Internet Governance Forum comes to Kenya

So you already know that Kenya is now one of the hosts of the internet's root servers. These are servers that hold the basic lists of top level domains. Connected together, these servers form the internet. The root server based near YMCA was set up by the ICANN. Anyway, the Sixth Annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) conference is scheduled to take place in Nairobi Kenya from 27-30 September 2011 at the United Nations Office in Gigiri, Nairobi (UNON). The issues to be discussed include:

What role are mobile networks playing in providing Internet access to citizens and what needs to be put in place to promote mobile Internet and enhance local content development?

  

Cyber security and Privacy: What policies are required to increase and improve co-operation in this area to ensure that strategies are consistent with policies that protect society while advancing innovation, growth and development?

·         Cloud Computing: What is cloud computing and what are the critical issues in determining the pace and level of development of the cloud?

·         Other thematic areas such the concept of creation of “Knowledge Societies” in cyberspace, content generation, guarding Internet freedom, preserving linguistic diversity, particularly promotion of multilingualism in cyberspace as a commitment toward supporting the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity adopted in 2010 and the Recommendation on the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism and Universal Access to Cyberspace adopted in 2005.

 Activities on these dates:

• 26^th September 2011- High level Ministerial Meeting at UNON

Cocktail & Launch of GSMA Report at Tribe Hotel

• 27^th September 2011 – Opening Session at UNON
• 28^th September 2011- Business Round Table at  Tribe Hotel (2-4)

-Cloud Computing Research at UNON

• 29^th September 2011 –IHUB Visit
• 30^th September 2011- Public Lecture at KICC (9-12) 

Khweza consulting of Nairobi is making the arrangements for scribes wishing to attend.

SEO:Search Engine Optimization - Google vs. FB, Twitter

There is a global industry built around this line: Google does not smile. The industry is called SEO or Search Engine Optimization.

In basic terms, if you are a news site, a marketing site, a website or whatever site online, your presence depends on how easily people can find you.

To find things online, most people, turn to Google and Google turns to its humongous index of web pages and returns results based on its rankings.

Depending on the words a person types in Google Search, Google decides which pages are most relevant and gives the results in terms of relevance.

The more relevant the page, the higher up in the results it shows.

Because websites want to be ranked high, they in turn engage in what is called Search Engine Optimization i.e. they optimize themselves for Google and other search engines.


They do this by employing the use of KEY WORDS that Google looks for.

Hence the saying: Google does not smile. If you are a newssite, writing snazzy, funny or catchy headlines takes you nowhere with Google unless you include keywords.

It is for this reason that newspapers carry different headlines online for the same story in the print edition.

Additionally, it is important to note that Google only reads the first six words and anything after is ignored - it therefore makes sense for you to put important information at the beginning.

However, there is also evidence that SEO may not be the main deal in times to come.

The Entry of Facebook and Twitter into the picture is changing all this. Increasingly, people are coming onto websites not from Google but from Facebook after reading friends updates and following the links or from Twitter.

It then makes sense for you to have an interesting update to your website if you want people to share and read it.

Looking at the Kenyan landscape, there is much yet to be done in the way of optimizing websites and increasing their presence online.

According to Alexa.com, the only Kenyan website among the top ten sites visited by Kenyans is Daily Nation's Nation.co.ke, which comes in at number 10. The 15-year old website comes behind such relative newcomers as Google, Facebook, youtube, Gmail and others.

Of course the site has built a community over the years including in the diaspora that religiously visits it but NMG has also been first out of the gate in adopting technologies as they come.

It implemented a Facebook page and got into Twitter ahead of such venerable names as The Economist which is belatedly making a push into social media to drive traffic to its site.

AS a result, the Nation's updates on Facebook draw hundreds of comments indicating an engagement with its readers that only serves to solidify its relationship with them.

In fact it may be said that the one chink in the Nation's armour has been its slowness in implementing a properly focused mobile website. The largest online newspaper site, The New York Times and the number two and three respectively, The Daily Mail and The Guardian, all have mobile formatted sites that fit on the screen of the small devices.

Conventional sites tend to have frames and heavy graphics that are not optimal for the phone.

In any case, for web designers and PR agencies that need to shape their clients image online and marketing departments, it shall serve to keep all the above in mind to foster better client engagement.

CHANNEL 2.0? Safaricom TV

Tech stuff happening here and there.....

