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There has been a lot of buzz around the Nigerian web community over the last 12 months with great coverage from Loy Okezie (StartupsNigeria¹), OotheNigerian and StartupAfrica. I thought it might helpful to compile a list of the 10 Nigerian web start-ups to watch. I have included the name(s) of the individual(s)/company behind the start-up where possible. The list below is not in any particular order.

1spotsearch
Think Kayak, add domestic flights within Nigeria and you have 1spotsearch. The site is functional and has the potential to become huge. Do check out my full review from May.

Izogn Movies (Chidum Okwue)
Izogn Movies is an online movie streaming services focused on Nigerian movies. If you love Nollywood, you’ll love this site! Although this award winning site is not a new startup, still worth mentioning.

MapNTL (Ireti Ajala)
MapNTL is a tool that allows users to find street locations (currently only Lagos, Abuja coming soon!) and provides point-to-point driving directions across the country. Certainly ahead of Google maps in terms of street data but the visual design has some way to go. Read my full review here.

NaijaBorn (Franics Oghuma and Mambe Nanje)
NaijaBorn is a social network platform that connects Nigerians across the globe and launched earlier this month. Probably the most talked about web start-up in the Nigerian scene right now. Read my full review here.

Nairalist (Seun Osewa)
Nairalist is a classified adverts website modelled after Craiglist. The site faces fierce competition from other market participants (Nairalists, Whogobuy, Ariaria). However, Nairalist’s close association with Nigeria’s most popular forum, Nairaland should keep it on top.

NaijaLingo (Obilo Nwokogba and Adim Ofunne)
NaijaLingo is an online dictionary for all your pidgin/broken English needs. The site allows users to add new words and edit existing ones. I really like the implementation of pronunciations. With the NaijaLingo platform, I wonder if the team has considered creating an online dictionary for the 3 main languages (Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa) in Nigeria.

NaijaPulse (Naijand)
NaijaPulse is a microblogging service that lets you post text updates (140 characters) about yourself and what is happening around you. The site is based on Laconica microblogging open source platform. It is also helpful that you cross post to Twitter and Facebook.

RiRanWo! (Ademola Morebise)
RiRanWo! based on the Elgg open source platform, is a social media site which can be used to bookmark, blog and share Nigerian content online. The site also has an aggregator called xplore that gathers Nigerian content from news websites and blogs².

Sturvs (Temi Kolawole & Antigravity)
Sturvs (Nigerian slang for “stuff”) is a sharing and voting website similar to Digg. Users are given the ability to vote on stories, music and videos submitted by other users. Make sure you check out the Sturvs radio for the latest Nigerian music.

Turenchi (Nnanna Obuba)
Turenchi is a news aggregator which sources content from several Nigerian Newspapers as well as other sources covering the country. The site stirred up some minor controversy earlier in the year but this hasn’t stopped the team. I really like the concept and hope a business category will be created for my reading pleasure. Another site doing exactly the same thing is Nigeria 70.

Let me know if I missed a particular start-up or have comments on the list I have put together above.

Footnotes:

¹ Archives of Loy Okezie’s old blog can be found here

² Disclaimer: This blog is featured on Xplore News aggregator

VC4Africa is an online community for investors and entrepreneurs dedicated to connecting African SME projects and businesses. Despite its name, VC4Africa is focused on both venture capital and private equity in Africa. The site which has over 1000 members, has developed into a powerful network of individuals dedicated to the promoting African businesses.

One of the great things I like about VC4Africa is the incubator sites created for each country which helps narrow the focus for those looking for just that.

The VC4Africa forum continues to seek innovative ways to harness the full potential of its network. Last week, VC4Africa formed a strategic partnership with Appfrica “to promote social entrepreneurship by making it easier for the entrepreneurs to find the investors”. The partnership hopes to capitalise on business aggregator, Afridex by crowdsourcing funds from potential investors for investment. The details around this should become clearer as the partnership develops.

VC4Africa was founded by Ben White, a freelance consultant currently working through a Master degree at the University of Amsterdam and focusing on ICT as an empowering agent for entrepreneurship

Register at VC4Africa and get plugged in!

About a month ago, I was searching for a website with a list of start-ups focused on Africa, similar to Crunchbase. Then I found this post from last year about Afridex on Appfrica, unfortunately the Afridex database was empty. I enquired and Jon Gosie was kind enough to drop me a line saying the site was been updated and the project should relaunch soon. True to his word, Afridex relaunched last week all because of me ;)

What is Afridex?
Afridex is a business database of business professionals, start-ups, NGOs, non-profits and government institutions operating in Africa. The purpose is to make it easier to look-up information about companies operating throughout the continent.

Companies and organisations focused on Africa are starting up everyday and this tool is a great way to monitor them and make contact if necessary. Afridex also serves as a repository of information for potenial investors or for students looking for a internships or full time jobs.

For bloggers like me, you have the option of using Afridex’s portable data which give a description/CEO of the company and link to their website (as seen as Techcrunch).

