HiPipo Money

Online communities such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ have different networking and engagement rules. Facebook is a network of friends and family whereas Twitter is a network of people/things you find interesting and LinkedIn is a network of colleagues that is fast evolving to include closer strangers!

In its earlier days, LinkedIn put a lot of emphasis on only connecting with people you had done business with hence the vast majority of LinkedIn requests came from direct or indirect workmates. According to LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner LinkedIn is now a service for connecting talent to companies.

LinkedIn originally was a more closed network to cater for largely people you know from a profession perspective though this seem to be fast evolving to encourage more people to join and do more interacting. Getting more people connecting is essential for LinkedIn to continue growing its user-base and therefore its business. This has seen LinkedIn evolve into a bigger business and talent network that can further careers of individuals and help companies get the best talent.

Individuals and companies looking to further their careers and talent base respectively should hence embrace LinkedIn, the business and talent Network.

Web 2.0  websites and tools such as social networking sites, blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, hosted services, web applications, mashups and folksonomies may allow users to interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where people are limited to the passive viewing of content.

While many traditional media companies continue to struggle especially in the developed countries where Internet penetration is near universal, business is promising for the Web 2.0 social media industry. Millions of users are updating statuses, posting photos, posting videos and sharing articles hence helping these networks become massive content hubs.

Social media companies such as Tumblr and LinkedIn are seizing the big media role they will play and are strategically hiring editorial teams and, in effect, setting out to becoming the publishers of the future. Hence we ponder, are Web 2.0 Platforms, Social Networks the media companies of the future?

SplashData, which makes password management applications, has released its annual “Worst Passwords” list compiled from common passwords that are posted by hackers. The top three — “password,” “123456,” and “12345678″ — have not changed since last year. New ones include “jesus,” “ninja,” “mustang,” “password1,” and “welcome.” Other passwords have moved up and down on the list. (Time.com)

You should have different passwords for all of your accounts. To make it easier to remember them all, Think about passwords as “passphrases.” For instance, use a phrase like “dog eats bone” and add underscores, dashes, hyphens, and other punctuation marks to satisfy the special character requirement: “dog_eats_bone!”

Here’s the full list:

1. password
2, 123456
3. 12345678
4. abc123
5. qwerty
6. monkey
7. letmein
8. dragon
9. 111111
10. baseball
11. iloveyou
12. trustno1
13. 1234567
14. sunshine
15. master
16. 123123
17. welcome
18. shadow
19. ashley
20. football
21. jesus
22. michael
23. ninja
24. mustang

Bharti Airtel, a leading telecommunications services provider with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa, including Uganda added 10 million customers across its operations in 17 African countries in less than 12 months to cross 60 million subscribers mark. This was released in a statement by the company which further says that the company hopes to add subscribers on the continent through maintaining a strong focus on rural penetration, innovation and customer responsiveness.

 In Uganda Airtel has seen growth with Innovative services such as Airtel 3.75G that is currently arguably the most affordable high speed 3.75G product on Uganda market. Airtel has expanded 3.75G data services across 11 markets and mobile commerce service “Airtel Money” in 15 African markets, Uganda inclusive hence shaking up the competition in the mobile financial services space.

Bharti Airtel with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa now ranks among the top 4 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. Airtel is ranked among BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands list with an overall ranking of 71 and brand value of USD 11.5 billion. Airtel has been ranked ahead of top global brands such as Sony (86), MTN (88),The first African Brand on the list.

“Umeme began an initial public offering of a 38.6 percent stake on Oct. 15 at 275 Ugandan shillings (1 U.S. cent) a share. The offer for 622.4 million shares closes Nov. 7 and will be followed by listing on the Uganda Securities Exchange in the capital, Kampala, on Nov. 30. The shares will also list on the Nairobi Securities Exchange after regulatory approval.” bloomberg.com

I have for long followed IPOs and stock markets alas for American based companies, such as Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, since these are at the center of Tech!  Given that many Ugandans are yet to connect to the electricity grid, one sign of a big market, it is good to see Umeme an energy company with a lot of prospects of growth, going through an IPO and trading on  Uganda Securities Exchange.   

Uganda has telecoms among the most profitable and actually the biggest companies. Unfortunately Ugandans have hardly had a chance to invest in such companies as MTN given that MTN Group is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and not on USE hence making it hard for Ugandans in Uganda to invest in such a profitable group. Nevertheless, I have a dream that one day soon MTN (Uganda) will trade on Uganda Security Exchange!

Apple has a reputation of delivering high quality and pricy products that are hardly affordable by majority of people in the developing world. Now that the first billion Smartphone and Tablet users, is almost covered most of whom are in developed countries, the next billion of Smartphone and Tablet users will be more price conscious. It could be due to that reason that apple has releases  iPad Mini which still at  $329 is costly compared to Amazon Kindle an education product that goes for less than $150.

If Apple iPad Mini is to find more education purposes with the second billion of mobile device user, Apple will need to devise ways of delivering quality at much more reduced price otherwise, the writing is on the wall that Android based devices will become the darling of the second billion of mobile users if prices are not checked for apple devices.