Kenyan developers enter social media space with Startag app

Santos Okotta, the http://startag.co co-developer (PHOTO: COURTESY)

NAIROBI, KENYA: Two Kenyan developers hope to wrestle Facebook and twitter dominance in African market with the launch of new app that allows individuals to connect with friends and also offer artists opportunity to distribute their music. The new engine also known as http://startag.co operates like ordinary social media platform but is unique in a sense that it is able to convert text into image while typing a post relieving one the task of looking for image to accompany any update. In a report released last week Facebook has nearly 20 million users in major African markets Nigeria and Kenya, with the majority using mobile devices to access their profiles. Nigeria had 15 million monthly active users as of June 30 this year, all of them using mobiles to like, share and upload content on the social network. In Kenya, 95 percent of the 4.5 million monthly active users did so via mobiles.

David Ngila and Santos Okotta, co-developers of the platform say they are targeting 400million users globally in the next two years and looking to reach 150million in Africa by 2017. “We are not competing existing brands such as Facebook and Twitter but offering a unique solution that address needs of Kenyan and African businesses,” says David Ngila. “We want to create a one stop shop for artists to easily distribute their music, enterprises to optimally reach clients and individuals to reconnect with friends and socialize,” he says. Just like Facebook and Twitter, one has to sign up to access the services which is downloadable from the Google app store. “This entails keying in username and the password, from there one can interact with friends, distribute music and also enterprises can interact with their clients in a special way.”
The innovation whose other developers include Frank Ochieng and Antony Okuku has so far attracted Safaricom- East Africa’s leading Telecommunications Company.

Star tag app (PHOTO: COURTESY)

Startag is among ideas currently being incubated at Strathmore University under the Safaricom App Wiz investment. The Safaricom App Wiz is an innovation call to partner with developers which enables them comes up with products that could plug in to Safaricom network and add value to consumers. The firm partnered with Strathmore University, thereby offering startups access to resources such as mentorship, developer training and access to marketing tools. The Safaricom App Wiz has in its time incubated close to 30 tech start-up solutions including Safaricom M-Ledger and Magazine Reel, both of which are now commercial businesses.