My Thoughts
Initially I had hoped for a site that would focus on just web start-ups in Africa. I’m still torn on that issue. I don’t neccessarily think it’s a bad thing that business professionals, NGOs, non-profits and government institutions can also register on the site.

The design of the site still needs some improvement. It took me some time to locate the navigation buttons on the company listing page. Even though the project is open to public, the site is still very much in beta. Don’t be surprised if you get the occasional error page. If you encounter any issues, give feedback to the Afridex team, it will help improve the site.

The project which is led by Moses Mugisha under the leadership guidance of Jon Gosie, (CEO, Appfrica) hopes to release new features in the coming weeks. Great work, guys! I’m really looking forward to it.

Please support the site by registering your company.

NaijaBorn officially launched to the world yesterday after a few months in private beta. NaijaBorn is a social network platform that connects Nigerians across the globe. The team behind the start-up is Qubestreet Media’s Franics Oghuma and the AfroVisioN’s Mambe Nanje. In recent months, the team has been joined by Ann Daramola, Ahmad Mukoshy and Adekunle Samuel Owolabi.

On registration, you get a short profile on NaijaBorn profile and can contribute to the public user-generated blog, upload music and showcase your artwork to other users. NaijaBorn has a status update tool similar to Facebook which keeps you updated on what people in your network are doing.

Initial thoughts
I like the public user-generated blog. I hope they will implement a way for users to add content to their user-generated blog without having to log in and pasting the text manually every time I update my blog.

I know new features are going to be introduced as the site develops. However, there is no way to change the privacy setting to prevent other users seeing your status updates. You can’t yet create a special interest groups.

Another trivial point is on links formatting, personally I found it difficult to differentiate between links and non-links – a different colour would do ;)

The NaijaBorn team hopes their platform “will be a valuable way to network for people looking to reach out to the Nigerian audience”. The site currently has just over 100 users and growing by the day. Like most social networks, path to generating revenues (apart from ads) is not clear. Whilst NaijaBorn has not defined its niche, I don’t think it’s your “classic” Nigerian social network skewed towards dating. It will be interesting to hear more about their plans in this respect.

Visit NaijaBorn, let me know what you think!

1spotSearch is a price comparison site for finding flights within Nigeria (and Ghana). The site was created out of necessity – the need for one man to find the cheapest ticket price for any given journey in Nigeria.

The site is similar to Kayak.com, essentially search for a flight and click on a link to purchase the cheapest ticket matching your requirement at the airline/travel agency’s site. It is possible to search for flights from the some of the main cities in Nigeria (Lagos, Abuja, Calabar, Port Harcourt and Owerri)

Two things didn’t work well:

1. Inability to book flight more than 3weeks in advance
2. Multi-city search doesn’t let you book all the legs of the flights if you use different airlines

Overall, the site is simple to use and does what it says on paper (I have not used the service to book any flights). This has the potential to become bigger than it currently is. Definitely one to watch out for!

(Update/Correction: Multi-city does work as intended. It allows you to book different legs of the flight on different airlines!)

MapNTL is a tool that allows users to find street locations (currently only Lagos, Abuja coming soon!) and claims to provide point-to-point driving directions across the country. You only need to look at the map detail Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have on Nigeria to understand how useful this tool is. MapNTL is led by Ireti Ajala and is a subsidary of Spatial Technologies.

The main source of reveune will be through an advertising platform which allow companies (like banks, restuarants, hotels etc) to show users their branch locations on the map. MapNTL also plans to use ads on its site to generate addtional reveunes. Earlier this year, the company signed an agreement with StartupsNigeria to form Nigerian Online Ads Network (NOAN) to provide targeted ads to Nigerian internet users.

The technology behind MapNTL is impressive. The site does seem to work although it still feels a bit buggy. For example, I got directions from Surulere to Ilupeju just fine. I proceeded to try to get directions for Tastee Fried Chicken in Agege to another outlet in Ikoyi and kept getting the result from my previous search. I started another browser (Firefox), the same search gave me the map of lagos – no directions. I also tried to go from Zenith Bank in Yaba to one of their branches in Victoria Island. I eventually gave up.

What would I like to see improved?
The MapNTL site could do with a better layout which focuses more on the map tools available, which will ensure that the user gets a better experience using the site. The way the ads are currently arranged makes the site feel somewhat confusing. Bradysmaps (based in South Africa) has a much cleaner layout which is easier to follow. Although Bradysmaps doesn’t have ads – there is scope to integrate it easily.

Rather than having to click on service locations (e.g UBA Branch in Ikoyi), it would be preferable if this could automatically appear when the mouse hovers around that particular branch/location or have a marker which is bigger (like Google maps). Sometimes clicking on certain parts of the maps produced a HTTP 500 error.

Make it easier to send the map of location to friends and for webmasters to easily embed the MapNTL on their websites. Take for example – BarCampNigeria used google maps to give directions and was able to add a marker.

Overall MapNTL definitely has the technological capabilities to deliver this platform across Nigeria, however the company has to focus on enhancing user experience to ensure that Nigerians get the best out of its service.