Today, I officially accepted my appointment as IT columnist for Africa’s leading IT and Telecoms news website, ITNewsAfrica.com.

The announcement was published on the site since September 19 after a selection process that appointed two other industry experts, namely, David Paulding and Suzanne Olivier.

ITNewsAfrica.com is an independent media portal fully dedicated to ICT affairs with an original business model, based on five elements (corporate sponsoring, press offices, advertising, events, and content syndication). ITNewsAfrica.com aggregates technology and telecoms news relevant to Africa’s development.

The Online Editor for ITNewsAfrica.com, Samuel Mungadze, said the appointment of the three will go a long way in achieving the company’s objectives of changing perceptions and exposing opportunities.

“We are honored to have a team of experts contributing to our publication. This is a definite sign of good things to come from us,” said Mungadze.

I’ll be publishing news and reviews of Nigeria’s telecoms/mobile 2.0 applications as well as the Web 2.0 market as it relates to Africa. I am highly honored to be recognized by ITNewsAfrica.com as Nigeria’s Web 2.0 Industry Expert.

Google (I call them the Big G) has been one of the leading lions of the Internet jungle always looking out for preys to capture. Could you believe that Google bought 19 start-ups in 2007?

Google’s most recent start-up acquisitions were Begun (online advertising) from Russia for $140 million; Omnisio (Online video) from the US for $15 million; and TNC, a weblog software from South Korea for an undisclosed amount. Google’s largest acquisition as of March 2008 is the purchase of DoubleClick, an online advertising company, for US$3.1 billion.

Most Internet startups and their founders always dream of a multimillion-dollar buyout or the lucrative initial public offers. While it may seem impossible, we’d all love to think that Internet giants such as Google, Yahoo! or Microsoft would soon be acquiring web startups out of Africa. The search company has footprints in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Finland, Germany, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, South Korea and of course the United States.

Why not any African country?

Well with recent startup acquisitions from South Africa such as Zoopy by Vodacom and Afrigator by MIH Group/Naspers, we can somehow hope that the world is watching. That’s why StartupsNigeria is dedicated to covering web startups as well as web technologies and applications from Nigeria, in order to encourage huge companies to engage Nigerian entrepreneurs.

Recently, at the TieCon conference in Santa Clara, California, corporate development officers from the Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft discussed their acquisition strategies on a panel with Tod Francis, managing director of Shasta Ventures.

Here is a recap of the panel discussions:

From Google: the start-up needs to be ahead of Google’s internal curve in a given market, such as video (YouTube) or display advertising technology (DoubleClick), according to David Lawee, Google’s vice president of corporate development.

From Microsoft: the software giant is scouting for advertising platforms that can augment its own technology, as well as networks that aggregate audiences, according to Tivanka Ellawala, general manager of Corporate Development at Microsoft. He said that 10 of Microsoft’s last 20 buyouts were related to the Internet and that the company is also interested in mapping technologies.

From Yahoo: the Internet company casts a wide net when it comes to scouting for start-ups, but it looks for “really good companies”, according to Michael Burnett, senior director of global mergers and acquisitions for Yahoo. Last year, he said, the company looked at 500 companies, put 50 on a short list, fully examined 20, and finally acquired 9 companies.

At StartupsNigeria.com, we believe that these three Internet giants are interested in start-ups from Africa. While we wait for an African start-up that would get the world’s attention, we recommend that you keep visiting this blog for more startup news and tips.

Today, I am asking a similar question I recieved via email recently from someone who wanted advice on how to migrate a Nigerian online jobs forum into a Web 2.0 site. I am hoping that readers would provide different perspectives to this question.

Personally, I think that an online jobs forum that wants to adopt web 2.0 tools and technologies should critically access and determine the web needs of its target audience. For example, if the target audience are people who just click to find job announcements and hardly spend time on the site, then you may not need to bother about Web 2.0.

On the otherhand, if your audience are web-savvy (i.e they understand what is means to interact, discuss and network within an online forum), then you should consider investing some time and money in Web 2.0 for your site.

