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The Steve Jobs of Zimbabwe!
Posted by gour.lentell, October 17th, 2011
Thank you biNu user Munyaradzi in Zimbabwe for sending this feedback email a couple of days ago!
“Hie i just want to thank with everywork u are doing as a Zimbabwean i truly proud and inspired to have someone like u who binu co founder u are indeed our own Steve Jobs, keep own improving and implementing new applications and may the lord and the Zimbabwean Spirit guide u,good day.”
Nokia Publisher Successes – biNu: Offering the smartphone experience on any phone
Posted by gour.lentell, October 11th, 2011
Nokia published a success story on biNu last week:
“Analysts at Gartner predict that by 2015, more people will access the Internet via feature phones rather than from their personal computers. So why are internet users still relying on the slow, clumsy and expensive browser-based connection of their feature phone to access all their favorite content?
Seeing this as both a problem and an opportunity, two serial internet entrepreneurs based in Australia decided to create a solution. In 2008, Gour Lentell and Dave Turner developed biNu, a software platform that enables mobile phones to access Internet applications and services with near instant response times—even on slow or congested networks. For developers, the biNu platform enables mobile Internet applications to be developed quickly and easily using existing development tools and methods. For consumers, the free mobile biNu platform provides quick and easy access to a world of biNu performance-optimized apps.
If they are using biNu’s mobile platform, any of the five billion individuals across the globe with access to a mobile phone can now get immediate access to the economic, educational and social benefit of the Internet without owning a computer….”
Amazon Silk and cloud browsers
Posted by gour.lentell, September 30th, 2011
In conjunction with the new Kindle Fire tablet announced yesterday, Amazon also introduced the new Amazon Silk browser. It employs a “split browser” architecture that accelerates the power of the mobile device hardware by using the computing speed and power of the Amazon Web Services Cloud, resulting in a faster web browsing experience. The video provides a great overview of the new technology, how it works and its benefits.
Whilst Opera Mini and other “proxy browsers” have been using a split browser design for years now, Amazon Silk goes farther. Amongst other things it uses “pre-rendering” to predict which pages a user might want next and delivers them in advance and it employs extensive caching of common files to improve delivery response times.
However the Amazon Silk browser is designed to run on tablet computers that still offer significantly more horsepower than mass-market mobile phones. As much as we might want it to, the internet “browser” model that works so well on powerful computers running large browser software applications requesting uncompressed HTML data over wired, broadband network connections will never work well on mobile devices with limited processing power requesting page-at-a-time data over wireless mobile networks.
biNu’s technology design employs very similar concepts to the new Amazon Silk browser but takes things even a step further by performing 100% application processing on our cloud servers, which just happen to also run on Amazon Web Services.
biNu delivers internet based content with lightning-fast response times, even to low-end mobile feature phones on slow “2G” mobile networks, by:
- performing all application processing in the cloud, even down to graphics rendering, thereby minimising processing demands on a mobile device
- using a highly efficient, proprietary data protocol to deliver content to the mobile device (an average screen of text display is delivered in 1 or 2 packets of network data)
- employing extensive caching on our cloud servers as well as the mobile device to prevent anything being requested or sent more than once, even down to individual letters/characters displayed on the mobile screen
- “predictive caching” whereby screen pages are sent in advance of a user request, thereby providing instantaneous response times in many cases.
As this BI Research article points out, faster browsing leads to more engagement (more shopping in the case of Amazon), which offers even greater value in the the mobile internet world where the experience for most mobile users in the world is still woeful. There’s also amazing value in the market intelligence collected when all user activity is being channelled through a single cloud based service.
500,000
Posted by gour.lentell, September 21st, 2011
Since launching biNu account registration along with the biNu Messenger service last April, we’ve just passed 500,000 registered account profiles.
Last month we had 1.6 million unique users accessing biNu from pretty much every country in the world.
The biNu journey is just beginning…
Everything for everyone
Posted by gour.lentell, September 15th, 2011
Sadly Michael S. Hart, the founder and driving force behind Project Gutenberg, died recently. Here’s a great article, The Inventor of the Digital Age, about his life and driving passion to make “everything available to everyone”.
We’ve been thinking about Project Gutenberg for some time at biNu but never had the time to really get into it. But we’re going to now. The entire texts of the Quran and the Bible have both been available on biNu for a while, in multiple languages and versions, and have proved to be popular with biNu users all over the world, from the U.S.A to Zimbabwe.
The time has come and now we’re going to use the same underlying technology to make every book on Project Gutenberg available and easily read on biNu, for free. Watch this space…
Requiescat in pace, Michael Hart.
