Very few people realise that if anything happens to Goodluck Jonathan, (be it the Abiola flavoured tea or a Yaradua styled vacation), General David Mark becomes Acting President of Nigeria. Yes, the Senate President is next in line after Jonathan. That will be the return of the Military, agbada or no agbada. Make no mistake, General Mark will not be as feeble and indecisive as Jonathan, he was a General in the Army. If/when that happens, the game changes completely and not in a good way.

The North-South bullshit.

Whenever the Nigerian masses try to group and get the criminal politicians out of power, they quickly throw the North-South/Muslim-Christian joker card and we stupidly fall for it again and again. I have two questions, what exactly has the North benefitted from the Yaradua presidency? What did the south benefit from the Obasanjo presidency? I hope we open our eyes and realise that WHATEVER THE PRESIDENCY, THE VERY SAME PEOPLE ARE STILL IN POWER. There are people benefitting immensely from the current impasse we have in the Nigerian presidency and we the other 99.9% of Nigerians are not among. Having Jonathan as the sole man in the presidency when we all know Yaradua will not return, is a VERY VERY risky business and the people ensuring the status quo remains know why.

Personally, I am tired of this bullshit! I am tired of my country with so much potential wasting away!  I do not care if the president is from Gambia or Japan, Nigeria needs a leader that will put the interest of the Nigerian people first and that is not happening.

Well, as long as we the ‘Nigerian masses’ deem the results of the next Premier League matches more important than the future of our country or Beyonce’s latest video a more sexy topic for discussion than the politics of Nigeria, let us prepare for the next hearty meal of SHIT that the criminals running the country will keep giving us.

Go get your plates, lunch is served!

I have left Coventry for good, I have moved to Birmingham!

Moving was hectic, in trying to be economical (I saved about 40 pounds), I had to make 3 trips from Coventry to Birmingham carrying about 5 heavy bags each time. but it would have been a lot harder without having my man Jude, drop me at Coventry train station on two occasions. Thank you sir!

Why I left

I have several reasons for leaving Coventry, top of the list that nothing happens in Coventry. If London is Lagos, then Coventry is Benin. Without the University (in my case Warwick) Coventry might as well be sold to France. Ok, enough of the slamming of Coventry. It is not that bad it used (I get am before no be propati) to be the centre of manufacturing but since the rise of China, everything manufacturing has gone to the far east. Poor ‘Coventrians’!

The actual reason I moved is that Joel and I were looking for an ideal Internet startup base to launch OnePage from (outside London) and Coventry was high on the list but to do that, we needed other startups in the area. Like Paul Graham said, Startups need other startups around to thrive. I tried pushing for a startup hub centred around Warwick University but as time went on, I realised I had neither the muscle nor the time required. So I knew my time in Coventry was up.*

*Of course i will be coming to Warwick at the slightest opportunity, I love that Uni!

Deciding on Birmingham.

When I wrote the blog post “What is wrong with the UK startup scene?" I got to know of Entrepreneurs for the future exactly what I was trying to push for. It came in the form of a comment from Simon Jenner  (you see why you should always blog your thoughts?). The Birmingham City council is trying to stimulate the region buy supporting startups. So the possibility of being with other startups was the first motivation of considering moving to Birmingham. There are also a lot of Internet activities going on in the area; Multipack, Birmingham Social Media Cafe,  Birmingham Bloggers, to mention a few) .Secondly, I thought I should move to a city. Birmingham is the second biggest city in the UK by population (although 10 times smaller than London). So it was a worthy consideration.

Why not London?

London is too expensive! Although I could have got a moderately priced place ‘near’ London, it would not be London. I have always believed if you live in a city, you should live in the city, not nearby. e.g Kubwa is NOT Abuja, no, ‘Redeemed camp area’ is NOT Lagos. Luckily I live near the city centre in a place called Digbeth. Though it is in a formerly rugged part, I can walk to the City centre! I look on the bright side

Another reason Birmingham appeals to me is that it is small enough to create the family startup scene I have always dreamed of. Since the people of Birmingham are serious, let us see how we can get this city on the European startup map.

