Grandiose Parlor

The first ever Nigerian ICT barcamp held last weekend in Lagos, and from what I’ve been reading, it was a success.

One the innate problems I think most Nigerians have — based on my experience and observations since 2005 — is the lack of cohesion and reluctance to pursue common purpose goals. These limitations, plus the over-aching lack of focus of the top national policy makers — as Oro blog points out, have resulted in a Nigerian ICT sector that has repeatedly failed to live up to expectation, particularly in comparison to other African countries like Rwanda, Kenya, and South Africa.

It is uplifting to read about the BarCamp Nigeria; my hope is that the event will translate into a series of ripples that invigorate the entire nation, both private and public sectors.

As the most populous African nation with a burgeoning base of Internet users, (Nigeria is currently second to Egypt at 10 million internet users), nature and geography have bestowed on Nigeria the ability to take huge strides; it is an absurdity that Nigeria lacks a national agenda on ICT.

One area I think Nigeria stands to gain the most is the use of web and related technologies in effecting/augmenting/facilitating changes at the social, economic and political levels of endeavor. The emphasis should not be ‘clone-hatching’ of existing works, but a creation of value-adding applications, deplorable at the enterprise level.

A great example of a value-adding venture is the Taiwo Ayedun/Fola Adeola-led Credit Registry, Nigeria’s pioneer private credit bureau. Credit Registry is unique in its use of biometrics to address identity fraud and the country’s lack of national ID numbering system. See Grandiose Parlor profile of CreditRegistry.

In closing, it will nice if the organizers of the event would release and post a communique of the event and future ideas and plans.

Yes, [tag]AfricanLoft[/tag] TV - “ALTV” for short - is up!

Now you can browse and watch some headline videos on sports, entertainment and world news via your browser - it’s that easy!

In May, I mused if the Nigerian blogosphere was dying. This piece is a continuation of that conversation, and has some readers and those who commented to that post may have discerned, the Nigerian blogosphere isn’t dying, and doesn’t appear so any time soon.

This conclusion is based on several recent developments in the Nigerian cyber/blogging scene - Sokari, one of the bloggers that initiated the May post is back on scene. In additon, there are some newer initiatives on ground - Alt Nigeria (a blog devoted to doing business in Nigeria), AfricanLoft (a discussion and social networking platform that emerged from the stables of EthnicLoft and Grandiose Parlor), and the Blogville Idol initiative being championed by Ugo, T-Minx, and other bloggers - like Opeke and Pink Satin.

Even though the Nigerian blogosphere has continued to expand over the years, it still remains fragmented - with very limited interactions between the several bloggers that man the several blocs of the entity. But isn’t it somewhat naive to expect bloggers within different niches to interact? Maybe. What I have come to appreciate is that some form of interaction is necessary - for several reasons. Interaction creates an excellent opportunity to learn, collaborate and socialize. Yes, this is a tall expectation - bloggers have a tendency to keep close knits and have a knack for being proud - if not pompous - and this is not peculiar just to the Nigerian blogosphere; it’s a global phenomenon.

Although blogging is global, it’s still very nascent in Nigeria (and Africa in general), therefore it is pertinent, if not mandatory, that bloggers congeal and collaborate if for no other reason than fostering relationships that promote citizen media. Citizen media is the future of information and news management in Nigera/Africa (see Tayo Odukoya’s post on Nigeria’s FRSC below). The emergence of blog aggregators is based on this premise; it also drive ideas such as the proposed Jeremy’s Naija Blogger Meet-up (Lagos) and the reverse publication project being championed by Laspapi.

The success of AfricanLoft - the newer entrant in the African social networking scene - and the aforementioned will be determined in no small measures by how much these interactions can be fostered between the Nigerian bloggers (and non-bloggers) and those whose commonality comes from Africa - be they home or Diaspora-based indigenes, descendants, or passionate Afrophiles.

PS: Imagine these scenarios…

1. What would have happened if there were not bloggers at the recently concluded TEDGlobal 2007 conference in Arusha, Tanzania?
2. What would happen if there are just five (5) active bloggers in every Nigerian/African universities, reporting on issues in their various colleges?
3. Nigerians capturing social issues with their camera phones and having a portal to share this information?
4. Africans in the Diaspora “talking” about their struggles and achievements via a web portal?

…Think of AfricanLoft.

Related articles:

http://grandioseparlor.com/2007/06/nigeria-frsc-practice-what-you-preach-citizen-media-at-its-best/

http://grandioseparlor.com/2007/05/is-the-nigerian-blogosphere-dying-part-1/

Care for some vintage highlife music? - Enjoy Zeal Onyia:

As a blogger and budding web entrepreneur, this is one story I can’t overlook: a medical doctor that made some $300 million doing nothing but selling and manipulating domain names. How possible?

According to CNN Money:

“The man at the top of this little-known hierarchy is [tag]Kevin Ham[/tag] — one of a handful of major-league “[tag]domainers[/tag]” in the world and arguably the shrewdest and most ambitious of the lot. Even in a field filled with unusual career paths, Ham’s stands out.

