I came across the Sunlight Foundation’s “Apps for America” contest last week, and it reminded me of a side-project that I started that never got off the ground a couple years back. Add in today’s US Presidential inauguration and it was just too much for me not to share this idea. I’m now too busy with Ushahidi to do this, but I think it could be a good candidate for this competition, and I hope someone builds it.

History

Just over two years ago I was thinking about the upcoming US national elections and of building a web application that would be useful to the general public and which also had some business potential. I sat down and drew out an idea I thought had a lot of merit, and I actually sat down with two really smart people (Meagan Fisher and Jason Hawkins) and we ended up concepting most of the app. However, there was no code laid down, just a lot of background work trying to understand the feasibility, market and data.

It was called SnapVote: A tool for keeping citizens informed about elections in their area

What is SnapVote?

We wanted SnapVote to be the easiest way for Americans to figure out whom to vote for in any political race. The name came from the idea that voters could get a snapshot of politicians, races and platforms before they voted.

We were going to provide a party-agnostic snapshot of who was running for office in each person’s area, voters would be informed in less time and with less hassle than ever before. Every politician who was running for public office would have a default profile on SnapVote, which could be upgraded for a small fee and that would allow the politician to have their own space on the web.

What’s the problem?

• There’s a lot of noise around election time
• Most of us are “lazy voters” who don’t really know who to vote for
• We’re getting told what the issues are
• Politicians have horrible websites that are hard to find

What’s the solution?

• Quickly get a snapshot of who is running for office and what they stand for
• Weigh in on the issues that YOU think are important – users decide
• Every politician has their own website and can upgrade it for more features
• Politicians get a snapshot (weekly/monthly) of the issues that are important to their constituents

What does it do?

• A database of candidates for office at the federal, state and local levels
• Aggregate user voting determines what issues are important for each constituency
• Politicians can use Snapvote as their primary communication, fundraising and volunteer platform

The Objective

SnapVote was going to be the primary source of consumer information about politicians. From the President to the local dogcatcher, anyone who ran for public office would be accounted for. It would also serve as the primary website for information on any specific politician and created a website for each one.

The Opportunity

SnapVote is in a position to be a first-mover in a fairly competitive-free space. 122 million people voted in the 2004 national elections, this is SnapVote’s constituency. Providing an easy-to-use tool that makes even the laziest of voters appear ready for Election Day is the goal. Secondarily, the profile for each politician will cost a fee to be upgraded. That number becomes quite large once you move past US President and Congress and start accounting for governors, mayors, city councils and congressmen for each state’s legislature. Initial income would come from politicians taking charge of their profiles on SnapVote. Other revenue opportunities would include aggregate data reports that could be sold to study groups, businesses and politicians.

More ideas

There was a lot more behind SnapVote, including aggregating people’s views on different political issues and politicians themselves. This data could be used to help individuals find politicians they shared the most in common with – especially for local elections. It also would come in handy for politicians, knowing what was being hot (or not) at the grassroots level.

As you can see from the mockup design work, there were also some thoughts around creating ways for politicians to raise donations and money easier, to plug into other social networks, events and getting people involved in their campaigns.

The biggest challenge is gathering the data on politicians running for office in local elections. As I called the different departments and organizations that handle this information around the country, I found that almost every state had a different set of rules for getting that data, and it was in a multitude of formats.

African techies need community spaces. In Africa it makes sense to have this be part coworking space and part business and idea incubator.

A little background

There is an emergent, yet disconnected, technology community growing in many of the major African cities. The digital connection happens, primarily through email lists or message boards, and from time-to-time there are local physical meet ups, like the recent surge in BarCamps and other non-traditional meetings. What isn’t available is a place to meet that is always available and is made to engage and grow the community.

The VC, investor and business communities in Africa are beginning to see the value and need for web and mobile applications and services. At the same time these same individuals and organizations have no real avenue for engagement with the distributed and independent developer community. What they need is a hub, a place to go to find the young talent, invest in it, and offer monetary opportunities that re-invest in local technology growth.

These hubs would be tech community facilities in major cities with a focus on young entrepreneurs, web and mobile phone programmers and designers. It is part open community workspace (coworking), part investor and VC hub and part incubator. It is the nexus point for technologists, investors, tech companies and hackers in that area.

What it is

These hubs are community spaces that are open to all web and mobile phone developers. They are owned and supported by the local tech community and organizations that care about seeing this community grow.