Some observations.

• There are about 2 Chinese restaurants and 4 pubs for every person in Birmingham. Seriously.
• It is quite cool when your local shopping area is Bull Ring (I have noticed some coded areas like the Rag Market though) and you pass where they audition for X-Factor on the way to your local pub.
• My I stay about 30 seconds walk away from St Annes Catholic Church. My problem is not that they might be having revival at 1am but that I will have no good excuse for missing mass!
• We (yes we) have two Clubs in the Premier league (Aston Villa and Birmingham City) . I now have a chance of seeing my Man U when they are in town!

Joel will be moving in form Sheffield in the next few day. I would like you all to wish him the best of luck. It takes great courage to decide to live with Oo for ANY length of time.

So anytime you are in Birmingham, give your boy a holla, I will come meet you up. I mean Birmingham, not near Birmingham.

I just had an AHA moment while reading Scobleizer’s article in which he theorized the reason PalmPre is failing  is because they designed a phone with a small screen. The part that gave me the Aha was

As I walk around Vancouver’s airport you can see why. A phone is no longer just a phone. People walk around holding their gadgets in front of them. Some, like Blackberry users, do email. Every Blackberry user I know wants a bigger screen.

I would eliminate the ‘just a’ and it would be “a phone is no longer phone”. What we call phones are no longer phones. To me, the iPhone is a minicomputer that you can make calls on. People use less and less of the calling function as phones are being manufactured without calling pads, The ones that do have good keyboards are the best for texting not calling. Ask those CrackBerry users what the most important feature in their ‘phone’ is. In buying a new ‘phone’, main consideration is what it can do with it when I am connected to the Internet. The Telecom  industry have begun to realise (quite late) that the Internet is changing the game and people do not really need phones to be in touch. With the likes of Skype and Google Voice breathing down their necks, it seems they are trying to fight an idea whose time has come by trying to prevent VoIP calls on their networks. It they continue this way, they will  go the same route of the Music Industry who have waited until late to change their business model. In places like Finland where Broadband is now human right, there is almost no need for the network carriers when you can make Skype calls through your phone using Wi-Fi. Places like the UK  and US are pushing for 100% Broadband penetration when that happens we will call it a day for the phone!

Bye Bye Telephone!

PS: How many kids below the age of 10 know the Grrrrrrrriiiiiiiiim Grrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiim sound of the ringing telephone?

 Photo courtesy Next

As we watch from the sidelines, the future of Nigeria and the peace of Africa is being toyed with. The admirably tough and reprehensibly selfish wife of the president has taken over government (it has been reported that she commands the Army). This has been possible only because of the support of dirty politicians around her e.g Ibori, and negligence of those that put selfish interest before country e.g The Federal Executive Council, David Mark and Dimeji Bankole

I have always believed in the power of women and Turai has displayed it fully. I have always believed in the shamelessness of Nigerian political jobbers and Segun Adeniyi is a representation of that. I have believed in the spinelessness of Nigerian ’leaders’ and Goodluck Jonathan is a picture of that. I have also always believed in the cowardice of a lot of Nigerians and we are displaying it in full force by keeping silent in our little way. e.g on Facebook, Twitter, our Blogs, using pseudonyms to comment on blog posts around the web e.g “It can never happen!” while it is happening. I have always believed in some Nigerians stepping up when the chips are down. neXt, Kayode Ogundamisi, SaharaRepoters and others, ‘double hand’ for you guys.

I implore all those that have the power to do the right thing before it is too late. Dora Akunyili, we now look to you to prove you meant business the first time. National assembly should impeach Yaradua now if he does not resign immediately. AU, UN, ECOWAS, Obama and Gordon Brown should speak now of Shut The Fuck Up when the inevitable happens.

Now is the time for you to take a stand. Even if it means updating your Facebook status, sending a tweet, or writing a blog post, or marching in protest. Step up and show where you stand, make a statement. Nigerians, the world is watching.

