Naijapals, the leading social networking site in Nigeria has suspended the user account of Profile ‘Impersonator’ Chinwenduu.

According to Naijapals,

Profile impersonator “chinwenduu” is now indefinitly suspended from the Naijapals community for gross disregard for the Naijapals “Terms of service”.

The user has repeatedly ignored warnings from the Naijapals admin after creating fake profiles with names such as shaniqua, shanique1 and recently mushabcd. The user has created over 30 Naijapals account in total for purpose unknown to the administrators.

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NaijaPulse is a microblogging service that allows users to say what they’re doing, start or follow a discussion, share a link or news item, join or create groups. The service runs on the Laconica microblogging software, version 0.7.1.

The service lets you share short text updates about yourself and what is happening around you with friends, colleagues, family and fans. Users post short (140 character) updates known as “pulses” which are broadcast to their friends, colleagues, family and fans using the Web, RSS, or instant messages.

What are the features?

Unlike Twitter, the site allows you to create groups, features users and has a link for popular posts. If you favour a post, it will be featured as a POPULAR on the right sidebar. You can also tag a word by preceding it with the hashtag (#). For example, tagging startupsnigeria will be #startupsnigeria. In twitter, it’s @startupsnigeria.

You can link your NaijaPulse account to your Twitter account, After linking, all your ‘pulses’ are automatically published at Twitter as well. You can use the ‘connect’ tab on your NaijaPulse account profile and provide the login data to your twitter account so that your updates are posted automatically. But, wouldn’t NaijaPulse have access to your twitter account? I doubt, since the login details are sent directly through the server, so no one can have access to your information.

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Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Oyelaja Oyekan who is CEO, Cybernator Solutions and is currently building a social network called XCLUSIVE. You can find him on Facebook.

Creating your own social network is a lot like hosting a fabulous party. Like all parties, it usually starts with being an interesting person and a love of meeting people.

Bands and porn stars work too. Just kidding.

Like any party, it also takes a little bit of preparation to take cheap beer and stale chips and turn it into a night to remember.

Ning (www.ning.com) might give you a fantastic foundation for creating your new social network, but it’s only one piece of the puzzle. Only you can make it awesome. So its always better to build your very own social network mate.

Here’s my list of the 8 basics:

It all starts with a great idea and the host behind it

Call it a core reason to exist, mojo, or whatever you’d like, but there’s no substitute for passion and believing in what you create. If you’re not authentic, it’s hard to get people to show up and stick around.

Start by picking a passion, niche, theme, community, or topic you love. Perhaps nothing exists out there for your interest or you’re just ready to go beyond a discussion board or group page on a “one-size-fits-all” social network. Whatever the case, having a clear purpose – even if that purpose is to just hang out – is important.

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No doubt Naijapals was one of the most talked about startups within the past year. We reviewed the social networking giant a couple of times and we did a comparative analysis with South Africa’s social networking giant, Blueworld.

But just how much did it grow in 2008? Well, from the Naijapal’s stats from Compete, they’re huge: 2690.4% growth for 2008 with a total of 17,500 unique visitors in December.

Update: This analysis is based on Compete.com’s U.S. Internet Traffic stats for Naijapals.

Back in January 2008, Naijapals only had about 1,000 unique monthly users, but suddenly surged in June from about 4,000 to 16,000 in August and has witnessed an astounding user growth ever since. While Naijapals user base is pegged at around 150,000, it is still a long mile for the kind of social status Facebook currently holds (with over 150 million users worldwide), having outcompeted Myspace.

Update: The statement below implies that Naijapals’ U.S. Internet Traffic leads that of Blueworld, but doesn’t suggest that Naijapals does better than Blueworld in the African continent.

In the African scene, I think Naijapals has done considerably well as one would have expected that SA’s Blueworld will do better. Rather, Blueworld has been experiencing a steady fluctuation in its traffic and now stands way behind Naijapals.

What To Expect in 2009?

Well, I expect a continious surge (possibly an explosion) in Naijapals user base and unique month users. The site has been consistent with the launching of new features for the community. I predict that Naijapals would be hitting a 500,000 members mark by the end of 2009 and unique monthly users could reach 50,000.

I’m yet to look at what the figures are for other African social networking sites, though my guess is that Naijapals is the largest social networking site in the African scene.

If you are looking for a Nigerian site that is focused on the vibrant Nigerian ‘Naija’ youth market, sharing their dreams, fears, aspirations and common goals, perhaps you need to get switched on.

Gradually becoming one of the leading voices for the Nigerian youth, SwitchedOnNaija (launched 2 years ago) continues to be an online medium to share and exchange ideas, learn from peers and the older generation. The Switched On brand has a vision to accurately capture the Nigerian Youth market - tagged “Generation N”.

The idea is to properly represent the average young Nigerian, and guiding young minds by breaking patterns such as double standard communication, and thus winning credibility within their circles.

Switched On publishes a monthly e-book called RELOAD, which delivers informal but insightful research and youth market observations. RELOAD has become an avenue to further understand young people in Nigeria. It also serves as a channel for corporate brands to properly plan and sustain huge marketing budgets while attracting these sets of young Nigerians.

So if you are ready to get switched on to naija, you can check them out!