A KENYAN FIRST ON GOOGLE SEARCH

Thanks everyone for making the Kenyan hero, Makmende, such a hit. With a record #67 hottest search on Google WORLWIDE as at 14:00 GMT, no Kenyan topic has EVER hit that mark,Reports Makmende.com

Just who is this Makmende!

The 1970’s themed video, directed by Jim Chuchu and Mbithi Masya, features a mean, ass-kicking character known as Makmende (played by Kevin “K1”Maina) who has been all the rage on Twitter this week. A lot of people have been wondering who the hell Makmende is. Well, that depends on your age and where you grew up. Makmende was a term used way back in the early to mid 1990s to refer to someone who thinks he’s a superhero. For example, if a boy who’s watched one too many kung-fu movies on TV decides to unleash his newly acquired combat skills, he would be asked “Unajidai Makmende, eh?” (Who do you think you are, Makmende?) Trust me, there was a Makmende in every hood!

Kibaki invits Raila to be his facebook friend.

From the album:
"Wall Photos" by GADO CARTOONS
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43 people like this.
Jerome Kaumbulu
Jerome Kaumbulu
LOL
3 hours ago · Report
Henry N Githinji
Henry N Githinji
Hahahaha....please pox him in return!!
3 hours ago · Report
Babbie Kabae
Babbie Kabae
Dude would not be using a desktop... he would have an iPad, or funky laptop... He would 'add friend' just to snoop and keep tabs, 'keep thy enemy closer'
3 hours ago · Report
Jaseme Otoyo
Jaseme Otoyo
Jakom, ignore his friendship request!!!
3 hours ago · Report
Mercy Mghoi Masese
Mercy Mghoi Masese
....he he he,friendship request ignored!!..
3 hours ago · Report
Lennie Ngige
Lennie Ngige
LoL!!!! LoL!!! LOLEST!!!!
3 hours ago · Report
Steve Mwei
Steve Mwei
in the prevailing circumstance add him as a friend.
3 hours ago · Report
Nganga Ngangalittle Kinyanjui
Nganga Ngangalittle Kinyanjui
Looking at Baks friends before ignoring friend request!
3 hours ago · Report
Ritah Roggs
Ritah Roggs
LOL!!!LOLEST!....inbox me baba jimmy!
3 hours ago · Report
Ken Nyandega
Ken Nyandega
add him as a friend!!!!
3 hours ago · Report
Solomon Macharia
Solomon Macharia
yaani they r on facebook instead of running the country!!!!!!They all must go
3 hours ago · Report
Jacob Ndungu
Jacob Ndungu
lol.......good one gado
3 hours ago · Report
Belinda Abira
Belinda Abira
He he he! This is hilarious.
3 hours ago · Report
Mutwiri Kimathi
Mutwiri Kimathi
thats a good one...lol!!
2 hours ago · Report
Odongo Kodongo
Odongo Kodongo
Don't! Report him instead!! lol
2 hours ago · Report
Tom Lutomia
Tom Lutomia
too deadli....
2 hours ago · Report
Victor Masolia
Victor Masolia
pliz ignore..... he wants to go through your profile
2 hours ago · Report
Ivan Ogolla
Ivan Ogolla
thats crazy man real crazy
2 hours ago · Report
John Gachui
John Gachui
lol
2 hours ago · Report
Shaddy Ominde
Shaddy Ominde
anaona samaki kubwa kwa FB yake
2 hours ago · Report
Cheche Kiriba
Cheche Kiriba
hahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2 hours ago · Report
Pat Ngoda
Pat Ngoda
REPORT!!!!!!!!!! He's definitely upto NO good!!!! Remember the famous NARC m.o.u?
2 hours ago · Report
Eduardo Gitau
Eduardo Gitau
LOL
about an hour ago · Report
Jasper Joseph Wanjala
Jasper Joseph Wanjala
IGNORE!!!
about an hour ago · Report
Felix Kamwibua
Felix Kamwibua
Ha ha ha. Mambo baddest,
about an hour ago · Report
Charles Mugendi Opiyo
Charles Mugendi Opiyo
... ha ha ha, Agwambo, IGNORE!
about an hour ago · Report
John Masika
John Masika
A good one!
about an hour ago · Report
Kevin 'Voke' Juma
Kevin 'Voke' Juma
noma iyo...
about an hour ago · Report
Wambui Wainaina
Wambui Wainaina
kibaki kende
about an hour ago · Report
Achie Achiebaibe
Achie Achiebaibe
good one gado,even raish dint see this coming
about an hour ago · Report
Ogolla Onyango Fredrick
Ogolla Onyango Fredrick
ACCEPT!
about an hour ago · Report
Douglas Waweru Maina
Douglas Waweru Maina
I SWEAR THIS IS THE FUNNIEST CARTOON I'VE SEEN THI S YEAR.
about an hour ago · Report
John Karanja Muraguri
John Karanja Muraguri
stop facebooking. lead the nation.
about an hour ago · Report
Amos Mwaura
Amos Mwaura
Kuddos GADO!
about an hour ago · Report
Lucas 'rateng' Mboya
Lucas 'rateng' Mboya
owada....too funny....emilio is ahead... raila better open a flikr and youtube accounts quick.....)
50 minutes ago · Report
Peter Kinuthia
Peter Kinuthia
Gado hii ni kali sana, u r the blessed one..........................
48 minutes ago · Report
Bewewez J Toon
Bewewez J Toon
Hey yawa...he Better invites him and suggest more friends for him....Funny!!
34 minutes ago · Report
Castro Kaluna
Castro Kaluna
Usaniiii!
27 minutes ago · Report
Dennis Waititu
Dennis Waititu
DEADLY ITS THA BOMB
21 minutes ago · Report
Kenn McDonald Mariga
Kenn McDonald Mariga
Ignore!! look at his friends.. akina Mungiki, Kivuitu, Moi, Mwakwere... watu bure kabisa!
20 minutes ago · Report
Alex Watila
Alex Watila
LOL
18 minutes ago · Report
Dimitri Njoroge
Dimitri Njoroge
Thats the best!
17 minutes ago · Report
Joseph Ndirangu
Joseph Ndirangu
please join; you can solve all your problems through chat, you don't have to go through muthaura.....
16 minutes ago · Report
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"Our intention is that 25 per cent of our revenue in two years time will come from data. It’s probably about 13 per cent right now," he said.

