TANDAA 08

The TANDAA08 conference, hosted by the Kenya ICT Board was supposed to showcase what local content developers are doing and the goverment plans to support them as we wait for the fibre optic cable to land in mombasa for what promised to good and very fast times for our internet industry.

Due to work schedules I could not attend the morning session, you can get info on the morning session from here. but I got there at around 2:00 in the afternoon and I was impressed with what guys are doing on the interwebs.  Among the speakers who presented their sites or gave talks included:

Aly Khan Satchu – rich.co.ke

Dr Sevilla – Strathmore University

Dr Mwirigi Kinagwi – askadoc.co.ke

Nick Nesbitt – Kencall

Alex Gakuru – Skunkworks

Ken Njoroge – Cellulant

Clement Ouda – myjobshouse.com

Muthoni Garland – storymoja.co.ke

kenyanpoet.blogspot.com

Waithera – capitalfm.co.ke

Overall I can say that the conference fulfilled its aims, the government presentation would have helped guys know what support they can get from the ICT Board seeing as they’ve got a huge grant to help local content devs. get along.

It is heartening to note that many website owners are earning good money from e-commerce kenyaemerging.com being a very good example.  Capital FM Mobile for me was the best, a gprs service where you get business directory, forex rates, atm locator, news among other things, another plus being you only get charged by your service provider (Zain or Safaricom) and not by Capital, I will give most definitely give the service a try.

Alex Gakuru’s talk on Skunkworks was also very informative.

That said during the conference I started the feeling that the conference was starting to turn into a sales pitch forum with presenters pitching the companies, it isnt bad but next time do it subtly.

Points that came out:

• There is a market for local content.
• The pay for registration model for portals and content sites isnt feasible at the moment.
• Monetizing mobile content provision is easier. (because mobile users are used to paying for services)
• Gov’t registration need to be streamlined, too many vague licences

Not a definitive list but the few that I could gather.

Overall I must say the conference was good and more or less a success.

PS

If you attended and have more that I missed, please leave a comment and I’ll update as required.

Mobile Marketer’s Code of Conduct

Following a story from BizCommunity, I came across the newly released Code of Conduct from Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) a conglomeration of companies which utilize the cell phone to market their stuff.  The association came out with the code to try and regulate mobile marketing efforts which have surely been a trial and error affair.

 

The Code is divided into three five categories namely, notice, choice and consent, customization and constraint, security, enforcement and accountability. For more info. you can get it here.

 

 

The second category of the code is what I have problems with, here in Kenya when you opt into a marketing programme, say to receive updates of a game or photos from a game, opting out is a torturous affair, the number usually given to send a SMS to, to opt it usually dead and even after calling the service provider, or the marketer you get nothing till y luck you mange to do so.  Seems these guys are very happy to sign you on and not to let you go.

 

The code itself says the opt-in and opt-out procedures should be as simple as possible as and opt-out procedures should be provided regularly. 

 

Security of user information is also a part where the mobile marketer may be tempted to ignore or profit from.  As a mobile marketer it is possible to get a whole lot of data pertaining to user preferences and want, this is the information that companies crave for and are willing to pay a lot for, so the marketer should ensure that this remains private and secure.

 

This leads to the last category, enforcement.  It is a shame that whereas this code would regulate the operations of mobile marketers, there is no enforcement agency.  I read this to be the MMA trying to be politically-correct in formulating this code while in fact the no enforcement.  The association has left it to its members to evaluate themselves, whether this works is anybody’s guess.

 

You can read BizCommunity’s article here