HiPipo Money

Big Brother Africa StarGame is amazing as it has always been.

Recently, Uganda’s own Janette Nalutaaya confessed to the friends that she is actually a virgin!

Contrary to this, she evens looks more of Kyle’s girl friend. Does he look like that guy who can spare her for even a day? Janette confessed to Ola and Chris that she is still a virgin.

DKB and Goldie are thinking of how to make the big money.  DKB talked to Goldie about the enormous opportunity they have to make money from this show.

Downville men are complaining about the supplies in the House. They had a long discussion of what they should do to have better supplies.

Meanwhile, Junia plans to kiss Malonza again. While having a chat with Jesica she told her that she actually enjoyed last time moment, let’s wait and see what she will do.

Remember that Tanzania’s Julio and Hilda plus Zimbabwe’s Teclar and Maneta were nominated and either of the pairs might be evicted soon.

Keep right here for more updates.

Two of the world’s top universities Harvard and MIT announced collaboration with each contributing $30 million into a nonprofit partnership edX, which they hope will make the top-notch faculties and courses of their schools available for free to millions of people around the world — free for anyone with an Internet connection.

This is very good news for all people around the world that have an interest in quality education. Education at the world top universities in the UK (Oxford, Cambridge, LSE) or in the US can cost someone over 50,000 USD for a single year.  This amount is not affordable for many people from the developing world. The cost aside, the traditional education model has limits on the number of people that can enroll for a program or course. Embracing online distance learning comes with an advantage that more interested people will have a chance to tap into the knowledge base of the world’s top elite universities.

Even as the online students will be able to attain certificates of mastery but not traditional degrees, it is worth investment of one’s time and we hope Ugandans and all Africans with interest to grow their knowledge and/or dreams to reach Harvard or MIT will tap into this new opportunity. 

According to comScore January 2012, report Microsoft’s Bing’s share of the U.S. search was 15.2%, while Google’s share was 66.2%. Globally, Microsoft’s search market share was much lower at just 4.4% in 2011. 

Since time, when Bing was launched we at HiPipo found little love for Bing since it hardly had relevant results for HiPipo content. Its crawlers were always behind Google and seemed not to pick most of the recent content from our African/Ugandan Market. This appears to have significantly improved as of our last search.  A current may 2012, search of the term “HiPipo” on Bing shows about 32,300 RESULTS. Even as this figure is lower than Google’s over 128.000 results for the search of the same term, it is a significant improvement. Also the Bing search interface has become much cleaner and presenting sitelinks in a clear way.  Is Bing simply getting better on its own innovation or is it simply copying Google? Could be both! 

In 2004 during my first degree in computer science, at Makerere University, I happen to have offered a course on e-commerce during which my lecturer offered a wealth of knowledge about this subject. Many undergraduate and graduate students in computing over the last decade have had similar training but e-commerce realization has long been a mystery for Uganda and other African economies. This has largely been due to infrastructure challenges (Internet was still seen as luxury by some back then) and majorly poor banking penetration among other factors.

First track to 2012, many banks are offering VISA debit cards with ability to conduct online payments whereas some few banks are even offering credit cards.  Even as this is good progress, the rise of mobile money is phenomenal and the rising penetration of mobile internet and smartphones is a big catalyst. The talk about e-commerce now will hence be largely focused on mCommerce.

Electronic commerce (Ecommerce) refers to the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. Mobile Commerce (Mcommerce) is any transaction, involving the transfer of ownership or rights to use goods and services, which is initiated and/or completed by using mobile access to computer-mediated networks with the help of an electronic device.

In Uganda, it is estimated that 5 million people are using the internet as of 2012 whereas over 15 million have access to mobile phones of which an increasing number is embracing mobile money.  Payment intermediary services such as Yo Payments from Uganda(https://payments.yo.co.ug/), JPesa(jpesa.com) PesaPal from Kenya come with  API which enables integration with websites(mobile web/apps).  These developments mean that there is a growing big market and the broken e-commerce payments system is being fixed.  The next natural process should be for businesses to realize the opportunity there is and to get started on embracing e-commerce and more particularly mCommerce.

