Facebook to buy WhatsApp for $19bn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Facebook has bought messaging app WhatsApp in a deal worth a total of $19bn (£11.4bn) in cash and shares. The deal announced on Wednesday bolsters the world’s biggest social network – which has more than 1.2 billion members – with WhatsApp which has 450 million active users.

The acquisition supports Facebook and WhatsApp’s shared mission to bring more connectivity and utility to the world by delivering core internet services efficiently and affordably. Announcing the deal, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg described WhatsApp’s services as “incredibly valuable”. WhatsApp allows users to send messages over internet connections, avoiding text messaging fees. The company claims it is currently registering one million new users a day. It makes money by charging users a subscription fee of $1 per year, although it offers a free model as well.

Zuckerberg said WhatsApp would operate in the same way as Instagram, as a separate firm. ‘It would be pretty stupid of us to interfere,’ he said. He also said he was not planning to put ads on the service. ‘Our strategy is to grow and connect people. ‘Once we get to 2-3 billion people there are ways we can monetise. ‘Now we want to focus on growing users. I don’t think ads are the right way here.’

 

WhatsApp Messenger is a proprietary, cross-platform instant messaging subcription service for smartphones. In addition to text messaging, users can send each other images, video, and audio media messages as well as their location using integrated mapping features. WhatsApp Inc. was founded in 2009 by Americans Brain Acton and Jan Koum (also the CEO), both former employees of Yahoo!, and is based in Moutain View, California.

Nigeria generated N86bn revenue from tourism in 2012-NTDC

Tourism is now one of the world?s largest industries and one of its fastest growing economic sectors. For many countries tourism is seen as a main instrument for economic development, as it stimulates new economic activities; especially with regards to creating  employment opportunities.

Tourism is fast becoming a big business in Nigeria, in a statement issued on Monday in Abuja by the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation, Nigeria earned an estimated N86 billion from the visit of some 4.7 million tourists in the country in 2012.The statement stated that the overall Gross Domestic Product from tourism returns stood at N40.5 million in that year.

It said that overnight tourist visits was more than 4.6 million; tourists on a single day visit were 160,544, while transit tourists were 276,788.

According to the statement, there had been a steady increase in the number of inbound tourists in the country in the last five years, especially from 2008.

The statement said that over 4.6 million tourists visited on personal grounds in 2012 as against over 3.7 million in 2011.

It also stated that some 1.4 million tourists came to the country on holidays, leisure and recreation in 2012 as against more than 1.1 million in the preceding year.

It also stated that more than 4.6 million tourists were accommodated in 2012 as against 3.7 million in 2011. read complete story- http://www.acrossstreets.com

AVCA Invests $20m in Nigerian And Ghanaian SMEs

African Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (AVCA), a non-profit investment vehicle, has invested $10 million each into the Nigerian and Ghanaian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) industries.

While noting that the company currently has about 1,000 investments across Africa, Ms. Tokunboh Ishmael, the Chief Executive Officer of Alitheia Capital and one of AVCA’s board members, said private equity is crucial for SME sector financing.

“Private equity and venture capital plays a crucial role in financing the SME sector, which is the engine of economic growth the world over,”Tokunboh noted. 

Source: Ventures Africa

MINT: Will Nigeria be among the ten largest economies?

13 years ago, the term ”Brics” was coined by Jim O’Neil, a chief economist at Goldman Sachs. The acronym ”Brics” was used to describe the four countries [Brazil,Russia, India and China, later South Africa] O’Neil predicted would emerge among the next global economic giants. This would have been a flawed conception but for China.

Recently, Jim O’Neil came up with a new acronym ”MINT” which represents Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey. He predicts that these countries could be among the ten largest economies in the next 30 years.

Numerical strength and youthful population amongst others are key factors in the possible economic emergence of the MINT countries.

However, will Nigeria be one of the ten largest economy in the next 30 years? Will numerical strength do for Nigeria what it did for China?

Nigeria, is the most populous country in Africa and the seventh most populous country in the world. Nigeria’s economy is the second largest in Africa, and the 37th largest in the world. A middle income, mixed economy and emerging market, with expanding financial, service, communication and entertainment sector. Her role in Africa, although supported by her numerical strength and financial capacity puts her in the spotlight. But have Nigeria’s endowment been harnessed and translated to economic development to the extent of having noticeable impact in the globe? Is there any glimmer of hope that Nigeria could be one of the ten largest economy in the next 30 years? Read more

iknownaija App: Odili Charles talks App development

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having just returned from speaking on HTML5 at the 2013 GDG Uyo DevFest, and failing to qualify for the semi-finals of the 2013 Google Cloud Developer Challenge with MemoTickswhich was coded less than 48 hours before the deadline, I set out to begin development on an idea conceived and communicated to me by my brother Odili Chukwudi Emmanuel a few months earlier.

It was to be a mobile app with a sortable (chronological and reverse-chronological) timeline of Nigeria’s history, showcasing notable historical happenings in Nigeria since 1900. We affirmed it was a great idea, one that would make a desirable mobile app for Nigerians and even foreigners interested in Nigeria especially regarding tourism and as celebrating Nigeria’s Centenary buzzed.