It is an incubator, with an in-house investor who acts as advisor, who also helps to vette new entrepreneurs and ideas. It primarily operates off of a micro-VC model (a la Y Combinator) whereby approved entrepreneurs are given support for 3-6 months of work to create and launch their product or service. In that time, they are also given the chance to pitch the completed product to other investors, and are given support on business, licensing and legal issues.

It is where the young and old, new and experienced developers can go to hang out, learn from each other and work on joint projects. There is a real focus on making this open and available at those odd hours which hackers are prone to want to work in. It has a free high-speed internet connection, electricity, and an upbeat and fun environment to work in. It is where the local tech guys and user groups do their monthly and weekly meetings.

It is a coworking space, where freelance developers and designers can rent space (daily/weekly/monthly) and share common meeting rooms for business meetings. They are provided with spacious desks, high-speed internet access, conference rooms, a kitchen, unlimited network printing and faxing, couches and lounging area.

What it isn’t

It isn’t just a business. The end goal of the Innovation Hub in Nairobi is not to make money and be more profitable. Instead, it is to grow a stronger technology community in African cities, one where developers, designers, VCs and businesses are all better connected and mutually benefiting from the growth.

It isn’t a place for an outside sponsor to slap their brand on and call their own. This steals ownership from the local tech community and defeats the purpose of the facility.

Examples in action

They look different in every city, they take on the personalities of the communities that support them, and
(full list of known coworking spaces around the world)

There are a couple South African coworking spots. The Open Innovation Studio just opened in Cape Town, and I know there are a couple other space like Habitaz in Johannesburg.

There are quite a few running around the US right now. The most famous coworking spaces are Independents Hall in Philadelphia (run by my friend Alex) and Citizen Space in San Francisco (run by Chris and Tara).

In Orlando, Colab just opened, which I visited today to get a feel for the space. And just recently, my friend Mark Grimes opened up NedSpace in Portland, Oregon.

The Hub is a chain of coworking spaces, you can find one in Cairo. The image above is from their London facility.

If the world had only 100 people, how many of them would be African? What if you were to put them into economy, life, food, danger and a world map zones? That’s what this infographic tries to do, and it’s interactive so go ahead and click around on it.

If you look at the world map, you can see where the war zones are and the number of child soldiers on each continent.

Exactly one year ago Ushahidi was launched. It’s hard to believe that only 12 months ago we were in the midst of the Kenyan post-election violence… so much has happened.

It’s not just Kenya anymore – Ushahidi is now a global platform that can be used anywhere, by anyone, to track crisis or disaster reports. Today we see Ushahidi being used in the DR Congo, by Al Jazeera in Gaza and in Kenya to find peace heroes.

We’ve come a long way in one year, and it’s in no small part to this being an open source, community-inclusive effort. Developers from Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Malawi and the US have all pitched in to make it happen. Fans, bloggers, designers and the media from all over the world have all helped raise awareness of the new platform.

[Read a full list of what we've done and what is planned for 2009 on the Ushahidi Blog]

What’s at the core?

In our quest to decrease the impact of a crisis, emergency or disaster, we rely on a free, open source platform that can be used by anyone. Allowing them to replicate what took us 3 days to build in a matter of hours.

To truly understand Ushahidi, you have to understand our roots in Africa. We believe if it works there, it will work anywhere. This means that we need to focus first on mobile phones, then on the internet. From the beginning, Ushahidi has been about letting ordinary people use what’s in their pocket, their mobile phone, to send in reports happening around them.

We focus on mobile-only interaction as a basic tenet, and creating a platform that serves the developing world first, then offering that platform to the West as something that they can use too.

Mobiles and disasters

We are all part of a sea change in news and information flow and transparency. Where the barriers are finally so low that anyone can tell their story, and the whole world can see it. There is no stopping this change in information dynamics, there is only harnessing it in ways that add more value.

Mobile phones, be they simple SMS only phones like those found in Africa are already being used to get the word out during tense times. We saw it with Ushahidi in Kenya. Again in Zimbabwe’s election (pictures of the count tally at polling stations). In Mumbai and in Gaza. Those are the hot-flash political emergencies, and mainstream media is concerned, as are many experts and government officials, about how empowered ordinary people have become in the gathering, disseminating and amplifying of information in ways that just weren’t possible before.

Ushahidi is here to make it even more open.

The problem is that it’s no longer one-to-many mass broadcast, it’s now mass-broadcast to mass-broadcast. How do you stop 6 million SMS messages without crippling your own infrastructure and ability to get work done?

