In 2012 Facebook acquired Instagram in a deal which was its biggest acquisition yet at $1bn! Now the social network giant has acquired the popular messaging app, WhatsApp for a whopping $19 billion in cash and stock.

WhatsApp currently has over 450 million monthly users and growing and is poplar mostly with teenagers and/or anyone looking to avoid text message charges.  It allows users to send messages over internet connections hence avoiding text messaging fees. The company claims it is currently registering one million new users a day.

The acquisition by Facebook includes $4bn in cash and approximately $12 billion worth of Facebook shares, plus an additional $3 billion in stock to WhatsApp’s founders and employees at a later date. WhatsApp co-founder and CEO Jan Koum will also join the board of directors at Facebook.

What do you think about this acquisition? was it worth it? How do you think Facebook would integrate WhatsApp into its social network services? Leave your comments below.

Source: BBC

In an apparent boost for crypto-currency, Bitcoin, Microsoft has included the functionality for the value conversion of Bitcoin to other currencies. This comes at a crossroad for the currency with the recent arrest of Charlie Shrem, a prominent person in the community and Apple’s recent removal of the popular Bitcoin wallet Blockchain. As for now, the functionality is limited to the US, UK, Australia, Canada and India. The conversion functionality is available in 50 currencies from dollars to euros.

Microsoft further states that:

As Bitcoin (the peer-to-peer payment system and digital currency) makes headlines and captures the world’s attention, we thought it was only natural to give you an easy way to track real-time fluctuations. Starting today, you will find instant Bitcoin conversions at the top of your Bing results.

The Bitcoin rate is from Coinbase, another Bitcoin wallet. Microsoft says it will be rolling out this feature to other markets in due time.

Source: Bing Blog

As stated in the release Bobby Kotick also revealed that this years title and the future titles are being built on s three-year development cycle. The publisher says that the time will allow the designers more time to envision and to innovate as well as increase the quality of future titles.

According to that strategy, in 2015 we may see Treyarch’s Call Of Duty, with Infinity Ward’s Call Of Duty following suit in 2016.

For more news on Activision and Call of Duty stay tuned to Technesstivity.

“The team were really interested in how Konga has been able to stamp its footprint in Nigeria in such a short time with plenty of positive feedback coming from users on Facebook.” As stated from their official blog.

Mendelsohn emphasized their admiration and satisfaction for the successful execution of Konga’s past campaigns while expressing their desire to further strengthen Facebook’s relationship with the Konga brand with mutually beneficial partnerships that would help the brand and Nigerians using Facebook as a whole.

Among the pundits, it has been pointed out that Facebook does not have a Nigerian office. As such it raises a few questions. Like “Why would Facebook send a delegation to Nigeria?”, “Who else will the delegation visit? Seeing as the team is led by an important officer in Facebook.”, “Is Facebook about to set-up shop in Nigeria?” Of course any answers to those questions without an official statement is speculation, but who says that’s a bad thing?

On January 24th 1984, Steve Jobs unveiled and demonstrated the first Macintosh to Apple shareholders. A couple of days later, he showed off the Macintosh at the Boston Computer Society. Time has published the 90-minute presentation. It has never been seen before on the Internet.

Steve Jobs explains how the Macintosh let users record video, process word documents in different fonts and create pictures. Don’t take my word for his awesomeness, watch the video below.

Source: The Verge via TIME

Tech giant, Apple announced their earnings statement during their conference call and they broke lots of their previous records. 51 million iPhones were sold between November 2013 and January 2014 – an all time quarterly record – up from 47.8 million in the same quarter last year. iPad sales also came in at record highs at 26 million, up from 22.9 million from the same quarter last year.

Mac sales weren’t left out in the record-breaking party either, coming in at 4.8 million sold from November to January, up from 4.1 million same quarter last year. Finally, Apple’s quarterly revenue was also record-breaking at $57.6 billion.

Although, lots of records were broken with Apple’s main devices, the iPod took a huge hit with year-over-year sales down by a huge 52 percent. This could be a sign that maybe the iPod that once took Apple to new heights may have nearly reached the end of its life. iPod sales aside, it was a great quarter for Apple as they continue to reach new heights.

TechCabal

Also in partnership with Stanbic IBTC, Jobberman, VC4Africa, Memeburn and others, TechCabal will look for budding startups and put them through training sessions with industry professionals. The finalists will then present to a panel of judges that includes Iroko Partners CEO, Jason Njoku (iROKOtv, iROKING) amd Jobberman CEO, Ayodeji Adewunmi.

The juicy bit (and the reason you probably clicked this link) is the $22,000 prize for the winning startup – yes, they mean dollars. The winner gets $20,000, and the runner up gets $2,000 – no strings attached.

“We are really excited about the potential for the technology ecosystem, and way beyond the token prize money, ” said Bankole Oluwafemi of TechCabal. “We hope that the event will facilitate high value networking opportunities for startups and investors, as well as deeper awareness for Nigerians at large.”