Joseph said more than three million Safaricom users now accessed the Internet on a mobile phone, or via a portable modem. But he said the potential number of mobile Internet users could easily top 10 million in Kenya, where infrastructure is still poor and mobile Internet penetration is below 10 per cent.

"This should easily be 10 or 20 per cent over the next two years," he said. Joseph said the firms money transfer service, M-Pesa, now has 9.3 million registered users in a country, where the majority of people do not have access to a bank. "We’re doing about 15 million dollars a day in transactions," he said.

In November, Safaricom said daily M-pesa transactions amounted to $10 million daily.
Reports,The Standard Newspaper

Photoshop 20 years,congratulations

Great Moments in Photoshop History: Happy 20th Anniversary!
BY William BostwickFri Mar 12, 2010
Complex Magazine rounds up their 50 favorite Photoshop moments in honor of the software's 20th birthday.

Photoshop

Photoshop turns 20 this year, and in honor of 20 years of making the impossible possible--or at least easier--Complex Magazine has teamed up with Brooklyn design studio Chips to gather their 50 favorite moments in Photoshop history. They're hilarious, and hilariously true.

Photoshop

Photoshop

All the memes are here, from the Montauk Monster to Nicolas Cage. Cory Arcangel's gradients make an appearance. So does Coudal Partners' Layer Tennis. On a more serious note, they include Brian Walski's infamously manipulated Iraq war photo for the L.A. Times and Iran's faked missile launch. But it's Complex, after all, so the most screen time goes to awesomely bad mixtape album covers, most by the mad geniuses of Pen and Pixel Graphics, who rose to fame on the '90s Houston rap scene. It only speaks to the program's power that it enables designers (and everyone else) to make everything from this to this.

For a little nostalgia, check out this anniversary video from Adobe. It opens with bolo-tied Photoshop founder Russell Brown demonstrating Photoshop's "most unethical" uses on an ancient Mac and nay-saying Fred Ritchin warning that Photoshop will make the public "disbelieve photographs generally" and that photographs "won't be as effective and powerful a document of social communication as it has been for the last 150 years." How naive. Jump to 2010, Russell (bolo intact) sits with John Knoll, Thomas Knoll, and Steve Guttman to discuss the impact of their 20-year-old idea.