The answer is not to shut it down or make people talk/share less – that will never happen. Instead, it is in figuring out a way to harness information from an even greater number of people. The more data that is collected, the less chance that bad data can have an adverse effect.

Final thoughts

Ushahidi is still a small team. It’s gotten so busy that we just brought on our first full-time developer, other than the co-founders, yesterday. An amazing programmer from Ghana named Henry Addo. We believe we’re on to something special. Something at the crux of the new worlds of media, information and citizen journalism. As busy and crazy as 2008 has been, I think we’ll all be amazed when 2009 really gets going…

Finally, a HUGE thank you to all our supporters: the bloggers, Twitterers, Facebook contacts, friends and family for helping get Ushahidi this far.

(special thanks to Caleb Bell for the graphic)

WhiteAfrican {2}, originally uploaded by Jon Shuler.

Thanks to everyone for 2008. What an amazing (and unexpected) year!

My “Weapons of Choice”:

• Moleskin notebook
• Zebra pen
• Sanyo Xacti waterproof camera (dustproof for Africa!)
• MacBook Pro (not pictured)
• Nikon D50 (not pictured)

What are yours?

[I don't usually join in blog memes, but this one I just couldn't resist... Théophile Kouamouo, a blogger based in Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire), started the "Why I Blog About Africa" meme, which has crossed the Francophone and Anglophone Africa divide and I think holds a certain amount of power as I read others posts. See a good mini-aggregate post at Global Voices]

Where others see a broken continent, I see Africans trying to fixing what is eminently fixable.

Cliche, Irony and Hope

I find great irony and humor in writing about Africa and technology. About the oddities and the entrepreneurs. About the vast differences between East and West. About the fact that we all generalize (like this post) and then say how it’s so different even within each country.

Where others see cliche, I do too – and value it’s strength. The sunsets, animals, people… it’s all cliche, but it’s also the Africa I know and love. Beyond the picture book material, I also appreciate the annoying inefficiencies that drive us all mad from time-to-time. It’s what makes Africa Africa.

Most of all I write about Africa because my other half (the West) doesn’t see our Africa. My goal is to pierce that veil and tell a story about the Africa they don’t see. To talk about the people that are changing things, and who very well might change the world. To help us all better understand how the use of technology is leading the way.

I also write about Africa because it gives me hope. In a crazy, hectic, selfish world I can still rely on the timelessness of Africa, and of people who invest in each other.

Tagged

Thanks to Kaushal for tagging me, read why he blogs about Africa. In time-honored meme tradition, I now tag the following 5:

Kari
Jeremy Weate
Rebekah Heacock
Mike Stopforth
Ethan Zuckerman

I’ve been using Twitter for a while now, and have thought quite a bit about it in Africa. More, I’ve thought about what the ramifications of Twitter pulling out of the global market means, and then thought quite a bit about Jaiku, Laconica and Mxit and various other chat/microblogging applications. There is, without a doubt, a move towards short-form updating via mobile and web, and it needs to be federated.

There’s something missing in this new mobile + web microblogging movement, and I think it’s location.

Why Location Matters

Most of us use these services for updating, and being updated, by our friends and interesting people. That’s the main use, and it will remain so. The truth is, you and I don’t really care to hear what any random stranger is doing, even if they are nearby. However, we do care what is happening on a very hyper-local level in the case of emergency or “big event”.

It’s somewhat like the “pothole theory” that I talked about earlier: you wouldn’t normally care about the pothole on a steet, unless it’s yours. It helps explain why we care about certain things.

If you use Twitter and have an iPhone, you’ll probably be aware of Twinkle – it’s an application that enriches your Twitter experience. In Twinkle, you can set your location and then a certain radius from which to receive twitter updates, even if they’re from perfect strangers. I think that’s the beginning of what we’re talking about.

However, again… I don’t want to just get updates from random strangers in my locale. I want to only receive the ones that are “important” to me. I want to be notified when there is an emergency, major traffic jam or something else pertinent to me.

The “What if…”

What if we created a way that a greater federated system of microblogging applications could also use location as an alert point?

Of course, my current world is colored by Ushahidi, crisis and emergency news coverage. I think of the ability to anonymously send in reports to a system like Ushahidi running in any country, and those who are part of this greater, extended and federated network would be updated – even if that person was unknown and anonymous.

Here’s a use case:

John is a Twitter user in Accra, Ghana. Anne has setup a local Laconica server with 5000 users in the greater Accra area. Eddie is not part of any of these networks, just an average guy with a mobile phone. Ushahidi is running in Ghana.