Pondering The Blackberry Puzzle
Posted by gour.lentell, August 8th, 2011
Tomi Ahonen wrote an interesting article on his blog pondering the sometime confusion surrounding Blackberry and the up and down fortunes of Blackberry maker RIM.
In recent years there have been sudden surges in sales of of Blackberry phones in traditionally lower-key markets for RIM such as South Africa, Indonesia and Venezuela driven largely by the youth market, not RIM’s traditionally strong business market.
And the reason? BBM – the Blackberry Messenger service.
I was at the CommnicAsia conference in Singapore recently where I learned from fellow mobile app developer companies in Indonesia that most people, well at least amongst youthful middle class educated professionals, have two mobile devices – with the second one being a Blackberry to send messages on BBM. It costs around $100 to buy a lower-end BB phone and on a $10 a month data plan they have unlimited messaging via BBM. No need for SMS on their “normal” mobile.
One problem of course for the broader population is that you need a BB phone to join the BBM conversations. Bummer if you can’t afford one or don’t like BB phones.
And the problem for RIM as Tomi points out is the sudden growth doesn’t repeat across the whole population and they don’t seem to upgrade their handsets at nearly the same rate as traditional BB users.
And of course, the more general global problem is there are billions of other mobile subscribers in the world today who can’t afford a second handset, let alone a BB one, and they have just the same desire to communicate.
As Tomi succinctly points out, the epiphany is that “the addiction is not to the handset, it is to the service.”
Which is why we are very optimistic about the huge potential we are beginning to see realised for the messaging services offered on biNu.
Last week we launched the biNu email service giving every biNu registered user an easy to use, fast, simple unlimited email service on top of the SMS and text messaging service we already offer.
Tomorrow we will be re-branding our integrated, unified messaging service as biNu beaTs giving biNu users on any type of phone (including BB) a single unified service to communicate in the form of SMS or chat or email as well as sharing Twitter like “beaTs”.
Watch this space!
Gour
Posted by gour.lentell, July 13th, 2011
Dave and I co-founded biNu in September 2008 excited about the idea of bringing ultra-fast delivery of web services to ALL mobile phones, not just expensive smart phones.
I grew up in Zimbabwe and and have lived in the UK and now Sydney for 20 years. I am so happy and privileged to have experienced the birth of the internet age. And the African in me gets really excited by the idea of helping all people, in all countries access the incredible benefits, and fun, of this wonderful medium.
It’s so great to see that biNu is becoming a hit in Zimbabwe, amongst many other countries. You guys ROCK!
We’ve got so many ideas and see so many opportunities to do great things with biNu. Watch this space :-)
Check out the “Lentell Soup” blog in the Zimbabwe News section of biNu to find out a little bit more about my heritage…
90% of the world does not have a smart phone
Posted by gour.lentell, June 22nd, 2011
At the Nokia Connection 2011 event yesterday in Singapore, Stephen Elop, President and CEO of Nokia, made some interesting comments regarding their Connecting the Next Billion strategy which echo well with biNu’s focus on the mobile mass market. You can watch the video of Stephen and Nokia’s presentation here.
“…the reality is that 90% of the world does not have or cannot afford a smartphone or a high-end device,” Mr. Elop said.
He went on to say that of the 3.7 billion people who don’t have a smart phone, 1.2 billion have only sms and no data plan and 1.7 billion don’t use the web.
Mary McDowell, Nokia’s Executive Vice President – Mobile Phones, noted that “75% of the next billion embracing mobile technology are in fast growing countries such as India, Indonesia, China and Vietnam not to mention Nigeria, South Africa and Brazil” and highlighted the opportunity for mobile technology to entertain, educate and better people’s lives by enabling them to acquire new skills and improve their prospects for earning a living.
biNu’s is equally passionate about helping bring the “worldwide web to the world” and delivering affordable, easy to use and most importantly, fast content services.
Science, life and biNu
Posted by gour.lentell, May 18th, 2011
Feedback from a biNu mobile user in Bangladesh received a few hours ago:
“Without science,we can’t think our life,like that without binu i can’t think.i love it..”