Delighting audience key to success for publishers on mobile: Guardian

The Guardian, a British newspaper, has seen 70,000 downloads of its paid iPhone application in a month, proving that charging for mobile content can work for publications.

Guardian’s iPhone application is available worldwide. This news should be a wake-up call to publishers looking to extend their brand – mobile can do that and bring in revenue.

“Success starts and ends with delighting your audience,” said Jonathon Moore, mobile product manager at Guardian News and Media, London. “Media organizations – even large ones such as ourselves – can't change user behavior or consumer patterns overnight.

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“So the only thing that matters is producing a product that you're proud of,” he said.

The application is $3.99, a price the publication deemed fair for the level of content and functionality it offers (see story).
The Guardian

Hearing all about it

Success in monetization
Features of the application include editorial content such as news, features and opinion pieces, photo galleries and audio, all of which can be personalized for the consumer.

The application was designed in-house and built by 2ergo.

Guardian’s application is available in Finland, Latvia, Romania, Austria, France, Lithuania, Slovakia, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Greece, Malta (Republic of), Spain, Czech Republic, Hungary, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Estonia, Italy, Portugal, Australia, Canada, Britain, Ireland and the United States.
Guardian

Offline reading

The publication’s Web site at http://www.Guardian.co.uk saw 35,792,874 unique users in November 2009. Its mobile site at http://m.guardian.co.uk had 927,000 unique users in November. Nearly half of the mobile users accessed the site via an iPhone or iPod touch.

Guardian used social media, Twitter in particular, as a marketing tool. Mr. Moore said he spent nearly every day monitoring every tweet that has mentioned the Guardian iPhone application and responding to consumers, feeding back answers to their questions and noting their responses for future features.

The Guardian also had an advertising campaign across Web, print and mobile. On the mobile site, the publication specifically targeted iPhone users.

Mr. Moore said even without marketing, publications can still achieve success if they manage to break into the Top 25 or Top 50 applications listed in the App Store.

“If you can stay true to your principles and produce something that excites people then you've always got a chance,” Mr. Moore said.

The Guardian application has a rating of four and half stars out of five and more than 600 comments.

Pocket-sized Guardian
Consumers can browse the application offline and save articles to read later.

The Guardian claims its application has an unrivalled news search facility.

Consumers can customize the homepage and flag contributors for quicker access to their latest articles.

The application also has a trending feature that lets users access the most popular Guardian articles at any given time.

The application does not currently feature advertisements.

Mr. Moore said media organizations need a good mix of editorial thinking and technologists to develop the proper mobile content.

“Well, without giving away the secret recipe, I'd have to say you need to start with ambition and it helps if you've got the right mix of people,” Mr. Moore said. “The mobile industry is still plagued with so-called experts who are only too willing to tell you what to do and how to do it.

“Most of them never produced anything of note,” he said. “So beware. Step back, take your time, and produce something of quality.

“If it doesn't sell, then there's probably not a market for it – yet at least.”

Editorial Assistant Chris Harnick covers content, gaming, media, television, music and social networks. Reach him at chris@mobilemarketer.com.

Google exec: Mobile to soon have more targetability than TV, radio or Internet

Google exec: Mobile to soon have more targetability than TV, radio or Internet

By Dan Butcher

March 5, 2010
Google exec reveals mobile strategy, case studies,

Alex Barza is mobile ads sales lead at Google

NEW YORK – A Google executive revealed the company’s mobile strategy, detailed case studies and discussed the market potential during the keynote address at Mobile Marketing Day, hosted by Mobile Marketer and the Direct Marketing Association.

Google has made tremendous strides in mobile, including mobile search and the development of the Android operating system powering phones such as the Motorola Droid and its own Nexus One. Google’s increasing presence in mobile is reshaping not just the mobile business but also marketing in general.

“We look at mobile as a big part of our overall strategy—that’s an understatement,” said Alex Barza, New York-based mobile ad sales lead at Google. “We’re looking at mobile across the entire world as a global play.”