Businesses in Uganda now need to rethink their distribution models and figure out how they integrate e-commerce/mCommerce in their sales and distribution models.   This will require businesses to set up websites with keen consideration for mobile web and apps.  The good news is that the cost of websites has gone down. Though this does not mean that good e-commerce websites come on the cheap, they are much more affordable compared to how it was several years back. There is still shortage of skills in the mobile space hence it may still be a little expensive to develop mobile applications but the opportunity that comes with tapping into this market will offset what may seemingly be  a big cost to join the e-commerce/mCommerce scope.  

As we hope to see more Ugandan and African business embrace mCommerce, for consultation in this space and for services to get your business online, HiPipo Digital Agency arm will be glad to work with you to push your business to the next level online.  Contact US Today.

BBA Stargame opens up on Sunday May 6th 2012 with a USD 300 000 winner prize on the table and a new format that sees contestants doubling up to play, in addition to introduction of celebrity housemates. The opening ceremony will be broadcast live online and will feature among others J. Cole.

The celebrity housemate revealed are

•Stylish entertainer, stand-up comedian and television pro DKB from Ghana (26 yrs)

•Tough, talented rap icon Prezzo from Kenya (32 yrs)

•Award-winning songstress Lady May from Namibia (25 yrs)
 
•Boldly dramatic pop music sensation Goldie from Nigeria (28 yrs)

•Famed socialite, model and businesswoman Barbz from South Africa (34 yrs)

•Unforgettable, highly successful R&B diva Mampi from Zambia (25 yrs)

•Unique and hugely popular, soulful musician Roki from Zimbabwe (27 yrs)
 

Flavia Tumusiime, Channel O VJ and Capital FM DJ is set to be the  first Ugandan and  East African to co-host   BIGBROTHER AFRICA Opening Ceremony.  It is expected that Flavia will be co-host with IK this Sunday, May 6, 2012 as the Stargame opens!

Big Brother Africa StarGame will see pairs of entrants in addition to the 7 celebrity housemates that BBA announced earlier this week.  The cash prize for this season is 300,000 USD. 

We cannot wait for the 91 days of BBA to start.

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Uganda banks have long been slow in boosting their online presence that includes having websites and presence in social media.  Now that we are moving to a mobile generation, are Uganda banks ready for this era?

Our team did research about the Uganda banks online presence. Our discovery is that majority of the banks currently have websites, alas many are rarely updated (not even with different promotions of the banks)! Several banks that are part of international groups have websites that are hosted on the parent bank website eg Barclays Uganda is hosted on the International Barclays website. This tends to have an effect on the localization of the bank’s online presence since then all website operations and online presence of the bank appears to be directed by the parent company.

Even as some few banks have mobile banking solutions with functionality such as performing balance checks and other banking transactions through a mobile device such as a mobile phone, none of the Uganda banks has a mobile friendly website that we found as of April, 2012.  In the advent of the success of mobile money, banks need to think better of how they reach out to their mobile clients. Mobile friendly websites will be needed from the different banks to enable their customers or potential customer more easily access information about the bank’s products using mobile devices.

The Uganda Internet market has been growing steadily fast. One of the challenges it faces are the data costs which though have reduced over the years are still on the high side for more and faster internet penetration to take place. The different operators have packaged their offers into daily, weekly and monthly offerings.

 A survey of the available 3G, EDGE, GPRS packages from four operators, MTN Uganda, Orange Uganda, Airtel Uganda and Warid Telecom indicates that two of the operators MTN Uganda and Orange Uganda hardly have daily packages whereas Warid Telecom and Airtel have introduced daily and weekly packages as of May 2012.  The cost for the two operator’s daily packages is competitive. What will mostly differentiate them would be the quality of service to their customers.

All operators have monthly packages with costing that is not significantly different. Hence clients should look at quality of service ahead of cost. This could be a little different if cost was significantly different.  

