A Conversation Between Fritz and Fee

Fritz Ekwoge, the serial entrepreneur co-founder of Kerawa.com and creator of iYam.mobi, has returned from a prolonged blogging hiatus with a creative and entertaining interview with…himself. Fee, a self-described African geek (pictured at right, below) sat down for a talk with his alter ego, Fritz, the Cameroonian technology journalist, at Limbe Labs Ventures’ third floor balcony.

An excerpt from their unique conversation follows:

Fritz: Hi Fee.
Fee: Hi Fritz.
Fritz: So this is one of those bizarre moments when you talk to yourself, huh?
Fee: I guess it is.
Fritz: What do you suggest we talk about today?
Fee: How about we do a talk on the new product I am about to launch, iYam.mobi. Some nice folks out there might be interested in the whats and whys and hows even before launch.
Fritz: That will be cool. It definitely might give some answers to those who want to know what you’ve been cooking up lately, especially after the success of your online classifieds site Kerawa.com has had in Cameroon for some years now.
Fee: That’s the idea. If we’re cool with the concept, I’ll play myself. An African geek, who is now trying to obtain more money from his passion. You’ll play the Cameroonian journalist who likes reporting more on tech than politics. Strange, huh?
Fritz: What’s strange? You having a conversation with yourself, or a Cameroonian journalist reporting on tech.
Fee: Both actually.
Fee: Do you think we can do this?
Fritz: Definitely. I like this idea. Shall we begin?

Fritz and Fee discuss the evolution of iYam.mobi, an SMS-based ‘mobile mobile’ phone directory he prototyped last year. The centerpiece of the new iYam.mobi service is the SMS Apps Store—a distribution platform which allows anyone to create, consume and profit from local content. The service was designed from the outset to meet the needs of African customers, many of whom rely on low-end handsets or cannot afford cost-prohibitive mobile data rates. The platform uses a virtual currency of “iYam credits” to deliver prepaid content to subscribers daily, weekly or as-it-happens.

In addition to one-way Apps Store content delivery, iYam.mobi has extended its two-way search that allows users to query the directory and have results returned via SMS. Today, the platform enables content providers to post updates via web or SMS, so publishers can broadcast updates from any device and subscribers can get their chosen content in real-time. For developers, iYam.mobi’s application programming interface (API) opens up possibilities such as interactive SMS apps, games and custom search (flight schedules, market prices, etc.) limited only by the imagination of the developer. In this way, an entrepreneurial coder can focus on creating a compelling service and leave the heavy lifting to iYam’s hosted application framework.

Fritz is in the process of obtaining his VAS (value added service) license now. In the meantime, the SMS Apps Store is in private beta, with a public debut for Cameroon scheduled in June. Read more about the iYam.Mobi Apps Store in the full interview.