September.
  • 43% visitors of visits are from within Nairobi – which is surprising since the target audience is Kenyans in the diaspora and most of what I write should be apparent to people here in Nairobi. Still, it’s encouraging.
  • Fewest visits on Sundays – means most of you read in the office!

Top posts

  • Kenya exam results online (highest traffic [4X normal] was recorded on 28 December – not to read my banking summary for the year but to locate KCPE exams results online!)
  • No drugs at NSE
  • Where to buy shares
  • Money transfer within Kenya
  • Bank rankings June 2006

my faves  in terms of the comments and feedback I received

  • Safaricom success
  • No apologies
  • Idea exchange & barter trade
  • Training Kenyans for outsourcing
  • Where to buy shares (part ii) redux

Changes in 2007

Fewer posts: the amount of information posted by new bloggers and sites – such as nairobist, stockskenya, pesa tu, riba capital, cold tusker (now investing in Africa), hisagal, odegle nyang and others (see my blogroll) is a blessing for everyone. For me, it’s less to do, less news to bring up, and I can focus on more research and longer posts.

More techie; I owe so much to blogging so I must improve by learning more tech stuff and experimenting with more tools. I hope to have more photo posts this year and try out new templates (many people don’t like the black background). However, bankelele is not eligible for blogger beta as it may be too large to migrate.

Kioskelele: 2007 will be the year to take the plunge into the informal sector / entrepreneurship by starting a kiosk/shop/SME and continue to diversify my income. These opportunities are not there forever and we have to take them on otherwise we will regret forever why we didn’t follow our dreams. Still looking for the right location in the city that is accessible and suitable.

More savings: So far so good but a book I read recently (the “automatic millionaire”) said saving should happen automatically – i.e. money grows when you can’t see it/have no chance to intercept it & use the money. Only problem is that standing orders at Kenyan banks are so expensive – and it’s wrong to have 5 – 10% of money intended for savings be eaten up by bank charges. I found a bank which was much cheaper, but they sometimes forget to remit the money into the account!

Quit share trading: Not quite, but there will be less trading of shares this year and focus will remain on IPO’s and new issues like Safaricom. It’s not that the brokers are bad, but there are too many shareholders (since Kengen, Scangroup, and Eveready) who occupy brokers’ offices and phone lines from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. It is too much hassle going there, trying to call in orders – that sometimes I think it may be better to cash in my gains and reinvest them in an Old Mutual fund or new investment club. (The folks at the Kenya capital investment group have posted their investment club constitution which is a good guide for those wishing to start a club)

Fun fact:

From an article in the Economist on the etiquette of bribery.

Q: “What’s the difference between a gift and a bribe?”
A: “Any gift, must be consumable in a single day – so a bottle of wine is acceptable, a case of wine is not.”

Opportunities

Head of keg business at East African breweries. Apply to hr.recruitment@eabl.com by 6/1

ICDCI Investment manager, risk manager, business analyst, investment analyst, risk analyst. Details at their site and deadline for applications to jobs@icdci.co.ke is 19/1

Procurement adviser – public sector & development at KPMG. Apply to esd@kpmg.co.ke by 12/1

Commissioner of domestic tax revenue KRA. Apply through KPMG at esd@kpmg.co.ke by 7/1

Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Principal Counselors (4), First Counselor (11), Second Counselors (22), First Secretary (28) and Third Secretary Cadet (64) Posts. Details and deadline is 12/1

Head, Communications Unit at World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) . Details and deadline for applications to icrafhru@cgiar.org is 19/1

A dollar a day: dream suspended

I have been running Google Adsense advertisements for a few months now and recently received my first $102 check. I have since been chugging along and looking forward to a next cumulative payment of about $150 when I got this e-mail on Saturday:

From : Google AdSense <adsense-adclicks@google.com>
Sent : Saturday, May 27, 2006 12:28 AM
To : bankelele@hotmail.com
CC : Google AdSense <adsense-adclicks@google.com>
Subject : Google AdSense Account Disabled

Hello _____

It has come to our attention that invalid clicks have been generated on the Google ads on your site(s). We have therefore disabled your Google AdSense account. Please understand that this step was taken in an effort to protect the interest of the AdWords advertisers.

A publisher’s site may not have invalid clicks on any ad(s), including but not limited to clicks generated by:

– a publisher on his own web pages
– a publisher encouraging others to click on his ads
– automated clicking programs or any other deceptive software
– a publisher altering any portion of the ad code or changing the
layout, behavior, targeting, or delivery of ads for any reason

Practices such as these are in violation of the Google AdSense Terms and Conditions and program polices, which can be viewed at:

https://www.google.com/adsense/localized-terms?hl=en_US
https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_US

Publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed further participation in AdSense and do not receive any further payment. The earnings on your account will be properly returned to the affected advertisers.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

I immediately appealed by e-mailing Google, and as I await the outcome, I today found this very timely and useful post from Problogger on reasons one can get suspended by the Adsense team.