As were look out for more affordable data, we hope the telecoms will have more flexible offering such as daily and weekly packages from all the operators.  HiPipo 5Star Business and Tech team will publish a regular survey of the Uganda data market.

Data for this survey was found on the different operators websites whereas data from Uganda Telecom an ISP could not be established from its website.

As HiPipo.com had earlier reported, our suspicion has been confirmed! Even as many pointed to Natasha, it is Janette Lutaaya and Duncan Kyle to represent Uganda for Big Brother Africa Stargame.

Big Brother Africa Stargame, the biggest reality show in Africa kicked off headlined by American rapper J. Cole, and co-hosted by Channel O VJ and Capital FM Radio presenter, Flavia.

The show started with a high paced dance routine before J Cole took to the stage. IK revealed that this Season, Big Brother fans must standby for some excitement in the Downville Diner where fourteen couples will be. “In Downville Housemates will not be nominating each other,” IK revealed. What could Biggie have lined up for the unsuspecting Downville Housemates? New nomination system is done randomly by machines, so housemates will not nominate each other!

The VIP Upville House will be housing the seven celebrity housemates. Ghana’s DKB was the first VIP to enter was followed by Prezzo from Kenya, Lady May from Namibia, Goldie from Nigeria, Barbz from South Africa, Mampi from Zambia and Rocki from Zimbabwe.

DKB who promised that he will slap you if you slap him was asked if he was going to be faithful and said he will be very faithful to Big Brother but not his wife.

Prezzo from Kenya who was dressed in Masai style promised to be himself and said he had no strategy.

Lady May who came with a drum as her lover from Namibia says she wants to buy a house because she is tired of paying rent.

Goldie from Nigeria promised, so she will love herself for the 91 days since now one can love you more than yourself

Barbz from South Africa – A sexy model with killer curves she promised to be sexy. Yes SEXY

Musician Mampi from Zambia assured Africa that she will survive Africa for 91 days!

Rocky from Zimbabwe thinks break dancing will win him the 300,000.

Jannette and Kyle the housemates from Uganda will be in the Downville.
           

Flavia Tumusiime, Channel O VJ and Capital FM DJ is set to be the  first Ugandan and  East African to co-host   BIGBROTHER AFRICA Opening Ceremony.  It is expected that Flavia will be co-host with IK this Sunday, May 6, 2012 as the Stargame opens!

Big Brother StarGame will see pairs of entrants in addition to the 7 celebrity housemates that BBA announced earlier this week.  The cash prize for this season is 300,000 USD. 

We cannot wait for the 91 days of BBA to start.

SMS has not become irrelevant and will not in the near future, but leave alone that SMS database and the bulk SMS services that you make use of to send company updates, Christmas messages and news and think about mobile web/apps.  Your company needs to provide more room for communication and easy accessibility of company information to your clients and users through mobile web/apps.

Tech companies like Ericson, Huawei, MTN, Orange, Samsung to mention but a few are strategically delivering Smartphone and tablets for sale on the Uganda market. Despite of this, the end user has not  yet tapped into these gadgets full potential since many brands have not taken chance to make use of mobile web/apps in reaching their clients.

Even as use of these gadgets for some services has grown, we should note with concern that, these smart phones and tablets are not only sold for Facebook and Wikipedia access but your company/brand can also use the Smartphone penetration as an opportunity.

As the MD, CEO, Sales or Marketing manager, how would you feel when you found out that 10,000 users have your mobile portal as their browser homepage on their devices or have your brand app installed and made use of daily?

Uganda companies should make use of this flexible and cheap means of communication to deliver information to the people and keep brands interactive using mobile apps. Your users will share your content, promote your brand and eventually that interactivity will turn into action and hence cash.

Food for thought, recently, the entirely social “Microsoft Social Office 365”, “Your Office, Your Terms” campaign garnered 5.8 million overall campaign impressions and this was four times more traffic from social sharing than the typical Microsoft campaign. Majority of devices used in the campaign were mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

What are you waiting for! Contact HiPipo Digital media experts to help you develop a multi functional interactive mobile website or application and make use of all avenues to win your clients, even more.