Although Facebook convincingly dominates the social media space with almost 2.6 billion users worldwide, TikTok is showing the highest user base growth this year. In the last year, 313 million people started using the video and photo sharing app, seven times more than Facebook`s new users, driving the total number of TikTok users to over 1.7 billion. In 2023, TikTok’s user base is set to hit 1.9 billion people worldwide. Studies predict that the number of active social media users is set to hit 4.9 billion, representing 61 per cent of the world’s population in 2023. Instagram reached over 1.2…
Author: Elvis Eromosele
TikTok is launching live shopping in North America and plans to outsource its operation after the social media platform’s experiments with e-commerce in the UK struggled to take off. Los Angeles-based TalkShopLive is due to enter a partnership with TikTok on bringing TikTok Shop to the US. It will provide the underlying technology and support for live streams hosted by influencers, brands and retailers that want to sell their products on the app, said two people familiar with the operations. The companies are still finalising the arrangements and no contracts have been signed. TikTok Shop, which allows users to buy…
No fewer than five hundred (500) stakeholders are to meet in Abuja tomorrow for validation of the draft Nigeria Data Protection Bill, ahead of its transmission to the National Assembly. The Validation Meeting, scheduled to hold on Tuesday, October 4, 2022, at Nigerian Airforce Conference Centre, Abuja, is convoked by the Nigeria Data Protection Bureau, with support from the Nigeria Digital Identification for Development (ID4D) project. The Honourable Minister for Communications and Digital Economy, Professor Isa Ali Pantami shall be delivering a Keynote address at the meeting. National Commissioner and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria Data Protection Bureau, Dr.…
The Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) has threatened to disconnect banks in the country from the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) over rising debt. Members of ALTON include MTN Nigeria, Airtel, Glo and 9Mobile, and other telecom operators. Some banks and Telecom operators disagreed last year after the network providers threatened to prevent bank customers from accessing the USSD platform. The disagreement was settled after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) intervened in the matter. A meeting between stakeholders the two industries’ stakeholders led to an increase in the USSD bank…
A new poll conducted by Premise Data Corp on behalf of Bloomberg has once again put Peter Obi, the Labour Party candidate in the forthcoming presidential election ahead of Bola Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar, who are candidates of the two main political parties in the country. The San Francisco-headquartered data company surveyed 3,973 Nigerians from Sept. 5-20. Respondents to the app-based poll were selected from quotas developed by age, gender and location across the country’s six geopolitical zones. Results were then weighted against the original quotas to ensure national representation. The results of the survey, which was published on Wednesday,…
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has recovered a total of N3.7 billion out of the N9.3 trillion disbursed under its intervention schemes in the last four years. The Director of the Development Finance Department of the bank, Yusuf Yila, disclosed this at a press briefing in Abuja, on Wednesday. He said a total of N5.3 trillion of the intervention funds was not yet due for repayment. He said the regulatory bank plans to scale down on disbursement as part of measures to curtail increased liquidity in the system and rein inflation. Yila insisted that all beneficiaries of CBN intervention…
Meta has announced the launch of the AMBER Alert Programme on Facebook and Instagram in Nigeria. Working in partnership with the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), this programme is aimed at helping to find abducted children by sending AMBER Alerts to the local Facebook and Instagram communities in Nigeria. AMBER Alert is designed to increase the chances of finding missing children by putting more people on the lookout for them. When an AMBER Alert is activated by law enforcement, the alert will appear on the Facebook and Instagram Feed of users within the designated search…
Less than 50 per cent of the adult population in Nigeria and other emerging economies own a smartphone and women are significantly less likely than men to own a smartphone and use the mobile internet within low and middle-income countries, experts have expressed following the submission of a United Nations (UN) working group: the Broadband Commission Working Group on Smartphone Access. The implication is that “a third of the global population still cannot or do not access the internet” or leverage the vast social and economic opportunities in intelligent devices including smartphones, the ITU/UNESCO Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development has…
The Federal Government has declared Monday, October 3, 2022, as a public holiday to mark the nation’s 62nd Independence Anniversary Celebration. The last national holiday in Nigeria was Eid-el-Kabir on 11th and 12 July, while the next one after that of the Independence Day is due Eid-el-Maulud on 10th October. In announcing the Independence Day holiday on Wednesday, the Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola congratulated all Nigerians on the celebration and assured them of the government’s commitment to tackling all the challenges facing the nation and bringing smiles to their faces. “The world is going through dire economic and…
Mikel Obi has announced his retirement from professional football on Tuesday following a 20 years glittering career. Tributes have since continued to pour in for the former Super Eagles and Chelsea midfielder. Mikel, 35, last featured in the squad of any club on 4th November 2021 when his contract with Kuwait SC was terminated after only four months. He did not play for the Kuwait Premier League champions during the short spell. He opted to hang his boots having been without a club for 10 months. Mikel announced on Tuesday, through his official social media account, that he has retired…