ICTworks by Inveneo

Just last week, it looked like Facebook would own the Internet relationship in a dozen African countries. Now, I'd say that Safaricom, a leader in innovation on the mobile phone, has just brought the ultimate killer app to any handset in Kenya: email.

Email is the killer app

No matter how many websites you visit, your entire web browsing experience pales in comparison with the amount of time and attention you give email. Its always been (and will most likely remain) the real killer app for any platform. And check out how Safaricom will own that relationship in Kenya.

Kipokezi from ForgetmeNot Africa

Kipokezi allows you to send and receive email and chat messages from ANY Safaricom mobile phone using SMS, regardless of the make and model of their mobile phone.

Kipokezi is a product from FrogetmeNot Africa, which uses their eTXT message to send and receive seamlessly as an SMS, an email or chat message on any carriers network via SMS. No need for downloads to the phone, internet, PC access or a change in user behaviour.

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When you design websites for the low-bandwidth environment common in Africa, you come across constraints not considered by your average web developer. Paramount are download speeds like this, which choke on even the best made site. Just check this stat from Christian Kreutz:

Checking up a profile on Facebook or at least access the log in page, which has alone almost 800kb! In a cybercafe, where you have to pay fees per minute, it may take up to 3 minutes with a dial up modem connection.

Now Miguel argues that one way to ease Internet connectivity issues is to blog on appropriate platforms, while sites like Loband and Aptivate offer tools to quicken your web design. But I say there is a third way that can allow media rich sites for high-bandwidth viewers, and quick downloads for low-bandwidth visitors.

Email RSS Subscriptions

With such slow download speeds, why make your readers visit a website at all? Especially if they must have a concurrent Internet session to do so? Why not go back to basics and exploit the original digital communication system - email.

Paired with RSS via services like Feedburner, it provides a powerful, asynchronous, web content delivery system.

First, Feedburner can take any type of RSS feed, be it from Flickr, Twitter, or your company newsfeed, and turn it into an email to your subscribers, delivered daily whenever you have new content. And these emails can be read in text or HTML, so even those on dial-up can quickly get your content.

Next, I would strongly argue that email RSS subscribers are more valuable than RSS feed reader subscribers or even Twitter or Facebook followers for three reasons:

1. Unlike all three of those services, email is pushed into reader's inboxes - they don't need to visit a third-party app or site to read your content.
2. Readers can ignore a feed reader or Twitter for a while, but they will always check email regularly.
3. As GigaOM says, RSS readers are more engaged with their subscriptions than Twitter or Facebook followers.

Taken together, you might even make the leap to say that old-school email newsgroups are better than websites for low-bandwidth environments. And for the right audiences, I don't see why not. We still have vibrant, informative listserv's even in high-bandwidth countries.

Or to the point, "appropriate ICT" includes choosing the right tool - in communication as well as implementation.