Search Result for &#039;Facebook&#039;

May 26, 2020

Zoom is one of those few apps that have seen tremendous growth during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, their growth has ...

Facebook to Acquire Giphy for $400m, Raises Privacy Concerns

May 15, 2020

Our online lives are about to get worse as Facebook is buying our popular source for gifs - Giphy. I ...

Facebook Partners With Telcos On a $1 Billion Undersea Cable To Serve Africa

May 14, 2020

Facebook and several telcos. have joined forces to build an undersea cable to supply internet services to Africa. The project ...

Activist Maina Kiai Appointed to Facebook’s Global Oversight Board

May 7, 2020

Facebook announced that they have appointed their first members of their new Oversight Board which includes the Kenyan activist, Maina Kiai. The ...

Facebook Set To Integrate Messenger Rooms With WhatsApp

April 27, 2020

Facebook recently rolled out Messenger Rooms to counter Zoom which was quickly gaining popularity and now that feature is set ...

Dark Mode for Facebook iOS App Imminent

April 22, 2020

Dark mode is everywhere on Facebook's family of apps that includes Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger except the Facebook app. Even the website ...

Facebook Will Soon Let You Use Its New Care Reaction on Its Main App and Messenger App

April 18, 2020

Facebook's reactions are getting a new addition. Apart from the like, love, haha, wow, sad, angry reactions launched in late ...

Facebook to Start Putting Anti-Misinformation Posts to Your News Feed If You’ve Engaged With Fake Coronavirus News

April 16, 2020

Facebook is stepping up its efforts to combat misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 Pandemic. The company has rolled out a number ...

Facebook Begins Testing Stories That Last 3 Days

April 15, 2020

Facebook launched Stories in June 2017 to join Instagram Stories, Messenger Day and WhatsApp Status. Stories was an ephemeral feature ...

Facebook Launches COVID-19 Information Center in Kenya and 16 Other African Countries

April 9, 2020

Facebook has today announced that they have expanded their COVID-19 Information Center to 17 more countries in Sub Saharan Africa ...

Facebook Lets Researchers Use Aggregated Location Data to Understand Coronavirus Spread

April 7, 2020

Facebook announced that they are offering new tools to help researchers and non-profits understand the coronavirus crisis even better. This ...

Facebook Launches New Windows and Mac Desktop Apps To Keep Up With Video Calls

April 2, 2020

Today, Facebook has announced new Messenger app for MacOS and Windows which they hope you will use to video chat ...

Videoconferencing App Zoom Removes Code That Sent Data to Facebook

March 30, 2020

Zoom, the videoconferencing app, has seen an upsurge of use thanks to the COVID-19 outbreak. Millions of people around the ...

Facebook Partners with Kenya Government Share Coronavirus Facts via WhatsApp

March 25, 2020

Facebook today has announced that they are partnering with the Kenyan government to keep Kenyans informed about the COVID-19 coronavirus ...

Facebook’s New Design and Dark Mode For Web Rolls Out Globally

March 20, 2020

Facebook started rolling out their much awaited web design refresh yesterday globally after months of waiting. This redesign was announced ...

facebook liiting coronavirus related posts

Facebook Blames Bug That Marked Coronavirus Posts as Spam

March 18, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic has led to an influx of posts that implore people to take care of themselves and others ...

Facebook Invites Community Leaders in Kenya to Apply For Accelerator Programme

March 11, 2020

Facebook has announced the launch of the Community Accelerator programme which will be available in three countries in sub Saharan Africa: Kenya, ...

Facebook is Being Sued in Australia for the Cambridge Analytica Scandal

March 9, 2020

Facebook is being sued by the Australian Information Commissioner over the effects of the Cambridge Analytica scandal that rocked the ...

Huawei’s CEO Believes Facebook, Twitter and Instagram Will Come to App Gallery

February 25, 2020

Huawei is still on the United States entity list which bars it from transacting with American companies. This has forced ...

Facebook’s New Privacy Tool Is Finally Available For Users Globally

January 28, 2020

It has been a long time coming for Facebook users who are tired of being stalked by the social media ...

Facebook Has Apparently Shelved its Plans to Show Ads in WhatsApp

January 17, 2020

Facebook has made strides to monetize its assets in a bid to recoup its investments. WhatsApp by far was their ...

Privacy Takes Centre-stage for Facebook and Apple At CES 2020

January 11, 2020

At CES 2019, one theme failed to be talked about. User privacy. For a show that purports to be about ...

Facebook for Web is Getting a Redesign for All in the Next Few Months

January 10, 2020

Dark mode has become a trendy feature in recent times. It has its benefits like using websites and apps better ...

Facebook OS is the Company’s Bet to Control the Future of its Devices

December 20, 2019

Facebook really wants to get in the operating system business - remember the Facebook phones built by HTC such as ...

Facebook Partners with Local University to Launch Video Journalism Fellowship

December 6, 2019

Facebook has partnered with Aga Khan University Graduate School of Media and Communication to launch the Video Journalism Fellowship

Facebook Experimental Team Looking to Get into Podcasts and Travel Apps

December 6, 2019

Facebook recently created its New Product Experimentation Team in mid-July this year and was tasked to launch consumer and business-facing ...

Facebook Built a Chatbot for Its Employees to Use When Asked Difficult Questions During the Holidays

December 3, 2019

This year Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other tech CEO have been spending time in Congress grilled by lawmakers and ...

What Does it Cost to Advertise on Facebook?

by James Ndirangu

March 6, 2023

If you spend much time on the internet, it may not surprise you to learn that as of 2019, Facebook ...

