We are just a day or two away from 2012, depending on where you are. It has generally been a great year at Techmtaa as we have grown from that small blog where I occasionally posted rants to a source of breaking and trending news as well as trusted reviews blog. We have covered most of the news from Kenya just by the fact that we are located in Nairobi and so we have bias for Kenyan news.
Below are some of the posts which made great impact the whole year.
Safaricom Launches Webbox, Conencting Every TV to the Internet
Safaricom launched its Webbox device which is adopted from Vodafone Webbox. It turns any TV into an internet accessing TV or a smart TV if you will. The experience is not as great as those you might find if you bought a real LED smart TV. This is a great device to which can push internet connectivity numbers in Kenya.
Safaricom Unveils Huawei IDEOS U8150 Retailing at Ksh 8,500
In January 2011, Safaricom officially announced the availability of the cheapest smartphone in the Kenya market. The Huawei IDEOS U8150, popularly known as IDEOS, is currently the best selling smartphone with more than 130,000 units sold since launch. Other better variations of the IDEOS smartphone are being introduced like the X5 and X3. Techmtaa breaking this news pushed the traffic to the site so high.
How to Read Daily Nation’s Digital Newspaper Online Without Paying a Cent
In May, we documented how it was easy to bypass the Nation Media’s paywall to get to read the full digital copy of Daily Nation, East African and Business Daily for free. It did not take Daily Nation just a few minutes to see the gaping hole and seal it. Sorry friends!! We thought we were sharing. Kumbe we were spoiling.
Kenyan Prostitute’s Blog Nominated for Deutsche Welle Best Blog Award
Early 2011, we saw a very controversial blog, Nairobi Nights, nominated for Deutsche Well Best Blog award. This was such a great news that we thought it was best to share it with all. It generated lots of interest from all sides and reactions from social media were both positive and negative. But we have not heard much about Nairobi Nights after that. Nairobi Nights was one of the top blogs in Kenya when it lasted. It has been featured widely in international media.
You Can Now Get iPad 2 in Kenya Courtesy of PC World
The iPad arrived in Kenya as always, first through the grey market then through the official channels, gaining lots of interests from readers. It was great though that finally the iPad was officially selling in Kenya. The grey market copies have continued to sell cheaper than the officially copies unlike in US and other markets where the officially re-sellers are cheaper than the grey market ones.
M-Kesho: “Super Bank Account” from Safaricom and Equity Bank
This was one of the biggest news stories in 2011. What later happened to M-Kesho, we can’t say but we hear that the deal is off and there is nothing much happening on M-Kesho recently. We hear that Safaricom was not so happy with Equity over this but details are sketchy. M-Kesho is still active but not being marketed as a service by both Equity and Safaricom.
The Somen Brothers and the Looting of AccessKenya after the IPO
This is a story which we told and has earned me threats from both Jonathan Somen or some Access Kenya employees. I still stand by this and believe that Access Kenya has the right of reply or a right to point out sections of the post which they think was wrong. Threats, intimidation and promises of thuggery on myself is just stupid. The direction this case takes in 2012 will be one interesting thing to watch. I hear Jonathan Somen is digging for a fight. He has promised some of his junior employees hell on me. We are waiting.
We will be posting out 2012 predictions here and what developments in tech we should look out for.
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