———-

On a less serious note, I have this scene going through my head. A Nigerian politician or professional ass kisser on the phone begging a Newspaper house to cancel the advert     (s)he placed (before hearing of Yardy’s return)  in today’s paper congratulating ‘President’ Jonathan. Sweating and speaking profusely ”Don’t worry about the money, just cancel it, please cancel it”

An American planned & executed a terrorist act on American soil. He actually flew a plane into a building! So I guess America will now join Nigeria on the list of ‘Countries of Interest’. Oh, I forgot, it can’t be classified as Terrorism, Joe Stack doesn’t have Abdul in his name.

According to WolframAlpha which sources its information from all reputable dictionaries, terrorism is defined thus:

terrorism | the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear.

I think one crucial part is missing, it also depends on the religious affiliation of the of the person carrying out that act.

Less than 24 hours ago, An American, Joseph Andrew Stack, flew a plane into a building on American soil. Less than 24 hours later here is the home page of major American news sites.

One thing is certain, Tiger Woods apology is much more important than anything on earth right now.

Update: No American news site carries it on it’s homepage anymore.

The most vocal news organization Fox is not sure if it is a criminal act or terror

Washington post forgets about it entirely

New York times, blank!

CNN calls him “crash pilot” . I know you cant see it, look at the bottom left;

Its all Tiger baby!!

He was a suicidal pilot.

It never happened on Twitter.

Why am I pissed?

A Nigerian boy who got ‘radicalized’ in UK, trained in Syria, and took his final flight from Amsterdam attempted to blow a plane on American soil (Note his father had reported him to the US government before the blowing plane part).  In two days, my country Nigeria was put on a list of countries of interest giving permission to the world that harassing Nigerians at airports is official.

All I can say is, it is such a shame!

As for the news organisations… (shakes head, hisses, and hits publish! )

Why does #NigerianGrammar succeed while #LightUpNigeria fails to trend on Twitter? 

Although LightUpNigeria is for a VERY serious cause, had a long and great campaign plan and quite a strong campaign base, (it had the full support of heavy weight Nigerian Twitterers like  Ebuka Bigbrother, Eldee made a Video, Bella wrote a post your humble guy even wrote a full blog post in support of the LightUpNigeria campaign all this was in addition to the campaign through the  26,000 member strong group on Facebook, the attention of CNN and other campaigners)

Guess what, IT NEVER trended!

Now fast forward to Wednesday and we had #NigerianGrammar trending. Now don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong in funny stuff trending on Twitter (Kathy Perry’s Vagina was once a trending topic) but here is the problem:

Why do we Nigerians find it much easier to rally around frivolous things than something that affects us greatly?

The examples are everywhere!

• Our president was missing and everyone was more interested in why Ayegbeni was selected to play in the Nations cup.
• My Facebook status is filled with comments when I crack a stupid joke or say United for Life! but all my Facebook friends disappear when I try speaking of any important topic that concerns Nigeria(ns)
• it is more interesting to talk about Wengers transfer policy that to discuss the the implication of having Goodluck Jonathan as the sole Administrator of Nigeria.

I know I might be accused of being too serious but when can we be serious? I participated in both the #LightUpNigeria and #NigerianGrammar campaigns and found the latter fun while it lasted but realised what I am talking about when the excitement died down.

Nigerians, we better get our priorities right or things will never change for the better.

Notes:

• Thanks to my man, and Twitter addict Henry ‘4eyedMonk’ Okelue for tipping me off that #NigerianGrammar was trending.
• When you see mistakes in my writing just understand it is NigerianGrammar at work but still point it out
• I salute the most dogged LightUpNigeria campaigner i know, Moses ‘Mos_Hygh’ Nasamu.
• Amara ‘bubusn’ Nwankpa, thanks for starting an awesome movement!