Here, I am suggesting a few web applications that may fit into the framework of a typical online job forum and thus building a Web 2.0 forum.

1. Aggregation Model/Strategy

The site could aggregate job announcements from other sites. This may seem like providing links to other sites, but is that not what Web 2.0 means? Sharing information? I’ve thought about developing a site called Careergator, after the success of Afrigator.

2. Visual CV-Building Application

Since visual Cvs are becoming more popular today, an online forum could allow users to create their own CVs online using appropriate tools. That way, recruiters could find jobseekers easily. An example of a visual cv-building site is CV Crib.

3. Social Networking Approach

Social Networking is simply the major buzzword. Every Web 2.0 site on the web space seems to be adopting a social networking angle to their business. When your forum members can interact and network with other members who are jobseekers, they all can enjoy the benefits of meeting old friends, classmates, workmates and even establish new relationships through their networks.

4. Blogging

Blogs are more likely to get people’s attention, since they display information in a more organized way. Thus, for an online forum, a blog could be used to publish jobs, employment gists, as well as advice on careers. An example of a careers site that adopts the blog-style is careersnigeria.com, Nigeria’s leading job and recruitment site.

5. Mobile Job Alerts

These days, you can do virtually everything with mobile phones. An online jobs forum that applies mobile 2.0 applications to inform users of recent job announcements will be a smash.

6. RSS Feeds

Feeds have become a very popular Web 2.0 application that syndicates information into a reader for easy access. It is gradually replacing the email newsletters and can be accessed through Google Reader amongst others.

7. Social Media Applications

Social media sites such as Digg, Sturvs, Muti, Technorati, etc are very useful Web 2.0 tools that could be adopted into online forums. Thus, job announcements and employment gists could move around the web space so fast when these tools are used effectively.

Are there any other Web 2.0 technologies that can be adopted for online forums?

I reported on this blog, sometime in April that Nigeria is ranked No. 1 amongst African countries for Internet usage with over 8 million users. In a recent survey by the Internet World Stats, Nigeria still leads Africa’s Internet user base with 10 million users.

In the current Internet stats as at June 2008, Egypt holds a 2nd position (formerly 3rd) with 8.6 million users, then Morocco dropped to 3rd position with 7.3 million users.

However, South Africa has maintained the 4th position with an Internet user base of 5.1 million (same as previous stats). Interestingly, Uganda moved from 10th position to 7th position, while Sudan dropped from 5th postion to 9th position and Zimbabwe on the 10 position.

If you like this blog, you can subscribe to the feeds. You can also save this article to digg, delicious, stumbleupon, sturvs or muti.

Google has announced a project called Project 10¹⁰⁰  (pronounced “Project 10 to the 100th”), which is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible. There will be ten winners competing for 10 million dollars in funding to launch their social entrepreneurial idea.

This is perhaps a special competition to celebrate Google’s 10-year anniversary?

Why this project?

Google answers…

Never in history have so many people had so much information, so many tools at their disposal, so many ways of making good ideas come to life. Yet at the same time, so many people, of all walks of life, could use so much help, in both little ways and big.

Good luck, and may those who help the most win.

In the midst of this, new studies are reinforcing the simple wisdom that beyond a certain very basic level of material wealth, the only thing that increases individual happiness over time is helping other people.

In other words, helping helps everybody, helper and helped alike.

The question is: what would help? And help most?

At Google, we don’t believe we have the answers, but we do believe the answers are out there. Maybe in a lab, or a company, or a university — but maybe not.

Maybe the answer that helps somebody is in your head, in something you’ve observed, some notion that you’ve been fiddling with, some small connection you’ve noticed, some old thing you have seen with new eyes.

If you have an idea that you believe would help somebody, we want to hear about it. We’re looking for ideas that help as many people as possible, in any way, and we’re committing the funding to launch them. You can submit your ideas and help vote on ideas from others. Final idea selections will be made by an advisory board.

Visit the Project 10¹⁰⁰ to learn how it works.