Users from the Laconica group can setup an “alert” for a specific radius from their location using Ushahidi, linked to their Laconica account.

An earthquake happens and Twitter and the Laconica server are ablaze with dialogue about what is happening. Eddie (our normal guy), sends an alert into the Ushahidi number, along with hundreds of other Ghanians who are not part of Laconica or Twitter. Anne, and the other Laconica users are receiving alerts (web and mobile) from within their set alert radius automatically, from completely anonymous people. Alerts on where people are trapped, who is missing, who is found, where not to go, and where help is needed most.

John, our Twitter user is updating Twitter, but it has no little local implications due to not being able to be used in Ghana (except via web). Local mobile users aren’t receiving his updates, and he isn’t receiving theirs.

I recognize that there are a lot of things going on in this scenario, and it’s imperfect, but it serves as a good setting to discuss some of the shortcomings of the current situation and the possible growth areas for them. It also talks to even bigger ideas and the greater impact in Africa of a real social mobile network that can connect people using only mobile phones and do it as needed.

There are some interesting things to learn and apply from location-specific alternatives to global SMS gateways (like FrontlineSMS), and I wonder where tools such as InSTEDD’s SMS GeoChat can be used here too.

More to come on “getting updates that matter” later, this is just some initial thinking on it. I’d love to hear your thoughts too.

Maker Faire Africa is an event happening next summer in Ghana. It needs a logo though, and for the designers who read this, it’s your chance to win a quick $250. Jump on over to THE CONTEST to get started.

Update: some of the recent designs

(Not a designer? Pass this on to someone who is, and feel free to leave your comments on which designs you like/don’t like.)

What is Maker Faire Africa?

As Emeka puts it:

The aim of a Maker Faire-like event is to create a space on the continent where Afrigadget-type innovations, inventions and initiatives can be sought, identified, brought to life, supported, amplified, propagated, etc. Maker Faire Africa asks the question, “What happens when you put the drivers of ingenious concepts from Mali with those from Ghana and Kenya, and add resources to the mix?”

This logo will be used on the redesigned website, print materials and t-shirts.

How it Works

A couple months back I tested out 99designs.com for logo creation, and was incredibly impressed with how easy it was to get going and for designers to take part in quick project work. The contest is open for 7 days (Dec 25th – Christmas), and anyone can go register as a designer to submit an entry.

Once you’ve registered and submitted a design, I’ll be leaving feedback on what direction to take it, and I’ll rate them using their 5-star system. You can submit as many entries as you like. Make sure you read the creative brief before you go too far. We realize that one of the main problems with any contest like this is Africa is payment to the winner. We’ll be creative in making sure that if the winner does come from anywhere in Africa, you’ll get paid.

Who is behind it?

I am part of the organizing team, along with Emeka (Timbuktu Chronicles), Mark (Ned.com), Amy Smith (MIT IDDS), Lars (MIT), Nii (Nubian Cheetah), and Juliana (Afromusing). It is in the very early stages of organization, and we’ve each contributed some money to get the logo created.

O’Reilly, along with the guys at Maker Faire have given us their blessing to use the name.

You can now buy your Dell computer with customized African artwork. It’s all part of the Product (RED) campaign to support the fight against AIDS. My favorite is the mapping one (for obvious reasons).

More on these two designs:

Shine Within (map): Award-winning artist Siobhan Gunning was born in Mombasa, East Africa and has had the opportunity to visit many of the unique locations in Africa, like the Great Rift Valley, the Serengeti Plains, the Ngoro Ngoro Crater, and even traveling up the Nile to its source. During these travels she has been privileged to observe wildlife in their native habitat and visit with tribes like the Masai and Samburu. Currently residing in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, Gunning combines her passion for Africa with her life experiences and her love of art, design and photography, creating digital collages that often result in “happy accidents” that bring her joy.

New World (tribal): African artist Joseph Amedokpo resides in the town of Vogan, Togo (West Africa) with his wife and five children. He supports his family through painting, using locally produced oils he blends by hand, on canvases made from recycled flour sacks. While painting, Amedokpo chats with frequent visitors and listens to a short wave radio, gaining a global perspective on peoples’ failures and weakness, as well at their core strength and hope, which is reflected in his art.

(Note: I’m going to ask you to contribute to this at the end, so start thinking…!)