When I wrote about the iPad and postulated it would not be very successful because it does not have the first mover advantage of the iPhone and iPod coupled with its several limitations, I had no inkling of a tablet called Adam. From their website, they describe Adam thus

It’s not a tablet, neither a book reader. It’s a new species, and we call it ADAM. The First.

Specification wise, Adam beats the iPad in so many ways! It has a camera, plays flash, has a longer lasting battery, e-ink technology (it allows you to read under sunlight and is the only advantage the Kindle has over the iPad), HDMI, it even has a rear touchpad Arrington fantasized the iPad would have. More importantly, Adam uses the Android OS meaning it has thousands of applications that will work with it from day one. Simply put, Adam is a great guy. Please see video below.

See Adam’s specifications compared with that of the iPad

But the makers  of the Adam should note the one lesson I learnt form Robert Kiyosaki, “it is not about being the best writing author but the best selling author”. These days a good product+ excellent marketing will be much more successful than an excellent product + good marketing. Unfortunately, the creators of Adam (besides God) do not have the marketing power of Apple so I will  suggest two ways I believe Adam can defeat the iPad in the market

* Sell the IP to a big company  (asides Microsoft) to battle Apple billion for billion in marketing budget e.g. SONY

* Save the money on marketing and subsidise the product cost. Then make the tablet go viral using an affiliate marketing scheme or multi level marketing.

I am sure they are smart people and would have though of all that. I really wish them the very best success possible. One more impressive thing, Adam is made in India!

I just realised that the major technology blogs are just press release publishers for technology companies. Almost all they do is publish press releases! Since I started using Feedly (the worlds Best RSS reader) to subscribe to my favourite blogs, I have noticed that TechCrunch (press release + drama) and Mashable (press release + top 10 this and that) always deliver the same stories at the same time!

Back in the day when these blogs started publishing, they brought a unique angle to technology news and began building a followership based on that. The PR companies noticed them and began sending them press releases and invites to the same event. So all they now cover is the same news in the same way which sometime have identical titles. There also seems to be a race to put out the most stuff in a day. Sometimes they publish 30 articles in a single day! They have forgotten their roots!

It is now getting boring, really boring, and really noisy.

One company  that seemed to stay true to reporting tech news in a way that adds value is Giga Om. Unfortunately, it seems that has not paid off.

I really wish these guys will sometimes to to their roots and give us quality reporting. If possible, create a spinoff of the big blog which will strictly cover new and original stories of young startups. I promise to click the ads .

Until then, I will use Feedly, to filter the noise.

When you type a search into Google, it tries to predict what you might be searching for. Previously, I had assumed that the predictions were based on the most frequent searches made. What I really want to know is this, do people actually think Nigeria is a geographical expression? I made a video of other searches on Nigeria and Nigerians and they are not quite complementary. So my question is this, how are the predictions made?

I’d also like to know some of the hilarious ones you have seen. If you are not Nigerian, what does Google say about your country and its people? You can Check out ‘English people are’ to start with

You can see more hilarious (I think) results on Sugabelly’s blog.

The iPad is the latest device introduced by Steve Jobs of Apple computers and it is billed to change the computing world forever! This post is about why I am disappointed in the product and why it will not be as successful as the iPod and iPhone were for Apple.

MY DISAPPOINTMENT

The hype around Apple’s Tablet (as it was called then)  was unimaginable and the coverage was deafening! All bloggers turned detective, they investigated the Who Is (record of the owner) of every i whateveryouputhere domain. Someone even suggested Apple owned the trademark of iSlam. Every acquisition Apple made since 1990 was related to the new technology that would be in the Tablet. It was also  said to have been work on for years (Avatar movie kind of talk).  ‘Apple’s Tablet’ was billed as the most important tablet since Moses brought the commandments from mount Sinai! There were almost as many posts complaining about the coverage of Apples Tablet as the the ones doing the covering. I did not bulge, i was not carried away! All that changed was when I read the quote attributed to Steve Jobs

This will be the most important thing I have ever done in my life

A statement like this coming from the man that delivered the iPod and the iPhone, I was determined to be a part of history! I ensured Ii would follow it live. The Twitterverse was feverish, less important things like Obama’s state of the Union address was put aside. Even the Haiti crisis was demoted as the number one Trending topic (a position it held since the earthquake on the 12th).