Although the Centenary celebration has been heavily criticized in somw quarters, including Governor Fashola of Lagos State who opined that the Centenary Celebration was not only un-neccesary, but could also serve to distort Nigeria’s History as to whether Nigeria was 100 or 54. We decided it was best not to meddle in such waters and allow the Politicians and Law-makers do their due diligence, rather we would go ahead and provide a unique and un-biased digital experience on mobile for Nigeria’s History, Facts, Festivals, and Places of Interest. This was how iKnowNaija was birth.

With iknownaija.com registered, I put up a distro of Drupal 7, setup some Entities to allow my brother ( B.A History and International Relations Obafemi Awolowo University) enter and manage data. Next I created some Drupal Views that exposed the collected data in formats we could get into the mobile app.

It is common knowledge that with mobile development, most dev-shops have to choose between native and hybrid style, and since this was a startup with just two brothers, limited time, limited tools, and no budget (yes, no funding whatsoever, watch out for part 2 of this post), We settled for a HTML5 approach for the app. This was so that we could easily, develop and test, and leverage the promise of write-once-run-everywhere for mobile platforms fielding devices with a reasonable webkit browser implementation.

Developing the app was really challenging but fun. Our first attempt was with Sencha Touch, using its Google Web Toolkit (GWT) implementation called Touch4J. However, I later ditched it for a custom and lightweight home-brewed solution with Bootstrap 3, this time with a Errai – a GWT based framework I have come to love. Read more from source

First Porsche uncovered after 112 years

This was the first car ever designed by founder Ferdinand Porsche. The car was used in Austria in 1898 but has been locked away untouched for the past 112 years.

After its first drive on June 26, 1898, Porsche continued developing the car, and in September 1899 won a 24-mile electric-car race with three passengers, finishing 18 minutes ahead of the next challenger. Porsche would go on to work for Mercedes and other German automakers; it wouldn’t be until 1948 that he would find his own automaker.

Porsche Automobil Holding SE, usually shortened to Porsche is a German holding company with investments in the automotive industry. Porsche SE is headquartered in Zuffenhausen, a city district of Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg and is owned by the Piëch and Porsche families. Read more

Yahoo Autos

Is Africa’s young population a risk or an asset?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Africa has more people aged under 20 than anywhere in the world and the continent’s population is set to double to two billion by 2050.

However, this demographics if not properly harnessed could spell doom for Africa. In Nigeria, the culture of corruption have been imbibed by a large section of her youthful population. Get rich quick syndrome has eaten deep in the subconsciousness of younger generation, and the biggest challenge for these youths is the fear that their country holds a gloomy future for them. True?

Their interpretation of this inherent fear as to an uncertain future, the means in which they go about addressing this fear,and the will by the government of the day in formulating policies that would allay this fear would determine if Africa’s young population becomes a risk or an asset.  Read more 

 

 

Smart Power Strip: A technology needed in Africa

The Smart Power Strip, is an electrical multi-plug outlet with built-in Wi-Fi that allows users control their plugged-in home appliances from anywhere via a smartphone app. It connects wirelessly to the Smart Power Android or iOS app, and allow users to remotely switch an appliance on or off at the swipe of the screen.

The Smart Power App will send notifications to alert users if they left appliances on. It also allows programming a timer to turn the appliance automatically on and off at a certain time, setting up a push notification reminder when appliances have been on for too long, and monitoring the specific energy consumption of different electronics.

However, the manufacturer should consider designing a version of Smart Power Strip and App for developing countries, like Nigeria. The seventh most populous country in the World and the second largest economy in Africa. Nigeria has been a big market for smart phone manufactures, like Blackberry, iphone, Samsung, and in recent times,Tecno.    Read complete story 

A History of Nigeria app: iknownaija, available on MTN Nextapp store.

Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa and the seventh most populous country in the world, with a population of about 170 million people, is one big country with blizzard of opportunities for foreign and local investors, and for skilled individuals.

In recent times, the IT sector has been receiving a lot of attention from International and local companies as well as from the Federal government of Nigeria.

Since the last decade, there’s been an unprecedented surge in the purchase of mobile phones , tablets and pads of different sizes and brands in Nigeria. It’s almost like manufactures are producing to meet the  appetite of mobile-device loving Nigeria. On the average, Nigerians would preferably purchase the most expensive mobile device than they would the cheapest History book.

iknownaija app is a mobile application that displays a brief History of Nigeria from 1900. iKnowNaija beautifully packages History, Tourism, Places of Interests with Maps, News, Politics, Economic Indicators, Human Development Indicators, Facts, Investment Opportunities, and Natural Resources about Nigeria.  If you ever need in-depth help on national details and facts about Nigeria or a tool to show you nearby historical sites, then look no further.

Read complete story from source

Russia: Olympic torch blast into space

As part of efforts to showcase next years games in Russia, A torch for the Olympics has been blasted off into space.

This move by Russia is designed to portray it as a strong,modern country says BBC’s Daniel Sanford in Baikonur.

The rocket blasted off at 04:14:25 GMT from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

“Our goal here is to make it look spectacular.” Mr Oleg Kotov, a cosmonaut who is already on the orbiting station.

Although the torch will not be lit, the whole display is part of elaborate preparations for Russia’s first Olympics since the Soviet era.

Source:BBC news