Safaricom is already in its 2.0 phase and Bob Collymore is in New York for the Africa Investor Conference...he will be back there next month on an investor road trip when he and maybe Les Baillie will meet the likes of Morgan Stanley and other investment banks and hedge funds that invest in Safaricom.

Anyway, the main news is that Safaricom could be seriously considering entering the TV arena.

I posted here that Airtel is considering bring its Digital TV to Kenya to take on Naspers Group owned DsTV.

As we migrate from Analog to Digital TV the game will change of course because Multi-Choice, the Naspers subsidiary that runs DsTV will also be looking to enter the terrestrial TV transmission field. As we speak, the company is looking for a suitable name as DsTV denotes satellite transmission.

Airtel has said it will offer a cheaper content to compete with Multi-Choice's two content generators; Entertainment Media Network (MNET) and Supersport but given that we are still waiting for them to roll out 3G, that might be ambitious.

Enter Safaricom. Details are scanty but it all has to do with data and content which Safaricom wants to parlay into profits much in the same way it did with voice in its first decade.

What seems likely for now is that like media owners, Safaricom will apply for a digital channel and probably partner with one of two digital signal distributors, Signet a KBC subsidiary and another yet to be named licensee.

Digital TV is not just in Safaricom's interest to invest in, it is also a potentially dangerous opponent in the data field for one reason.

The technology we will adopt for digital TV (DVB-T2 or digital video broadcast generation 2) converts each frequency into 18 digital channels.

However, some of those channels, I believe they are two, are reserved for data transmission/internet.

With a TV set in almost every urban household these days, and the mandatory migration to DVB-T2, it means then that the perennial and vexing question of how to economically bridge the last mile to households will have been solved in one fell swoop.

Should another content provider/ISP seek to exploit this channel, they could be in every household and become the preferred internet service provider.

And then Safaricom 2.0 could become derailed.

CARTEL BUST! EVERY MAN A KhZ. NDEMO VS MEDIA MOGULS

AS has often been the case in Bitange Ndemo's stellar reign at the Ministry of Information, foes are never in short supply.

Whether it is telecom operators opposing regulations, media presenters raising ruckus over amendments to communications laws or sub-marine cable entrepreneurs fighting to get him out of office, Bitange Ndemo has always faced them down.

Enter his latest battle; this one pitting him against a familiar foe/nemesis - Media Moguls.

The issue this time revolves around the migration of TV broadcasting from using analog signals to digital ones. More specifically DVB-T2 (digital video broadcasting terrestrial - 2nd generation).

Media owners claim they are being screwed and have even gone to the extent of organizing for a meeting with Information Minister Samuel Poghisio to push their case against what they see as high handedness on Ndemo's part.

They claim that they have been submitting digital signals from their broadcasts for the trial phase of DVB in Kenya for free, only for those same signals to be resold to Kenyans through SMART TV.

They argue that SMART TV is reaping commercial benefits from their content.

That seems fair enough and in fact the media owners, as is their prerogative, have gone ahead and discontinued provision of these signals to the state broadcaster KBC - the sole licensed digital signal distributor in the country.

AHEM.

Enter Bitange Ndemo - "They don't want to see the future," says the PS.

In fact, the reason behind the media owners resistance, is not the publicly stated content dispute.

It has to do with, says the PS, selfishness and a need to monopolize frequencies in this country which Ndemo says he has refused to assent to.

You see, under the new DVB-T2 format, one analog frequency such as the one KTN, Kiss TV or NTV may be holding can yield up to 18 digital channels (four of them HD channels).

The only problem is that media owners, many of whom were irregularly allocated the frequencies in the first place, want to migrate with the frequencies to the digital world and the gazillion digital channels that come with them.

So each frequency owner could end up owning more than 15 digital channels to then peddle or speculate with.

NO WAY!!! Ndemo says.

Digital channels, will be allocated according to content. If you have content for five channels, you will get five channels.

If you have content for only one channel, that is what you get.

Every man who can come up with content, can have a channel pure and simple.

The Oligarchs are not happy. And so the battle continues!

BIG BLUE TAKES THE RED: AIRTEL IT MOVES TO IBM

There was much trepidation today at Parkside Towers as Airtel (formerly Zain) IT department trooped to HR to pick up their new contracts.

In its true red colours, Airtel has outsourced almost everything starting with its engineers who were farmed out to Nokia-Siemens.

The IT guys who basically keep all the business intelligence data, configure new tariffs and keep track of new activations, ARPU spend etc etc are next.