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Two-thirds of the world’s population has a mobile phone subscription—4 billion people—and there will be 5 billion wireless subscribers worldwide by the end of this year, according to some estimates.

Mobile will create the ability to individually target more people than any other channel, according to Google.

“Mobile will soon have more reach than TV, radio or the Internet,” Mr. Barza said. “Mobile is the access point to the Internet in the developing world.

“Search has been our core business for many years now, and we actually receive many more searches on mobile than we do on desktops in developing markets,” he said.

Morgan Stanley recently predicted that more users will access the Internet via mobile devices than desktop PCs within five years.

Market researcher IDC is even more bullish, predicting that this is going to happen sooner than that—by 2013.

“What’s driving this mobile adoption? Computing, connectivity and the cloud,” Mr. Barza said. “What’s different about mobile today than even a couple of years ago is the computing power of these phones.

“Here in the U.S. LTE will potentially be rolled out by the end of the year, and 4G is the equivalent of putting a broadband cable modem in the palm of your hand,” he said. “The cloud is basically the Internet, with more than 700 million servers around the globe, and with smartphones all of that information is in the palm of your hand.

“That’s where we feel the future of mobile is going and where we’ve focused our energies—high-end Web-enabled mobile devices are the future of mobile.”

When Apple rolled out the first iPhone in 2007, it cost $600 and only ran on the Edge network, and was only sold via Apple and AT&T.

Now iPhones are 20 times faster, the operating system is much better and you can buy 16GB iPhones at one-third of the price at Walmart or Best Buy Mobile.

Consumers can now get an iPhone or Motorola Droid for $199 or so.

“If you think about how far we’ve come as far as access to these Web-enabled devices, it’s pretty incredible,” Mr. Barza said.”Bigger screens, more connectivity and faster processors are enabling us to do a lot more.”

As an example of convergence in action, Mr. Barza cited Google goggles.

“Google goggles leverages the unique attributes of the mobile phone, which is much more personal than a desktop, much more interactive than the desktop Web experience,” Mr. Barza said. “It leverages sight through the camera, GPS makes it location aware, the cloud gives it access to vast amounts of data and you have connectivity within seconds.

“I point my Nexus One out my hotel window in Chicago and within milliseconds there’s an augmented reality interaction telling me ‘You’re looking at the Chicago Watertower,’” he said. “There’s also optical character recognition, so when you’re reading a menu or document in a different language, it can translate that into 100-plus languages.”

One of the audience members commented that the mobile technology Google sees on the horizon is like something out of Star Trek.

“If you’re texting in English, Google will translate it in real time, so you can have a dialogue with someone who doesn’t speak English, and we’ve applied that to a conversation, so if I’m speaking in English, the phone will pick that up and translate my voice and spit it back out in over 100 languages,” Mr. Barza said. “We’re not quite there yet, but we will be soon.”

New devices = new usage
Google tracks mobile searches on Google.com within the shopping category.

The three-year graph, from May 2007 when the original iPhone launched to January 2010 when Google’s HTC Nexus One debuted, showed tremendous growth in the shopping category.

IDC forecasted that by 2013, there will be more than 1 billion mobile devices that can connect to the Internet. That does not just include phones, but also gaming consoles, netbooks, eBook readers, GPS systems and car navigation systems, iPads and tablets.

Mobile commerce has arrived
People are showing their willingness to buy goods and services via their handsets, and not just ringtones and wallpapers, but everything from books, movies and music to tickets, flatscreen TVs, fashion apparel and even cars.

“I was blown away that someone bought an actual Corvette on eBay mobile for $75,000,” Mr. Barza said. “A lot of clients across the board are starting to experience sales from mobile devices and are seeing incremental growth of users accessing their Web site from mobile devices, which is leading to sales.

“Consumers want this—they want the stuff that they want when they want it, and mobile enables them to buy it now,” he said. “Having a mobile-optimized site aids that process, because it provides better customer service, but there are some sales happening via mobile on non-optimized sites.

“There will be Flash on all Android devices later this year, with pinch and zoom and fast connectivity.”

Retailers are seeing more conversions at a lower cost using mobile channels.

