Month: August 2013

What do Banks do with their Website?

Most companies in Nigeria are now embracing the internet – at least to put up what looks like websites. Banks have been here before others but I’m not sure if they all know what to do with it.

In my spare time, I ranked all the banks and using the Alexa ranking. Alexa is an Amazon company that aggregates web traffic to rank popularity of website. So for example, Google.com is the number destination  worldwide but number 2 in the USA where Facebook.com reigns (people have time to farf!). Don’t even bother to check my website ranking, nobody apart from me and you visits here.

BankWebsiteNigeriaGlobal
Access Bankwww.accessbankplc.com33856,440
Citibankwww.citigroup.com/citi/about/countrypresence/nigeria.html 13,270
Diamond Bankwww.diamondbank.com15030,081
Ecobank Nigeriawww.ecobank.com/countryinfo.aspx?cid=74072 44,193
Enterprise Bankweb.entbankng.com 1,623,102
Fidelity Bankwww.fidelitybankplc.com912101,328
First Bankwww.firstbanknigeria.com31638,430
First City Monument Bankwww.firstcitygroup.com3,160354,439
First City Monument Bankwww.fcmb.com4,938348,675
Guaranty Trust Bankwww.gtbank.com183,631
Heritage Bankwww.hbng.com7,1281,058,728
Keystone Bankwww.keystonebankng.com1,590245,477
Mainstreet Bankwww.mainstreetbanklimited.com5,473695,549
Skye Bankwww.skyebankng.com1,050111,101
Stanbic IBTC Bankwww.stanbicibtcbank.com27950,567
Standard Chartered Bankwww.standardchartered.com.ng2,273258,505
Sterling Bankwww.sterlingbankng.com46695,814
Union Bank of Nigeriawww.unionbankng.com1,595190,767
United Bank for Africawww.ubagroup.com32071,157
Unity Bankwww.unitybankng.com3,927757,389
Wema Bankwww.wemabank.com4,458548,194
Zenith Bankwww.zenithbank.com13621,304

The Beginning of New Things

Something magical happened last week – the average man on the street didn’t even notice or cared but then it would probably have more influence on the fortune of this country than anything else that ever happened to us.

Well, GEJ didn’t resign – that’s too obvious. BH didn’t declare cease fire – that probably won’t happen anytime soon.

The dudes who wanted to buy our electricity infrastructure finally plunked down the balance of the money to buy hope and faith. Of the 15 consortia itching to have some electric shocks bring us back to life, only the folks gunning for the Enugu Distro couldn’t pay up. That’s sad because all they need do was ask me, I could have extended some cash advance, after all, this is for Nigeria. Ok, that’s a joke. If I had that much cash, I wouldn’t have to endure many things day after day.

Now that they have paid up, GEJ will hand over PHCN to private sector and we believe that this would be the beginning of good things in Nigeria. I’m so giddy with excitement. Imagine even 12 hours of uninterrupted power each day and then gradually they upgrade to 24/7. Think of how much we would save from not buying diesel and petrol to fuel generators? Think of how much it even cost to get those damned generators in the first instance?

Cost of business would drastically reduce for everyone. Businesses would flourish. More cash means more things to buy. The middle class would resurge. Maybe if life is easier for everyone we would be less easy to bribe to elect stupid officials, which is maybe.

But what happens to the folks that bring in generators to sell? Demand would nosedive – same happened to the importers of motorbikes when Fashola pulled the plug off Okadas. Demand for petrol and diesel would also bottom-out.
There would always be losers and gainers. In this instance, probably more gainers. If GEJ could pull this through, his name would be written in gold. I’m dead serious. I’m not praise singing him but electricity is the biggest problem we have in Nigeria, after mediocrity.
 

This is what we call meaty progress

For example, in 1925, the average Tyson chicken lived approximately 112 days, weighed around 2.5 pounds at the time of slaughter, and had consumed about 4.7 pounds of grain per pound of its body weight. In 2010, the same chicken lived just 45 days, was slaughtered at an average weight of 5.63 pounds, and consumed just 1.92 pounds of grain per pound. Simply put, the animals live less than half as long, eat half as much and are more than double the size they were 100 years ago.

The Verge

Crapware by another name is Blackberry Q10

I have nothing to say but that Blackberry Q10 is an absolute piece of crapware.

How did I arrive at this point? Not so hard. Almost everything that  worked in the old BB has changed, almost no backward compatibility. Contact names no longer appear when called but for the most annoying one, the numbers for my contacts now get mixed up with others. Imagine calling Sade and it shows as Sola! When I want to call, I wouldn’t find a contact’s name unless I switch to Blackberry Balance to see the name on the work contact list but yet I can see the same name on text messaging. You can’t call a contact directly from the BBM Chat. The notes folder no longer synchronize to Documents.

Meanwhile, did anyone ever do quality assurance before unleashing this terrible but not cheap phone on the world? For a company like Blackberry, you would imagine that they would put in more than an extra effort to ensure that the basic features work. Maybe that is why they are where they are now. I wonder if the road for them is up or down.

But as for me, can’t wait to dump Blackberry forever.