Today, I thought I should write a quick review about the most visited Nigerian web startups and blogs on the Alexa Top 100 most visited sites in Nigeria. Alexa is the leading Web Ranking & Information Company. My research found six Nigerian startups (forums and blogs) amongst the top 100 most visited sites in Nigeria. (Note: This research did not include Nigerian online news sites, banks, etc that make the top 100 most visited sites in Nigeria)

Here are the web startups and their rankings:

1. Nairaland - A discussion forum for Nigerians, which attempts to cover every topic from romance to entertainment, technology and business. (Ranked 13 out of 100)
2. NaijaHotJobs - A Nigerian community where you can find jobs, discuss employment trends and general topics making a buzz around Nigeria. (Ranked 36 out of 100)
3. NewNigerians - A forum for meeting Nigerian Internet Veterans and discussing topics from business to politics; from sports to relationships (Ranked 70 out of 100)
4. CareersNigeria - A weblog that publishes latest jobs, employment gist and careers opportunities in Nigeria for graduates and top candidates. (Ranked 78 out of 100)
5. AllJobsNigeria - A forum that publishes latest jobs, employment gist and careers opportunities in Nigeria. (Ranked 80 out of 100)
6. NaijaEcash - A personal blog of a Nigerian Entrepreneur that shares secrets about earning income online legitimately. (Ranked 99 out of 100)

Interestingly, most of these sites claim to be the Number 1 site/forum for Nigerians, Nigerian jobs, and Nigerian career community. That shows that each site understands that there is competition and thus, they must claim to be No. 1 in order to stay competitive.

However, Nairaland is the most popular Nigerian forum that brings Nigerians together to discuss issues, topics, etc. Careers Nigeria has proved its strengths (just a year old), in the business of providing job announcements, information, etc for Nigerians. Their forum has also done remarkably well in just about a few months.

Naijaecash, on the other hand, is the fastest growing web entrepreneurship blog in Nigeria. The blog which just started in March 2008 now has a traffic rank of about 53, 000, which I personally find amazing. (I’ve thought about asking the author in an interview how he accomplished this in less than 3 months). In a recent post, he points to Alexa as one of his traffic source.

So which of these Nigerian sites do you use?

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Dade from 60minuteswiththegeeks compiled a very interesting list of Nigerian tech startups. If you are interested in pursuing a career as a software developer, developing desktop apps, web apps or mobile apps, this list should be a great resource. Or perhaps you are interested in investment opportunities in these companies.

Here you go…

ICAP
http://icapnigeria.com
They call themselves “the intellectual capital firm” with a mission to provide easy-to-use intuitive solutions for complex business processes. Their products and services include solutions that caters for organization’s HR needs, Management solutions for Educational institute, Media solutions and varied Business solutions.

WEBSOFT
http://www.websoft.com.ng
They provide Innovative web and mobile solution, and the list of their services include: Provide sms gateway, Website design, Web based applications, Web Hosting, Mobile Applications for PDAs

ALLIED SOFT
http://www.alliedsoftng.com
Allied Soft Limited is a technology company focused on people management and business software solutions. There flagship product, Xceed EPMS seems to be a pretty impressive application having managed to grab the HP Intergrity 64bit platform certification last year. It is a People Management Software that provides the tools to manage, measure, and reward individual and team contributions. Most of their solutions are deployed making use of Microsoft’s.Net platform.

PEERS CONSULTING
http://www.peersconsulting.com
They describe themselves as a professional services company, providing a varied range of services that can be catalogued under the following categorization: Information technology Consulting, Organisation & Personnel Administration, General Management Consulting. The company was established in 1996.

MTECH
http://www.mtechcomm.com
MTech, a technology firm providing first class services in data communications, focuses on mobile applications technology, using existing GSM networks and state-of-the-art mobile technology. Services provided: Multi-channel IT solutions, Interactive Marketing, Mobile Banking, and entertainment services which includes: Ringtones, Logo and Games.

PARA SYSTEM
http://www.parasystems.net
PARA SYSTEMS (NIG.) LTD. (PSL) is an IT solution Provider with business majorly in the area of software development, training, computer hardware sales, procurement, installation of systems, maintenance, repairs, networking and IT consultancy.