Compilation of the Best Memes When Facebook and Instagram Went Down

November 29, 2019

Facebook's most popular platforms, Facebook and Instagram went down last evening and the memes that followed took centre stage. Facebook's ...

Global tech corporations hold a series of conferences across the globe, and they target a broad scope of their customers and consumers. However, those meets do not often make their way here, choosing to run in other markets instead. In fact, even when they are staged in continental Africa, the tech summits, understandably, are run in crucial technology hubs found in Nigeria, South Africa or Egypt, and in some instances, Kenya. This characterization, however, changed when Facebook brought its iD8 developer conference in Nairobi this past week. It is worth noting that the social media giant has never conducted the summit in Africa before. The conference has also been running for quite some time now and has visited many parts of the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. To this end, we were quite happy when the corporation announced its plan to meet the Kenyan developer and business circles, and for the most part, the meet was successful – having answered a series of Kenya-based queries, although not all of them, or as comprehensively as many of you expected. Disclosure: Facebook did not pay me (us) for attending the conference, although it staged the event at Trademark Hotel, which was very pretty. The social media company further took us out to a nice lunch, although we could have loved an equally welcoming dinner. Nevertheless, there was an open bar in the evening, with really, really tasty chocolate oatcakes. Lucky folks got to enjoy solid guacamole. I tried to identify local developers on the floor. I lost. Repeatedly. For context, iD8 is Facebook’s platform where it shares new technologies and products for the target audience (developers and businesses affiliated to the social network) to build and toy around with for expanded applications, as well as programs to help them at any stage of their development or business journey. The meeting, as promised, was marked by hands-on demonstrations where executives heading a variety of Facebook products such as Developer Programs directed by Emeka Afigbo presided over discussion with other experts. The Kenya angle and Facebook Developer Circle More than 400 startups and developers attended the conference, including teams from South Africa and Nigeria, as well as several local developer teams and individuals. Kenya was primarily represented by Fatma Ali, a Facebook Developer Circle Lead based in Eldoret. According to Fatma, she got an opportunity to interact with interesting people associated with the social media network and look forward to using the connections she made to build her career while improving her leadership skills to work with the developer community. “Through my Facebook Developer Circle, I have gotten exposure and recognition in the Developer ecosystem. The experience has been enlightening, and I am confident that I will have a successful career in technology,” said Fatma Ali. Back to Emeka Afigbo. The Developer Programs Lead reiterated Facebook’s role in the Developer Circle communities. The groups are run in partnership in Andela (find more about Andela here, including its recent plan to drop upcoming local developers for experienced ones in a move that was prompted by ‘market demands’). So far, the Circles are still in their pilot phase in Kenya (including the aforementioned one at Eldoret) and Somalia. “We want to train about 2500 developers – that is both developers and people who want to be developers so that they can pursue careers in software development,” said Emeka Afigbo. The program received more than 5000 applications for interested people, but only half of them were selected to join the Circle. The members have been receiving training for three months now through online content and in-person meetups. So far, more than 2000 certificates have been issued to successful members. Facebook also reports it started a career fair in Nairobi. A similar platform will also be launched in Lagos, Nigeria, in the next couple of days. The fair serves one main goal: companies that want to hire talent from the Developer Circles can get to meet these people and gauge their expertise for possible job openings. Furthermore, Emeka Afigbo revealed that Facebook has been engaging local startups in terms of partnerships, including Ongair that has been offering customer service and support to a series of clients (that use Facebook products such as the platform itself and its complementary apps such as Instagram and Messenger). By the way, Ongair was represented in the summit and had its founder and CEO Trevor Kimenye as one of the panelists in one of the afternoon sessions. Ongair is one of the three Messenger development partners that exist in Sub-Saharan Africa. These are some of the activities that Facebook hopes to explore, and we hope they will open more developer Circles in the country to tap into reputable talent that exists in the country. WhatsApp Facebook does not release country-specific numbers for WhatsApp. The platform, which has 1.5 billion monthly active users globally, is one of the most popular apps in the country (Twitter does not even come close), and we would have been happier if the company released those numbers to us. For the moment, we are in the dark, but we will apprise you in case new information streams in from the corporation. The app has also been equipped with business tools, and the company has been attempting to use the platform as a financial product (WhatsApp Pay) in some countries, and we are skeptical it can ever make its way here because the Kenyan market has already been disrupted by the market leader, M-PESA. Final Words iD8 was well attended, and for a first attempt in the continent, it did well. We hope they pass through other African technology hubs because the continent is interesting and is marked by talented people who continue to make the technology more accessible and generally better. The goal may be achieved because, according to Emeka Afigbo, they plan to reconnect the ecosystem to share the latest technology, program, and updates with the industry.

Facebook Developer Circles Trains Thousands of Kenya Developers as it Holds iD8 Conference in Nairobi

by Kenn Abuya

January 28, 2020

Global tech corporations hold a series of conferences across the globe, and they target a broad scope of their customers ...

Kenya Government Demanded Select User Data from Facebook as Tanzania Remained Calm

by Kenn Abuya

November 20, 2019

The number of Kenyans on Facebook is substantial and is said to be in terms of millions for a country ...

Facebook Quietly Released Whale, a Meme Making App

November 19, 2019

Facebook always finds ways if staying relevant and this quest to stay relevant makes the company do strange things. Social ...

For the First Time in Africa, Facebook Developer Conference is Coming to Nairobi

by Kenn Abuya

November 15, 2019

Facebook started a developer and entrepreneurship conference called F8 may years ago. The summit, which is held yearly stages discussions ...

Facebook Begins Testing Popular Photos, an Instagram Feed-Like Feature

November 15, 2019