So i tried creating an online ad on Nairaland for my tee wee Design curation blog and after submitting and waiting about 10 hours i got approved…and then got this.
Truth is, i am disappointed. Maybe because Nairaland is STILL sporting user experience that, though functional, can be made soooo much better and enjoyable. Maybe it’s because i have to fork out 20,000 for a minimal campaign that i wanted to use test the waters and eval results. Definitely because Nairaland doesn’t have an online collection system that simplifies payment for advertisers and brands, but prefers to throw everyone in the round-about merry-go-round.
It wouldn’t hurt if
Duh! Online payment system for advertisers! Because, it’s IMPORTENT!!!
Flexible service plans because, ffs, not everyone wants to fork out 20,000. Reddit has a more flexible advertising plan (although that’s changing next week) and brands are jumping on that. Nairaland can replicate that and allow people who want to execute minimal one-off campaigns to publish their ads.
I have always maintained that Nairaland is living way below its actual potential. I honestly can not imagine that Seun and his team can not develop a simple payment collection tool, ad analytics for advertisers among many others. well what do I know? he probably knows how best to run his business.
Well, I have used Nairaland Ads a lot of times. I also join the school of thought who feel payment should be simplified by integrating Online Payment. Even Voguepay will do for a start. The long wait before you are credited after payment is tiring.
Also, jacking the price up to N20k is somehow if you just want to test the response to the campaign. Ads analytics helps have an insight to ad performance an should be added.
Sometimes i ask myself if he is still a Geek or an Entrepreneur. The interface of the site is whack the emails they send user is Wow!!! when is it going to be upgraded, I mean for Christ sake Nairaland is supposed to be in the IPO in NSE, i dont know if Nairaland is. I laugh when Nairaland is compared with Linda Ikeji, You imagine if Nairaland was founded by @Jason_Igwe_Njoku What will Nairaland be by now.
I really want to know: does Seun have another venture he’s running? Is he working in another company as an employee? Really want to know.
You see, Nairaland is now a national or even international brand. It’s become a Wikipedia of some sort for Nigerians. In my opinion, Nairaland has grown beyond Seun. It’s now a brand identified with my tens of millions of Nigerians home and abroad. So if Seun won’t stop his complacency, “anyhowness”, “I-don’t-care-what-you-say” attitude, “it’s-my-business-please-face-yours” dispostion, then he should save us the embarrassment of using that relic by selling the site and handing it over to “real” entrepreneurs. I’m sure he’ll make enough from the sale and take that retirement he’s always been praying for.
By now, Nairaland should be employing at least 100 persons if it was run by an entrepreneur. Does anyone here knows how many people Seun employees? Maybe, it could have received local and foreign investment thereby increasing our GDP. Maybe, it could have been receiving billions of Naira of foreign exchange from foreign companies struggling to list their adverts on the site thereby increasing our GDP. Maybe, it could have been evolved into a true social networking site for Nigerians and Africans.
Nigerians expects so much from Nairaland; Seun should realise the responsibility saddled on him and wake up from his slumber!
Some folks are just averse to change. Seun could also be very fond of the mantra: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. I’m starting to feel like this is a recurring theme in the Nigerian mentality. People find a path to success, and then rest on their laurels instead of continuously innovating and pushing the boundaries of what they can achieve.
I have to admit I’m actually surprised that in this digital age where new technology comes out every 6 months, a site like nairaland still proves to be popular. I think it shows that neither the community nor the host is willing to move forward.
Maybe If Seun shared the opinion of everyone else, there wont be a nairaland.com People who think differently and see things differently, do more to change the world.