I just got back from another trip to Kenya. This time I spent a week with Ken Banks as part of a workshop on social media in Africa, put on by some really smart people (thanks Mika and Linda!). As generally happens when we get in a room together, we start talking over some ideas that are bigger than what either of us are up to at the moment.

This time the discussion revolved around developing mobile phone applications in, and for, places like Africa. It’s becoming quite popular to create mobile products and services, but it’s still fairly new. It has only been a couple years since we first started seeing applications focused on this specific kind market. What have we learned? Are there any best practices on design and implementation? Is there a notebook for new developers to go to to learn what to do (and more important, what not to do)?

19 tips from someone who’s been there

As Ken states, “In my experience, many social mobile projects fail in the early stages. Lack of basic reality-checking and a tendency to make major assumptions are lead culprits, yet they are relatively easy to avoid.”

If there’s anyone who knows this field it’s Ken. He’s not only a thinker in this space, but he’s a doer as well. His application, FrontlineSMS, has cut it’s teeth here and he’s had to answer all the hard questions, which everyone else has benefited from. He has successfully created a basic platform that many other applications can build on.

Make sure you read Kens observations and tips on building mobile phones for developing countries.

Here are a couple:

• Never let a lack of money stop you. If considerable amounts of funding are required to even get a prototype together, then that’s telling you something – your solution is probably overly complex.
• Ensure that the application can work on the most readily and widely available hardware and network infrastructure.
• Bear in mind that social mobile solutions need to be affordable, ideally free.

My contribution

1. The next generation of Africans are more mobile literate than you (or me), so when you develop something make sure you keep it open enough for them to evolve its use.
2. Develop for the common denominator – that is SMS services only. If you have the time, and see a need later, then go for the fancy Java apps.
3. Data services, like SMS are a good starting point, but don’t overlook the use and integration of voice. This is especially relevant in areas where local language dialects and literacy are an issue.
4. If you can, provide a basic service, and let the local users develop a plan for how to use it in their area.

Your contribution

Here’s where you chime in on what you think people should know before they build a mobile phone service or product for Africa. Got any tips for? Lessons to remember? Make sure you do/don’t do something?

There have been a number of plays on the free classifieds space in Africa over the years. Most seem to fizzle out, either due to not having enough revenue to continue, or their owners losing interest before the site grows. It seems like a play in the same space as Craigslist and Kijiji (Gumtree in SA) should work well. After all, you don’t need to digitally handle the transaction, that takes place offline.

I’ve been keeping my eye on one that might have some potential though: Kerawa. They explain it as, “an online tool promoting offline transactions.”

Kerawa started just this year, from a small team of guys in Cameroun. They report having listings in 42 countries, but some are limited to just a couple. What’s more impressive is seeing how lively it is in Cameroun, Morocco, Ghana and South Africa, their top 4 countries. What a spread! That means they’re doing decently well in all but East Africa.

Some thoughts on Kerawa

Mobile Phones
I remain convinced that services like Kerawa will not become mainstream in Africa until they build the application in such a way as to allow mobile users to really take part. This seems obvious to me, so I’m not sure why they haven’t created a downloadable J2ME application for this at the least. Maybe they could create a way for people to access it via SMS, or at least pay for alerts on certain items (like jobs).

Growth
Kerawa posted their analytics for the year thus far. It is trending up, which is a good sign. What’s more important is numbers on classified listings, as once you get a decent amount of both buyers and sellers, then you’ve achieved critical mass and become “the” place to go. No one wants to go to the 2nd best market in town (just ask eBay’s and Craigslist’s competitors).

I had a couple free hours this afternoon and decide to take advantage of it.

(higher quality version here)

Bodaboda’s are motorcycle taxis in East Africa (getting their name from the original bicycle taxis near the border of Kenya and Uganda). I decided to ask a guy if I could rent his for the day. 500/= Kenya shillings later ($7), and I was on my towards the Nairobi game park, to a reserve where one of my old school teachers now lives.

It didn’t go very fast, being 125cc and a cheap Chinese contraption, but that wouldn’t be advisable on these roads anyway. I got dusted a few times by a big lorry or bus, but was okay once I got beyond the main roads. There were quite a few animals around as I got closer to the reserve, nothing exciting, but fun none-the-less: giraffe, wildebeest, monkeys, ostrich and a bunch of Masai cows.

Best part: cutting the bike off in the middle of nowhere and listening to the wind blow through the bush. This is the Africa I miss.

Tony Ndungu at SM4SC – day 1, originally uploaded by whiteafrican.