Just like in India, they have been moved to IBM Business Services Kenya which set up shop in the country a couple of months back.

Effective, Jan 1, 2011, they will be employees of IBM not Airtel. While most are happy to be working for the Dow Jones featured company, there are fears as to the contract terms. Will they get the same benefits?

The Nokia-Siemens lot was lucky. When they moved, they capitalized on a clause in the contract calling for a two-month notice or compensation for the same period if either party (Zain or its employees) terminated the contract early.

So the engineers were given two month compensation.

According to sources, IT were told at a meeting that "terms would be comparable to what they were at Airtel."

The lot will however continue to operate from Parkside until further notice.

Airtel is trying to replicate its minutes factory model from India where it outsources everything except customer care.

The Kenyan outfit has so far managed to push subscriber numbers to just over 3million.

CALLING DEVELOPERS - MICROSOFT FIND MY PHONE

Many of the cool features on Microsoft's latest software releases have not yet been configured to Kenya. That figures because North America, Europe and Asia usually get new stuff in that order before Middle East and Africa versions are rolled out.

But there is one glaring one on Microsoft's Live Essentials that even prompted the local office to issue a challenge to Kenyan developers to come up with the application themselves.

It is called Locate My Phone. On Live Essentials, a personal computer cloud where you can back up stuff and files from your PC onto the internet and work on them elsewhere, there is also the provision of adding your phone so that your contacts and other stuff on your phone can be backed up on the cloud.

For North America users, this feature also has a Locate My Phone link where you click if you can't find your phone or if it is stolen.

Since it is disabled for Kenya, Louis Otieno (pictured), Microsoft East and Southern Africa General Manager, challenged local developers to come up with code that can achieve this and they can have it uploaded onto the Microsoft online portal, Marketplace and make money from it.

Essentially, it would probably be a simple program that uses a phone's GPS and interfaces with say Google Maps to point you to the exact position of the device.

The program could have additional features for disabling the phone or erasing sensitive information and all that.

This is not unlike vehicle tracking systems with mapping software like Geofence. In fact this software could easily be tinkered with to do achieve the same effect for the phone.

"We can port the application onto the cloud," Louis said.

To follow up developers can seek out Emmanuel Birech or Vincent at Microsoft Offices.

MICROSOFT GETS SEXY

Microsoft Open Door, the software giant's road show, rolled into town this week after making stops in Mauritius and Nigeria.

In an era where the headlines are now hogged by Facebook, Google and Apple, the world's largest software maker feels it is no longer cool and to dent the myth, Louis Otieno and team broke out the fanciworks.

At the entrance to Onami restaurant at Westgate, Microsoft's much ballyhooed video game console Xbox Kinect was on display. Scribe Larry Madowo gave it a go and by the look of it, he would have been sweating bullets had he chosen to continue playing. The player has a sensor that takes in a persons dimensions when they stand in front of the TV screen and from there you control the game by moving your body, jumping, swaying, moving your arms and so on. The folks don't seem to have settled on a retail price but they are coming in from Dubai at about Sh30,000.

Inside the presentation area, Microsoft which seems to have woken up from monopoly induced arrogant slumber with the release of Windows 7 had some serious products.

First, there is Lync previously Office Communications Server.

This is proprietary software for business to integrate its communications. It's touted as a PBX replacement because you can make voice or video calls from PC to PC and even include people in the conversation by clicking on them from your contacts.

The software can work within companies, between different organizations and with individuals and is also available on Windows Mobile.

Windows Live Essentials a freely available download is an exciting piece of software for individual use. It's basically your own personal cloud. You get 25GB in the cloud where you can mirror your PC such that you can even work on it from anywhere with any browser.

You get to also include your various emails, office and personal such as gmail, yahoo and hotmail as well as connecting to all your social networks and you have it all on one screen. You can see who is logging in via LinkedIn or Facebook and also keep up with Messenger.

You can also upload your phone contacts and synchronize them automatically. For example if you have two phones you don't have to keep updating each with a new contact. As long as you add it to one phone it Live Essentials synchronizes it on your Skydrive (the 25GB) and also on your other phone.

There is also a feature on it called Locate my phone. It is only live in the US but Louis Otieno the CEO Microsoft East Africa issued a challenge to local developers to come up with an application to make it work here.

All in all, this was a great start for Microsoft and it looks like they have stuff you can use. Live Essentials especially is worth a try since its a free download although it works best with Windows Vista and above.