A Google mobile advertising case study run with Razorfish tested alternate landing pages and found the best results with a page that included the nearest store locations.

The company tested mobile-specific variations in ad copy and found the best results with ads that mentioned the iPhone.

The mobile campaign was 7.5 percent more efficient on a cost-per-conversion basis compared to desktop campaigns. There were close to 10 percent more conversions with mobile-specified text.

“Some retailers are seeing similar average order values on mobile as they are on desktops,” Mr. Barza said. “Conversion rates are similar on mobile as they are on desktops, and Best Buy said at a recent conference it is seeing better conversions on mobile than via desktops.

“It’s a trend we’re also seeing across some retailers,” he said.

The impact of mobile on retail is already being felt in a big way.

Red Laser has been one of the top 5 paid applications in the App Store, ShopSavvy became the top free application in Android Market and Google Shopper launched this year.

Deloitte found that one in five shoppers intend to use their mobile phone while shopping in store this season.

“We can measure mobile commerce conversions, but it's also important to understand how retailers can assign value to conversions,” Mr. Barza said. “We should assign a different value to consumers who are in stores using their phone to look up pricing information.

“Those are challenges we have to think through,” he said.

Google’s mobile strategy
The foundation of Google’s mobile strategy is location, mobile search and computing in the cloud. In addition, going forward all of its software will be compatible with both mobile and desktop environments.

Current examples include Google Docs, Photos, YouTube, Gmail, Maps, Voice, Latitude, News, Calendar, Shopper, Google.com, My Location, Search application and Voice Search, as well as the newly launched Buzz.

“We want to make these accessible anywhere they’re located to create a seamless experience from desktop to mobile no matter where you are or what device you’re using,” Mr. Barza said. “Mobile is taking a major priority within the company.”

The key is taking advantage of the opportunities that cloud computing opens up.

“What Google has done, we’re leveraging all of the connectivity and power of the cloud, and it starts with the location of phone, which knows where you’ve been, it know where you are and, in the future, it may even predict where you’re going,” Mr. Barza said.

“Search is the core of our company,” he said. “We want to make it extremely easy to perform mobile searches on the go leveraging each user’s location.

“We have search apps available on a series of phones, and we’re leveraging the voice capability on phones so users can speak a search, text message or email.”

Google proved with the pending $750 million acquisition of AdMob that mobile advertising is a very important priority for the company. As expected, Mr. Barza could not directly comment on the deal till it was signed off by the regulatory authorities.

“Our mobile advertising strategy is that we want to connect with people when they are using their mobile device, whether they are searching, browsing the Internet, watching video or using apps,” Mr. Barza said.

The local explosion
One out of every three search queries on mobile have local intent, according to Google.

“We have Google Mobile Maps as the base layer, and we’re adding other layers of data particular to a specific user's interests,” Mr. Barza said.

Users can find locations, click to call, get the address, show the location on a map, get walking, driving or public transportation directions, including navigation with street views.

A new feature of the Nexus One’s Android 2.1 operating system is GPS turn-by-turn directions with voice.

Meanwhile, click-to-call phone numbers in mobile ads saw a 5-30 percent increase in click-through rates.

“It has worked well for small and large businesses,” Mr. Barza said. “The calls these advertisers received came from both actual search ads and from landing pages, so I recommend you have a phone number prominently displayed on your Web site.”

Analysts estimate that more than 3 billion mobile applications have been downloaded across several application stores iTunes, Android Market and BlackBerry AppWorld.

Google is serving ads within iPhone and Android applications representing millions of daily impressions.

In-application banner ads and search ads enable a consumer to download an application with two clicks or taps.

Google also serves mobile ads tallying millions of daily impressions within YouTube, which is preinstalled on Android devices.

“The feedback we get from advertisers is that after an app is released initially, the buzz tapers down, and it’s tough to stand out in sea of apps,” Mr. Barza said. “We’re leveraging our ads in applications and mobile search to enable advertisers to promote their applications, giving them the ability to serve an ad that lets users download an app in two clicks.

“It helps discoverability and extends the investment they’ve made in app development,” he said.

Staff Reporter Dan Butcher covers ad networks, banking and payments, carrier networks, manufacturers, and software and technology. Reach him at dan@mobilemarketer.com.