LABYET POLARIS
http://www.labyetpolaris.net/
If you are a microsoftee, then labyet ploaris could be a nice place for you to work. Relying heavily on the following technologies Microsoft Windows NT, Microsoft Back Office Server, Microsoft Visual Fox Pro, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle Developer 2000, and Crystal Report Writer, the company provides services that enable their client to find suitable and well developed software for their business operations, to have foreign application software packages, properly customized to suit their operations and maximize the capabilities and capacity of software by providing proper documentation and adequate training for system managers and operators.

ETRANZACT
http://www.etranzact.com/Web/index2.jsp
Run by valentine obi, E-transact is Nigeria’s first online real-time payment system that allows account holders to pay for goods and services purchased from merchants, transfer funds to any bank account, cell phone, any card, pay bills, order products e.t.c. without stress. Services provided include: eTranzact payoutlet, mCommerce, eCommerce services, etranzact webAccess, B2B services, Telco services, ATM services etc.

SYSTEMSPECS
http://www.systemspecs.com.ng
SystemSpecs is the Developer of HumanManager, arguably the leading indigenous HR application in Nigeria today. The company started by John Obaro about 23 years ago, provides services that includes: Software Implementation, Training, Maintenance & Support, Application Service Provision, Data Security and Safety etc. Apart from all these SystemSpecs also run an academy: SystemSpecs Training Academy (STA) with a vision “To be the Software Training Institution of Reference In Africa”. Guess this could be a cool place to work.

DabarObjects
http://www.dabarobjects.com
DabarObjects is an Information Technology Consultant that specializes in the areas of Dekstop Application Solutions, Web and Internet Related Services and SMS Messaging Intelligent applications, with a mission : “To move your services forward by creating simple and good quality software” .
dabarObject is Java! And they are proudly so. If you love DUKE, then dabarObject might just be the place for you. DabarObject is the developer of (Boutick) a Boutique Management Software.

Via: [60minuteswiththegeeks]

Tru Spot!™ is a social music platform designed to support Nigerian artists, fans, local music and the entertainment world at large. The site is perhaps the hottest spot online where you can discover the latest and hottest music straight from Nigeria (or Naija, if you like).

Tru Spot! connects users who share similar tastes, bring the artists they love closer to them via interviews, chat sessions and more. The site also provides live and custom radio streams, music ringtones for your mobile phones, wallpapers and lots more.

The way it works

Music artists upload their tracks to Tru Spot! servers for their fans to participate in the music by listening to it, rating it, reviewing it, and sharing it. The whole idea is aimed at collectively building the largest African social music platform/community.

Tru Spot! also features artists, top singles, top videos, etc. Other features of the site include, forums, blogs, videos, radio, chat, events, etc and offers free MP3 and video downloads.

With the easy-to-customize radio module, music fans can play around with their favorite artist’s music right from their location, wherever they are in the world, and share the results and their reviews with everyone in Sturvs and elsewhere. The site has a cool design and look that keeps you coming back or staying on the site.

Tru Spot! was founded by Ikenna “IKE” Orizu, together with a bunch of music-obsessed deejays, developers and creative professionals from around the world.

My take on this

Really, I could tell a site rocks by the look and feel of it. I’ve been playing around the site ever since I stumbled upon it, and I’m still digging it. Tru Spot! is truly the Nigerian Social Music Revolution!

Take my word!

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When Sturvs launched its Facebook Application in October 2007 and started displaying Hot Sturvs, Latest Sturvs & Sturvs TV, I was hoping for more interesting features. At that time, it was the first ever Nigerian facebook application (there are several now).

Sturvs TV was the main attraction at the time as it showed up on user profiles along with the 5 Latest Sturvs. It pulled and played random Nigerian videos from Youtube, Google Video, Dailymotion and many other major video websites.

Sturvs turned one year today! Sturvs.com was first launched on May 13, 2007 and has made quite a bit of progress over the last year. The website has undergone several feature upgrades and server upgrades, and is poised for the next phase of features & additions lined up for the rest of the year.

