Western Union Testing Mobile Money Transfer

Our cellphones will soon be worth a whole lot more than we paid for them. Western Union has started offering an option where you can send money to Kenya via your mobile phone using M-Pesa.  This is a great example of mobile transaction services.

Mobile Money

In March of 2007 Safaricom Ltd., a Kenyan network operator partially owned by Vodafone, launched the M-Pesa service, which lets Kenyans to transfer money domestically via text message. Today more than 4 million of Safaricom’s 10 million customers use the service, Vodafone said. Western Union will be offering the service, domestically, in the United States through Radioshack and Trumpet Mobile.

The pilot only applies to Redding, UK to Kenya — people will soon be able to visit select Western Union agent locations in Redding and send funds directly to a Safaricom/M-PESA subscriber in Kenya. The pilot isn’t yet live, but when it is, customers will be able to designate a recipient phone in Kenya and the transfer will typically be completed within minutes. Recipients will be able to withdraw the cash at any of 4,000 M-Pesa agents or forward it to another handset in Kenya.

Double Entendres and Zain Verjee

It’s inevitable that you end up doing something on live tv that could me considered a major gaffe, but Zain Verjee’s mistake has people coming up with all kinds of titles to sum up the problem.

She slipped up three times, calling peanuts penis….Zain, what do you have on your mind?? Oh well, I guess you can’t be perfect all the time, and, to your credit, you have given writers lots of fodder for creative titles. My favorite one– “Sane Virgin [a play on her name] Sees Nuts”,

Video of the Week – March 13, 2009

Wenyeji are a group that have taken Kenya by storm.  They have worked with Ken Ring and Nik Punk, and continue to build their following both in Kenya, and in the Diaspora.  This is their video, Imagine.  Enjoy.  To learn more about them, visit their myspace page.