Here’s what biNu users have to say…
Posted by gour.lentell, May 2nd, 2011
Forget about what we say, here’s a selection of the feedback (word-for-word) we’ve received from biNu mobile users during the past month, all typed in on their mobile phones:
- Hey binu is Great great great. Because in my hole life i can’t see very good than binu. I want to binu will live infinity time in world. Thank you (Nokia 5130c)
- Binu is a faster of websites i belive the binu is faster of google record
- I like you biNu so much because you’ve that unique virtue;we can find free sms,weather report,updating news,many more applications from getjar,image+web+video search by google,google translation,healthcaring tips and many more! It’s cheaper than other apps (Nokia 5130c)
- I’m very happy thank u very much. It is very good especialy 3rd world country. (Nokia 6300)
- Very nice application, i have deleted all application because binu contains all in one. Thanx to producers 4 making so useful application
- WOW!I have never seen a helpfull app. Like this. THANX
- biNu is amazing software. I really enjoying it. Thank you developer and provider. Please keep it my whole life. Ha ha ha (Nokia 5310 XpressMusic)
- biNu is amazing application. I really enjoying it. Thank you so much to developer and provider. I would like it in my whole life.
- Hy,”thanks to binu team,for bring binu” it is the best social site.it has all which i need.if the binu team offer ourself to send more sms ing a day,it would be bettr. Thanks. (Nokia 2700c)
- Dear Friends! Thanks for allowing us to use Binu free of charge. It is so effective and fast software. I have shared about it with many of my friends in sudan and Ethiopia. Regards, shifty1000 (Nokia 2700c)
- LovelY style of app. I luv d design. Thank u! (Nokia6230i)
- Thx for giving quran in various languages thx u so much (Nokia C3)
- I installed The Holy Bible from biNu on my phone. It’s awesome and takes up very little space. It searches, goes right to chapter and verse, fast. It’ll be great for church, I won’t miss half of the sermon flipping through pages! Now I have the Word, whever I am!
- I love this application put together with so many capabilities. Thank you! (Nokia 6230i)
- I love BINU software, this software is great! (Nokia 2690)
- This is d bst app i hav ever seen (Nokia N73)
- Its really good software. I like this (Nokia 7210)
- I really appreciate the developers . Tnx and keep it up (Nokia5310XpressMusic)
- This is a usefull application (Nokia C2)
- It very good for student.i pray for binu (Nokia 5130c)
- It is exelent app to use in 3110 (Nokia 3110c)
- I lyk dis application very much this reduce sms cost n very handy for students lyk me who have no enough money (Nokia 6303c)
- Binu is really great application where we can get All in One service. Keep it up. (Nokia 2700c)
- Binu is a very faster browser. N sms servise is the grear service. (Nokia 2626)
- This application BINU is very good as it contains multi applications like weather, sports, news, religion books, google translation, and best application is free sms and more. So i realise i need not to download any application because it contains all. (Nokia 3110c)
- Binu !!!!!!! U are very good and nice am feel free with u always.”
- Sir, I am a student. I am very happy to use ur application. (Nokia6300)
- Thanks for the greatest improvement of the latest version. I’m now able to browse,read and edit of phone book in the phone with BiNu newest version. (Nokia 3110c)
- It is my best application. Thank you binu (SAMSUNG-SGH-L700)
- No 1 softwere of the world. I like it. (Nokia 2700c)
- It’s very nice software for knowing cricket score. (SAMSUNG-GT-B3410)
- Binu is a very very good for everything. I really like it and i use every time. (Nokia 6500c)
- Thanks up you i like ur service i am so many happy (Nokia 3110c)
- Its a best application that comprise every utility which in a perfect application should be . Thanks for developing this application (Nokia 2700c)
- Hiren roy:i just love binu’s apps i have no words! (Nokia 2690)
- Infact, BINU is the most widely internet i have ever seen in this world. This site is reliable,affordable and in all the cheapest and the fastest ever. THANK U! (Nokia 6270)
Amazon EC2 goes down – biNu service outage
Posted by gour.lentell, April 22nd, 2011
biNu’s mobile internet services have been affected by a major outage at Amazon Web Services. Whilst Amazon are working on resolving their problems, we are also working to move biNu’s services to another Amazon data center. We hope to be up and running again as soon as possible.
biNu users growing fast!
Posted by gour.lentell, April 8th, 2011
In December last year we had 319,000 unique users accessing biNu services from their mobile phones. Our month-on-month growth rate since then has been 18% Dec to Jan, 66% Jan to Feb and 72% Feb to Mar!
In March we had just over 1m unique users accessing biNu on their mobiles in over 180 countries, generating 3.5m login sessions and 58m page views.
We are stoked! Thank you :-)
biNu usage stats Dec to Mar
biNu user feedback
Posted by gour.lentell, April 6th, 2011
We received this feedback from a biNu user on a Nokia 3110c mobile phone a few minutes ago!
“This application BINU is very good as it contains multi applications like weather, sports, news, religion books, google translation, and best application is free sms and more. So i realise i need not to download any application because it contains all.”