Just about one hour ago, VEDA Technology launched their homepage which features the 4 products they’ll be launching tomorrow at the Civic Centre in Victoria Island, Lagos.

My guess is that the website is yet to be fully developed, as there are currently no pages or other links except for the latest news button, which takes you to media stories about VEDA. (Startups Nigeria’s article about VEDA was featured also).

According to VEDA’s website,

VEDA Technology Limited was born in Lagos, Nigeria. The founders understood the demand for premium personal computers by a new breed of consumers who need a platform tailor-made for their needs and interests. VEDA sees this growth and strives to enhance the quality of computing with its platforms.

Every VEDA product has one year warranty (labor and parts) inclusive that seems to last like a life time because even after it expires, we offer you unbelievable after sales service that helps us help you pamper your product keeping it in top notch condition always.

The featured products are:

You can be sure that StartupsNigeria.com will be there at the event to uncover the mysteries behind these top-class products.

It’s been exactly 7 weeks since The Punch Newspaper launched their mobile service called Mobile Punch, a service that provides media consumers access to the full text of the newspaper on their mobile phones which is available to mobile phone subscribers on the three major GSM networks – MTN, Glo and Zain.

When we heard the news, we were excited but it was disappointing to learn that the service was for a fee. The service which was launched on March 16, was to be accessed with a subscription fee of N600 monthly, that is, N20 daily, payable by cash, ATM or Visa cards. In April, Punch announced a slight adjustment in the subscription fee for Mobile Punch which now cost N1,500 per month.

I’m guessing your reaction: Absolutely ludicrous, right? That’s how some of the comments sounded on the Punch article that announced the new price.

Someone said:

This is very strange, what makes punch think people will pay N1.5K monthly for their junk news?? if they cannot do this they should leave it. this service usually cost less than $2 in other country and in most cases(CNN,Fox News,BBC,NBC,CBS,AP,AFP,Reuters,Sky News, ETC) online mobile news is totally free of charge.

Another comment says:

Rubbish! Even at 600 per month,who will subscribe to this kind of useless information we read here? Except gullible and foolish readers will spend their hard-earned naira on these junks. 

Another one said:

Mobile Punch for 1500 naira! in a country where there’s no regular electricity supply! Try opinion polls on this.

But it seems that The Punch’s Executive Director, Azubuike Ishiekwene thinks differently. In a statement, he said:

Our strong initial impressions that consumers across the country are yearning for innovative and deeply personal ways of using media products and services have been confirmed by our experience in the last one month.

Consumers’ response to Mobile Punch has been quite encouraging and the challenge for us, moving forward, is to find ways of making the payment method more convenient for them. Punch is at the threshold of doing just that and will make further announcements in this regard in the days ahead.

Does that imply that Punch didn’t think of the consumers first before putting a subscription fee on Mobile Punch? Would they eventually offer the service for free, just like other global news websites offer mobile services for free?

We like Punch Newspaper, I mean they are cool, particularly because they are technology-savvy and innovative. Punch now has a Twitter page, which means that they are tapping into social media tools, but have not been totally impressive with using Twitter, especially as they don’t add linkbacks to their articles. Can someone teach them how to use Twitter?

While we think that Punch should offer their mobile service for free, we also feel that they should have a clearly defined mobile web strategy and social media policy, if they are to become the leading Nigerian newspaper that integrates Web 2.0 tools and technologies.

What are your thoughts?

While we think that some of these sites are tapping into the shortcomings of the leading classifieds sites, Craigslist and Kijiji (perhaps some are copying Craigslist), we wonder how they hope to make money. Just like other classified ads sites, they offer buyers and sellers an opportunity to engage in a free and open market.

But whether they make money or not, they are providing great value for local businesses and individuals who wish to buy and sell their items online. Besides, they offer this service all for FREE, unlike newspapers and Nigeria’s first weekly classified ads publication, WASEET that charge a fee.

So are they useful? Yes.

However, I’m concerned about their sustainability as more and more classified ads websites are being launched. Today we have Nairalist, Chukslist, Nairalists, Ariaria, Bunchbay, Kerawa Nigeria, WhoGoBuy, and probably 20 more and it also seems that some websites are providing classifieds services such as 9jabook’s ask9ja.com.

Again, some of these sites have had issues with building with the right programming languages that offers great functionalities, spam-resistance and security features. For example, WhoGoBuy (launched in late 2005) built their site using ASP, then migrated to ASP.net about a year later, and then moved over to PHP a few months after.

And now they are upgrading again? See Nairalist’s founder facebook thread below:

With all of these, does it seem like the Nigerian classified ads market is profitable? Would they be forced to charge a fee for adverts placed? Or will they resort to other revenue generating models?

Interestingly, it seems that the classified ads market is quite lucrative as reports estimates Craigslist 2008 revenue at $80million, according to CNet.com, with its sole source of revenue from paid job ads in seleced cities.

The question now is: Can Nigerian classified ad sites monetize via paid job ads or any other service listings?

GameLounge, which claims to be the largest professional video game lounge targeting 35 million consumers in Nigeria is now gathering game lovers at Aqua 27 in Victoria Island for the Champions Playoff Series III scheduled for May 16.

We’ve been following the electronic gaming industry around the world with keen interest and last month we gave an analysis of the video game development in Nigeria which is currently witnessing growth, with small communities from difference areas increasing to form a future gaming industry.

Gamelounge is a gaming lifestyle and events company in Lagos, Nigeria that recently held their inaugural gaming event called Champions Playoff Series 1 at Aqua 27 in Victoria Island, Lagos which saw a guy named Lekan become the winner of the contest.

There was another gruelling contest between some extremely gifted game players at the CHAMPION’S PLAYOFF SERIES II, held at the same location on April 13th which crowned a new Emperor named Biodun, who beat all contenders including Champion’s Playoff Series I whiz-kid, Lekan.

The event brings together 32 hardcore gamers to compete for supremacy and the title crown in the PRO EVOLUTION SOCCER 2009 on the PLAYSTATION 3 console. If you’re a gamer or are interested in the emerging gaming industry, you could be part of the event this May.

We’ll be posting more updates about this event as the days go by, so watch out!

Photo via Gamelounge.

At the time, Kenya and Nigeria Opera Mini users were surging, and we predicted that the mobile web will replace traditional web in Nigeria. With this report, Nigeria is now the 2nd African country behind South Africa (placed at 6th) to join the top 10 countries. Also noteworthy is the fact that Nigeria’s Opera Mini page-view growth since March 2008 was 4,322% with page-views per user at 324. Unique-user growth since March 2008 was 1,472%. 

The report also indicated that Facebook is the preferred social-networking site in Nigeria, while Nairaland, the largest Nigerian forum site, is popular among Opera Mini users.

And finally, more than users from any other top 10 country, Nigerians are likely to be browsing with Opera Mini between 4am and 8am.

But the question is: Will Nigeria stay on the top 10 list and possibly move up next month to displace Poland, UK, USA or South Africa? 

With the surge of Opera Mini usage in the last few months (in terms of unique-user growth and page-view stats) as well as the increasing mobile web penetration in Nigeria, I think Nigeria could stay on the top 10 list this month and possibly edge out Poland and UK. It’ll also be interesting to see Nigeria on the number 1 position by December 2009.

Stats Via Opera