Then the moment came, first, the name iPad was revealed (with quite muted cheers), then the product! It was obvious people were not ecstatic. When the first feature Steve Jobs talks about in a product is you can change the wallpaper then you know we have a problem. As inferred from Eric Schmidt’s comment when asked about the tablet, the iPad is nothing more than a big iPhone iPod touch at least the iPhone can make calls, has 3G, a camera and much more. The product Steve Jobs revealed though a very cool and useful product, is not groundbreaking or innovative. It is not worth the hype. It is almost in the same magnitude of the leap made from the iPod to the iPod touch. at least the iPod touch can be used for gaming!

I am really disappointed! and I am not the only one

REASONS THE iPAD WILL NOT BE AS SUCCESSFUL AS THE IPOD OR iPHONE.

A summary of my theory is  that this time around, Apple did not catch the competition unawares like it did with the iPod and does not have the first mover advantage it had with the iPhone. I’ll explain below.

1. Lack of ‘basic’ features

My fist reason to why it won’t sell well is there are too many things that the iPad does not have! A camera, USB port, Memory card reader (there are are are expensive propriety adaptors), it does not run flash and much more. I think that is a problem. People keep mentioning that the iPhone had several defects when it was released, but this is way different! The with the iPhone, the competition caught off guard! But right now, there are so many tablets in the market! there is  even one called Juju. and there are more coming. The first mover advantage the iPhone had is non existent. What the iPad has only done is to validate the market for other manufacturers to take it serious. a second point to this first reason is a lot of people who just love Apple will wait for version iPad2 when Apple will make the sought after additions.

2. The closed nature of the iPad.

Apple determines what you can do with your device. For example, Apple has decreed you cannot use flash with your tablet therefore forget about playing Mafia Wars and Farmville on it. Yeah, those videos you see online are run by flash too. You can only watch YouTube only because “there is an app for that”. I guarantee that other slates/tablets in the market will allow you do what ever you want with your device.

3. The Android platform as the iPad ‘killer’.

The awe of the iPhone is/was its usability and interface, i.e the operating system. It made people use phones in ways they never thought possible. It is for this reason people ignored that the first iPhone did not have copy and paste and could not do MMS (and it was a smart phone). People had no other choice so if you wanted a good Smartphone, it had to be the iPhone…until the Android OS came. The Android OS can essentially do what the iPhone OS can do and this is main problem for the iPad. Any good manufacturer can now focus on creating beautiful hardware then go ahead and install the FREE Android OS. Consumers will then be FREE to choose any device in what ever shape while enjoying the. Watch out for HTC entering the tablet/slate market having delivered on the Nexus One remember the iPad is just a bigger iPod touch/IPhone.

A major defence that Apple proponents bring up is the 140,000 apps in the iPhone appstore which can automatically work on the iPad: Apple having this number of Apps is no advantage. If my Pareto analysis is is accurate like it should be, then it is 20% of those apps that account for 80% of the downloads. Those ‘important’ 20% are available in the Android market.

Conclusion

Will the iPad be another Apple TV? No. But it will be no where as successful as the iPhone but more popular than Macbooks. Just as jobs positioned the iPad (a product between the phone and the Computer)

Where will that leave Netbooks? I think they are dead! Steve Jobs says Netbooks are not better at anything and he is right!

Notes:

1. The computer state e.g Apple’s iPad will be a VERY successful product line. But this time around, apple will not dominate the market like it did with the iPod/iPhone
2. I am expecting the iPad to be ‘upgraded’ before it ships.
3. I do not have any idea where the Chrome OS comes in. Netbooks are dead!
4. I am hoping Palm can do something here. The WebOS looks too beautiful and perfect of a slate.