Here is a summary of Sturvs achievements over the last year:

• Sturvs Facebook Application
• MP3 uploads
• Addition of Nigerian Games - Ludo & Ayo (though not developed by Sturvs, but were free existing games online)
• MP3 Player of all uploaded MP3s
• Social bookmarking service & web tools
• Increase from 1 daily visitor to 1000+ daily visitors

Source: SturvsBlog

Update: Celebrate with Sturvs by listening to the latest Nigerian Music at http://www.sturvs.com/naijamusic

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ClickNigeria is a web solutions company that provides smart Internet/Web 2.0 tools for web savvy Nigerians. The site delivers localised Internet search, tools and content for Nigerians home and abroad. The ClickNigeria network offers interesting web tools, resources and information for businesses, government, career-minded people etc

The site aggregates job announcements from Careers Nigeria - a weblog that publishes latest jobs, employment gist and careers opportunities in Nigeria for graduates and top candidates. Also, you can find a list of Nigerian Newspapers such as BusinessDay, Financial Standard, Leadership, Kickoffnigeria, etc for easy access to your daily news reads.

With ClickNigeria, you can:

• Create a free blog
• Register a .ng domain name
• Post classifieds ads for free
• Send free SMS
• Get a free email account
• Chat online free
• Listen to music

The site has a great design and interface, very organised to let you find what you’re looking for. To enjoy all the services ClickNigeria offers, your browser will need to be Java and Flash enabled.

Other sites in the ClickNigeria network are:

Pay Nigeria (a secure online payment system)

Nigeria.Myspace (a web desktop and operating system application)

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Naija Crowd is an online community like Facebook where Nigerians keep in touch or simply re-connect with their friends, meet new friends, share photos & videos and create/join/participate in blogs, forums & discussions. The site’s features allows users to see your latest activities on your profile, just like Facebook. For example, when you make comments, write a blog post, update your profile, etc, although you can always change the settings, if you want.

One unique feature about Naija Crowd is its badges & widgets that you can embed into your website/blog or myspace profile that dynamically updates with the networks most popular members. Also, the widgets allows you to display your photos in a stylish photo slideshow player.

The site has the usual features of a social network such as blogs, forums, discussions, news, live chat, videos, photos, etc The site also features a guestbook on slide that allows users to add a photo and a message which displays all the photos & messages added in a slideshow.

When you sign up, you get a profile url like this: {http://www.naijacrowd.com/profile/yourname} and an email address like: yourname{at}naijacrowd.com You can also add photos and videos to Naija Crowd from your phone by sending them to your ‘naija crowd email address’. Sign up is simple and easy!

With over 700 members and growing everyday, Naija Crowd might soon become a replacement for Facebook, as it’s already been called NaijaFacebook by some members.

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iGbadun (pronounced ee-gba-doon) is a Nigerian Online Community that connects people all over the world. iGbadun.com alows you to maintain your existing relationships by connecting with old friends as well as making new friends. The name “iGbadun” was derived from the yoruba word (a Nigerian language) for “enjoy”.

Like other social networking sites, you can share your photos, listen to music, talk in the ever-amusing and ever-controversial anonymous blog…and much more. The site has a music lounge that features the from newest songs to some old songs, from Fela to Lagbaja, from 2face to 9ice, and from Styl-plus to Faze. However, you can only listen to the songs with a Firefox or Safari browser, which I think doesn’t make for a universal appeal, as people who use Internet Explorer can not listen to music on the site.

iGbadun.com also offers job opportunities for people interested in making a difference in the growing Nigerian social networking environment while having fun.

The site started since January 2006, but has not experienced good traffic to make it stand the competition with other social networking sites in Nigeria such as Legwork and Naijapals. For one thing, the site has limited features that has prevented it from penetrating into the Nigerian online community. Features such as forums, groups, videos, instant messaging, live chat, etc are getting a lot of attention in Nigeria’s social networking sites.

Since the site doesn’t seem to have a vibrant online community, it raises the question: Is iGgadun.com Loosing Appeal from Nigerian Social Networkers?

In my opinion, iGbadun.com needs to introduce more interesting features that would attract members to the site. Apart from this, the site has a nice interface and design with unique pictures of people dancing that tells that the site is about enjoyment and fun - yeah, iGbadun…iEnjoy!

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