Anyone can attend the event, all you have to do is register through the Social Media Week website. If you’re a startup that has received less than $200,000 (again, in dollars) in funding, you’re encouraged to apply and find out more details here.

May the odds be ever in your favour! (I really couldn’t help it, sorry.)

UPDATE: An earlier version of this post stated the prize money was $10,000. A $10,000 contribution from iROKING.com and $12,000 from Stanbic IBTC brings the total winnings to $22,000.

This is largely due to the hope that it will go viral. Most content and products don’t go viral, they are marketed and sold to specific audiences. This post is a shameful shameful sell.

Here are 7 marketing tips for Nigerian startups

1. Nomenclature

A generic name will hurt you in search engines. If you search for your proposed company name and someone else has the domain/name you want, think up another name.

After selecting a name, acquire as many public web properties related to that name as possible. Set up a Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Tumblr account with the exact name of the company. Link all of them back to your website. Create a Google Place.

2. Targeting

I was speaking to a client a few weeks ago and it turned out they were running an online campaign targeted at the whole of Nigeria while their service was only available to Lagos residents. They had wasted thousands of naira.

If your company has products for teenagers, target users between the age of 13 and 21. Not all 10 million Facebook users.

3. Marketing Budgets

As you budget for your Internet plan, diesel and salaries, don’t forget to put some money aside for marketing. $5(N8750) a month on Facebook goes a long way when you do it right.

4. Engagement

10,000 Facebook fans but your website doesn’t get up to 100 visitors a day.

Firstly, people need to stop the habit of acquiring followers/fans for the sake of numbers. I’ve realised that these numbers only matter when you’re in constant engagement with your fans/followers.

Publish content that you think your fans would like to relevant social networks and include a link to your website occasionally. Be funny. Remember that people don’t live in a world that’s closed to your industry. Ask what they feel about Ronaldo’s win of the Ballon D’or.

Don’t tell me you’re selling an iPad and link me to your homepage. I’ll never click any link you post again.

5. Search Engine Optimisation

People need to be able to find your T-shirt selling website if they’re looking for T-shirts to buy. The title of each webpage should contain words you think a person would search for if they were looking for your product.

Make a list of 10 or more keywords you want to show up for every month and insert them in the title tag when you’re linking to the page. If you’re not sure what keywords you want to show up for, Google one keyword or phrase and scroll to the bottom to see related terms.

Something like this works

<a href=”http://www.konga.com/men-s-wear/darcy-mens-long-sleeve-shirt” title=”Men’s wear: Darcy Men’s Long Sleeve Shirt in Nigeria”>Darcy Men’s Long Sleeve Shirt</a>.

Konga and Jumia do this very well. No wonder they show up for almost anything you want in Nigeria. Asos shows up for almost any clothing term you search for.

Create a Google+ page  and link to all your top-level categories with the keywords and phrases you want in the about section. Submit a sitemap  to Google Webmaster tools.

6. Start A Blog

Share pro tips around your service. Blog about your industry’s successes and challenges. Blog about experiences in Lagos traffic.

7. Start A Newsletter

Newsletters are great because they bring users back to your website. When you start blogging, add a banner to every page on your website asking people to sign up. Send a newsletter that links back to your website at least once a week. Mailchimp and CreateSend are great tools.

The deal was led by a division of BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest investor with over $4 trillion (yes, $4 trillion) in assets under management. The funds from the Series C round go towards their on-going product development in enterprise software which promises to be a money maker for the firm.

According to the Wall Street Journal,  Dropbox made about $200 million in revenues in 2013. This is up from $116 million and $46 million in 2012 and 2011 respectively. This continuous increase in revenues is highly anticipated by investors as the valuation represents 50x 2013 revenues.

This represents an ongoing trend of public investors including hedge funds, investment banks and private equity companies who are looking to cash in on successful Silicon Valley firms. Examples include Goldman Sachs’ investment in 2011 about a year before its IPO, Fidelity Investments invested in Pinterest  in 2013, and Tiger Global Management’s investment in Facebook.

Earlier investors in Dropbox include Index Ventures (NastyGal), Accel Partners (Facebook), Sequoia Capital and Goldman Sachs.

Source: The Wall Street Journal; Crunchbase

“We already have 220 partners in Lagos, but we are soon expanding to Abuja and beyond. We want to be the universal food service for all Nigerians,” said Managing Director, Joe Falter. “We want to be the first place Nigerians think of when they need food: whether it’s for them at work, for their families at home, or to cater an event.”

To be that “first place Nigerians think of” of course, you’d need to go mobile because that’s where most of us are. So they’ve just launched Android and iPhone apps that bring the already convenient service to you on-the-go.

HelloFood is service from FoodPanda that has similar services in Europe, Asia and countries like Ghana, Kenya and Ivory Coast in Africa.

Now on to the good stuff: Put in “TNTT readers” at checkout and get ₦500 off your order. Again, you’re welcome.

What do you think about the service?