Happy New Year

Prolance: An Online Freelancing Community

Prolance is the first Nigerian online freelancing community for skilled professionals. You either sign up to give out jobs or look for jobs. For now their payment plan is the conventional banking method. You pay into Gurantee trust bank, then you email your details to them so that they can reconcile the account details. I guess with time, it would be much more simpler.

2012 Year of Android

This year was the upsurge of android. They scared the hell of out of Iphone this year. They actually almost gave them a run for their name. But you know Ios still have their faithfuls in the US even though Android won a lot of converts.

In Nigeria here, ofcourse peeps still dey ping so tey RIM, despite their Grim situation globally, still saw a glimmer of hope thus opened a blackberry outlet in Nigeria on October.

Android has come to stay, with so many apps to experiment and very good ones which are free from ads. Android will still win more converts as long as smartphone is concerned except an idea comes along and sweeps everyone away.

Whatsapp is available for Windows 8 phones.

Good news for owners of Windows Phone 8 Lumia smartphones. The enormously popular instant messaging client WhatsApp has been updated for the latest version of the operating system, joining Facebook Chat, MSN messaging, Skype, Viber and a host of other alternatives.

The developers were working with Nokia to produce a version that is properly optimised for the latest Windows Phone platform experience.

In case WhatsApp is new to you, it's for instant messaging using text, of course, but also allows you to send pictures, audio and video files. It's also great for group chats, which can be tricky to manage using some of the alternatives.

Unlike SMS, WhatsApp uses your data connection, whether that's 3G, LTE or WiFi, to send and receive messages. This can mean cost-savings for users, of course, which is another factor that has undoubtedly contributed to the popularity of the service.

Kasuwa rebranded to Jumia

Recently the Number one online retailer Kasuwa.com changed their name to Jumia. Here is the reason they gave on their website

Q. Why have you changed your name from Kasuwa to Jumia?

A. The name has changed because we want to be part of a global brand that allows us to offer more to our customers. We have seen a great demand for our products and have decided to expand and become even bigger, hence offering a wider selection of categories. We are still the same company working hard to ensure a great online shopping experience in Nigeria but Kasuwa is our former name; we are now officially Jumia.

Q. What does Jumia mean?

A. The word itself has no specific meaning but what becoming Jumia will mean for you as a customer is that you will have more variety to choose from on our website.

Q. What’s changing?

A. Just our name and our URL. Even though our new web address is www.jumia.com.ng, you’ll still reach us if you type in www.kasuwa.com. We’ll redirect you over to our new site.

Q. I have a Kasuwa account. Will I need to create a new Jumia account?

A. No, everything about your account stays the same.

Q. Is this change permanent?

A. Yes, this is permanent and we are really excited about our new name

The real gist is that the change of name may be due to a copyright infringement threat from the original owner of the ‘Kasuwa’ and ‘Kasuwa.com’ trademark.

Apparently, the brand name, ‘Kasuwa’ and the domain name, ‘Kasuwa.com’ are already registered trademarks belonging to another business registered as ‘Kasuwa Market Place Ventures’ with the Corporate Affairs Commission in Nigeria since August 2010.

And it turns out that the trademark owner has reportedly threatened to sue Rocket Internet for copyright infringement of its brand name and trademarks as well as the misrepresentation on its website, ad campaigns and across the web.