This is Tony Ndungu, my new best friend. He’s the guy who quickly patched up the 2.5 inch gash in my skull the other day as I almost knocked myself out on a lower-than-average restroom door frame (building regulations aren’t followed that closely in Kenya).

Tony and I were on our way out of Nairobi for a meeting by Plan International on how social media can be used for social change (SM4SC). They do a lot of work with youth all over Africa, so it makes sense that they’re trying to get a handle on how they can use the mobile phone and the web to connect better and have a greater impact with that demographic.

The best part of this is that the medical bill came out to 1300/= shillings (about $16.25) for a doctor and nurse to clean it, bandage me up, give a tetanus shot, and some painkillers. Imagine that!

Maybe all those years of strengthening my skull bones playing rugby paid off…

I just sat down next to Raphael Marambii, who happens to be the innovations and knowledge management specialist for a small local NGO called ALIN (arid lands information network), at a cyber cafe in Nairobi. As happens in Africa, you get into conversations, and I found out that they have been connecting rural communities via community knowledge centers (sort of rural cybercafes cum libraries / training centers) running solar powered VSAT dishes.

They have deployed a unique prototype solar powered VSAT base station terminal at two of ALIN’s Community knowledge centers, at Marigat and Nguruman, Kenya. The base station is self contained and toughened for remote African rural conditions and requires little expertise to deploy. It’s part of the University of Michigan’s Imagine Africa project.

The question is, “why is this NGO plunking down remote satellite connections in rural Africa?” I asked Raphael just that question, and he tells me that it’s because they strongly believe that information and access to knowledge is what is needed most in these communities. They are trying to get the youth within these rural communities to embrace some of the new social media tools too, like blogging and podcasting.

From what I understand this is a pilot, testing out what happens when a new form of information is freely available within marginalized or disconnected rural communities. Raphael and team have ideas on seeing this become embedded in the community – ranging from helping with eCommerce, to creating new local content, to live video language services available over the connection.

There are two reasons I like this project. First, because it’s being driven by a local NGO, so it has some hopes of making it after the big donors leave. Second, the team is truly trying to think different – they make no bones about how their ways to connect the community to the rest of the world in mutually beneficial ways isn’t “normal”.

The true test however will be found after their 6 months of funding is gone. It costs about 26,000 Shillings ($320) to run one of these each month. Let’s see where this project, and more importantly, the communities are in one year.

My first day back in Nairobi after a couple months, and I see some new website being heavily promoted in my Daily Nation newspaper. In fact, it’s got a full 16-page mini newspaper all about it. It’s called zuQka, and it tells me that I’ll “be famous” if only I register. I pop over to the site, but I’ve got 1hr 15min 11sec before it goes live.

Wondering what this is all about, I start to dig around trying to find out who is behind it. Low and behold, after a quick Whois search, I find out it’s none other than Kahenya Kamunyu. A local tech VC and entrepreneur, head of Virn.net and who I interviewed at Barcamp Nairobi this summer. He’s an outspoken advocate for African-born and built technology developments, and it looks like he’s putting his money where his mouth is. Now I know what he’s been hinting at on Twitter for the past couple weeks…

So, what is zuQka?

From what I can tell, it’s a portal site for weekend entertainment around Nairobi, but with a social networking component as well (video, audio and blogs). It’s a cross-medium service too, marrying newspaper with the web. Honestly, I learned more in those 16 pages about stars like Angela Angwenyi, Amani and Daniel Ndambuki than I would have thought. Besides entertainment stars, it has coverage of auto, gadgets, pubs and the weekend calendar.

I kind of wonder what I’ll find once the site opens up. I also wonder what Kahenya has to say about it…

[Update: I was able to talk to Kahenya and they've had some server issues, making the launch a little sketchy. Like any new big website, this is understandable, check back in 2 weeks would be my suggestion.]

Site is live

(as you might be able to tell, I’m blogging this in a stream over a couple hours).

I haven’t been able to get in touch with Kahenya yet, likely because he’s busy trying to get this site live and all the kinks worked out. The site is live now though, with a couple minor errors. Like any newly hatched web service, things are a little slow and since it’s a user-generated content site, there’s not much content yet. This should change with time.

Overall I like the dashboard. The techie in me really likes that they used the Simile timeline for the calendar, makes a lot of sense. The profile page is extensive and there seems to be a lot of options to add content on the site. My plan is to come back later when it loads faster and I can see it with more users.