Trained as a family doctor, he put off medicine after discovering the riches of the Web. Since 2000 he has quietly cobbled together a portfolio of some 300,000 domains that, combined with several other ventures, generate an estimated $70 million a year in revenue. (Like all his financial details, Ham would neither confirm nor deny this figure.)”

It remains a mystery why the majority of the Nigerian mainstream news media with significant real estates on the Internet have not taken steps to overhaul their various domains to reflect one of the most basic Internet trends of the new world - making their subscriptions available via RSS feeds (RSS: Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary).

Yet, most Nigerians are news junkies, particularly those of us in the Diaspora; the consumption of news about the homeland has become a daily addiction. Even more Nigerians are now embracing the newer Web 2.0 concepts of blogging, reading digital information via [tag]RSS[/tag] feeds, and creating personalized homepages (via Pageflakes, Netvibes, e.t.c.).

What is RSS?

According to Wikipedia:

“RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated digital content…Users of RSS content use programs called feed “readers” or “aggregators”: the user subscribes to a feed by supplying to his or her reader a link to the feed; the reader can then check the user’s subscribed feeds to see if any of those feeds have new content since the last time it checked, and if so, retrieve that content and present it to the user.”

The use of RSS feed subscription has become a standard on the web which the the major Nigerian mainstream news media have totally ignored.

What is Guardian (http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/), ThisDay (http://www.thisdayonline.com/), Vanguard (http://vanguardngr.com/), Punch (http://www.punchng.com/Default.aspx), The sun News (http://sunnewsonline.com/) and BusinessDay (http://www.businessdayonline.com/) waiting for? Even the most prominent Nigerian news aggregating site - NigeriaWorld (http://nigeriaworld.com/) - has no RSS feeds!

These domains have more than decent traffic and patronage from readers in and outside Nigeria. They are among the top 100,000 most-visited sites worldwide according to Alexa’s metrics - a commendable feat by world web standard. The argument becomes even more potent since the cumulative users of these sites are not within Nigeria or Africa - a demographic group which I believe is predominately made up of the Nigerian Diaspora - a sizable community that is more familiar subscribing to RSS feeds, and one that will benefit the most from its use.

Why is RSS subscription relevant?

I see RSS feeds as baits.

Why would any media house “lock-up” valuable information on its domains, while it can be headlined, summarized or excerpted, and served in the World Wide Web as “baits” on RSS feed readers? All it takes is a “click” (and the bait is swallowed!) and the reader reeled into the relevant pages on the news site faster than just browsing through the enormous piles and pages of information.

It simply saves time! It expands the readership base. It offers subscribers (readers) and news vendors some productive ways of interacting with each other that do not exist at present. It is a really SIMPLE way of sharing information as the diagram above shows! (Image from www.state.wv.us)

We now live in a world that has shrunk into a global village where easily accessible information is key. Nigeria is at the very fringes of this village; we are not there yet. I’m strongly persuaded that the news media outlets can significantly facilitate our transition into this village. And the sooner the better - for them and for all Nigerians.

“Afrigator slides into the water”, “Afrigator- snapping up African contents” and “Steve Rubel digs Afrigator” are some of the “best rated posts” listed on Afrigator - the newest content aggregator for the African blogosphere.

Several bloggers have commented about the site, and from the look of things, it appears the future is bright for Afrigator.

The “channel” - one of the main differentiating elements on the Afrigator - is one that several of these bloggers (including myself) have applauded; however, it confused me while signing up on the site last night.

“Channel” is a listing of countries, duh! It looks simple, but some clarification could help sort things out better.

Is the channel:

• The country of residence? Using Oluniyi David Ajao’s style, a Nigerian blogger who has channeled his blog using Ghana - his country of residence.

• The country of affiliation? One could adopt Ethan Zuckerman’s style who “channels” his blog using his “country of affiliation”? Ethan is now officially a Ghanian, thanks to Afrigator! (I would have been utterly disappointed at Ethan if he had chosen another country :).

• The country one blogs about the most? Many bloggers have broad focus and cover several regions in their writings.

• The country of birth? This is the approach the majority of bloggers have adopted regardless of their countries of residence or affiliation.

There are several blogs on Africa that are not authored by Africans. These group of bloggers have contributed immensely to the social, economic, and political conversations on our blogosphere. What happens to them? As I noted on Afrigator last night, only African countries can be selected as channels.

The blogosphere is a space where emotions tend to run lose and site metrics are vital. It will be good that when one looks at the “Afrigator channels”, it’s clear what it means.

• African Path: Pan-African businesses: Do they exist?

• The African Executive: Africa Needs Mind Reorientation

• Sahara Reporters: Buhari May be the Next Nigerian President According to the United States Survey

• My Heart’s in Accra: Nigeria: Open for Business

• nuvu.tv: NAFDAC Finally Closes Down Onitsha Fake Drug Market (Video)

• The Nation Soyinka to Senators: you’ve dug your grave

• Gapminder on Google: Graphical Display of Life Expectancy (yrs.) vs. Income Per Capita($)

• The Sudanese Thinker: Two Sudanese Women Sentenced To Death By Stoning

• White African: Amatomu: Tracking the South African Blogosphere