This request for “upgrade” on Nairaland seems to occur every 6 months or so. I’m a HUGE fan of “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it”: I’ve worked in high tech for nearly 20 years and I can’t stand it when my old device is suddenly rendered useless just because there’s a need to “upgrade”. I still use a Palm Vx for organizing because frankly, all the sizzle and pop of iPhone and Android just don’t cut it. Here are my own opinions for why it should remain as is:
1). Nairaland has 1,386,486 users, and over 2million topics. Do you know how much extra processing power and bandwidth it would take to run any fancy pants javscript/css/jnode? Are you going to compensate him when he has to pay his network and processing provider? Are you going to lend him some bandwidth when it takes 2.5MB to deliver 40kB worth of information? Are you going to help him migrate, and be there when the migration fails, or when he discovers that the latest jnode doesn’t play nice with the latest python on the latest Linux distro? Are you going to code up and maintain the mobile version since a ton of users don’t have the latest and greatest smartphones with unlimited dataplans?
2). The ad campaign is highly flexible: starts at 20k, all the way to 100m. As is, 20,000 is small change for any serious business. I advertise on Nairaland, and I’m glad the bar is a little high: keeps off the tiny operators who would clog the place with their 100 naira ad campaign. Nothing better than dealing with 100 big clients (and some of the clients are spending big money, from my estimates of the campaign), than to deal with 1000.
3). He probably pays next to nothing to get his money today. Any other online payment method would demand their own fee. Are you planning on making up the fee? And unless I’m mistaken, they typically have the right to withhold your money, for whatever reason.
It don’t think it’s sad to serve the needs of the community in a way they think best? If it really came down to it, most of us prefer a fast, responsive, light website that gave us what we need, no fluff, without having to get the latest browser or computer hardware to access. There’s tons of great information and utility on sites like Nairaland, Craigslist, Wikipedia, Google, and I’m glad for that because I can find what I need, quickly, without waiting for the css to finish animating.
If there was an example of a Nigerian startup to emulate, Nairaland would be it:
1). serve a need
2). do it well, with as little overhead (people, computing power, bandwidth, cost)
3). grow organically
4). ignore “experts”
@nextstep I’m sure people were happy when the Benz Velo and Ford Model T came out in the last century. Did that stop their creators from pioneering? Nope. The same can be said for pretty much any industry.
In fact the reason this thread exists in the first place is because @leslie is complaining that the online payment system for nairaland pretty much sucks. He is a legit (paying!) user and his experience is not great, so Seun has definitely not “done it well”. Leslie has to go through a bunch of hoops just to get the payment in. That is exactly what Overhead is.
You can innovate while keeping the User Interface simple. Google does it, Dropbox does it. You just have to be creative and be wiling to experiment and iterate.
Adding a simple online payment system to better serve your paying customers is not too much to ask. You really don’t need an expert to tell you that.
So while I agree with you on those 4 points to emulate as a startup, I would disagree that Nairaland is following your advice.
@Bisong I do agree that innovating in ways to serve your customers better is always welcome, but we in the tech world tend to innovate for innovation’s sake without really considering the needs of the users. To wit, the oft cited frustrations with car interfaces, computers, phones, websites. The American car industry almost innovated their way into oblivion by the 70s with their huge fins and large chrome, without paying attention that consumers wanted efficient cars.
Arguably, the Nairaland interface is very simple. Just not dressed up. I’m suggesting that the dressing up wastes processing power and bandwidth, and is not needed to serve the existing needs of the community, most of whom access from their phones.
Additionally, I’d also argue that the Nairaland payment interface is very simple:
transfer money from your bank, which can be done online.
notify them with some evidence via email
Granted it doesn’t scale, since a human has to verify it; but then again, a human still has to check out your ad and make sure it doesn’t violate the site’s policy. It could be made more convenient to use, say, paypal, but have we all considered if indeed, the benefits of an online payment system outweigh the costs of using it, from a bottom-line point of view?
As for Google, the thing that still brings them by far the most bucks and profit, is that very old-tech website with a logo, a search box, and two buttons.
Just because it can be, doesn’t mean it should be, and I think we can all take lessons from Nairaland on how “innovating every 6 months” doesn’t necessarily make it good.
