Nigerians are still trudging along in the area of web development. And by web development, I mean web application programming. The real meat of the web is the backend. No matter what interface you present to the world, if your backend engine is weak, you have nothing.

I sometimes find it tough to classify myself as a Nigerian web developer, for the simple reason that I have resources that people in Nigeria can only dream of. For over a decade, I haven't experienced one power failure at work or at home. I have 5MB/1.5MB internet connection at work, and a 4MB/512k at home - all of which are permanent connections. On top of that, my city is working on providing a free city-wide wireless access. So that with your laptop, all you need is a wireless card to get online anywhere in the city.

With these kinds of resources, the height I attain in web programming is only limited by the effort I put in. I've created some of the most challenging web applications around, and I'm sure there are many like myself out there who work behind the scenes all across the globe. So in that regard, I'd say yes, there are Nigerians who are experts in the area of web programming.

The bottomline is, until we have a conducive atmosphere in Nigeria, our developers are always going to be playing catchup with the rest of the world. We have highly talented people in that country. If only the nation could make use of them by providing basic tools of the trade, we'd quickly become among the best in the world.

Good talk my brother!

oasis, this explains where Nigeria is behind. Nigerian web developers can only get closer to their European counterparts if the basic amenities like electricity and telecom infrastructure were working well in Nigeria, and much less expensive.

Based on what I read on this forum, I will say that the Nigerian web community has come of age. We can not and should not equate lack of infrastructure with coming of age. We have the people, but the government isn't doing anything to support such people.

How do I know? cos I know there are many of us in Naija, who, despite the lack of infrastructure, still figure out a way to crank out code and produce various sites and applications.

In conclusion, I would say, again, we have the people with the hunger and zeal. What we don't have is the necessary infrastructure to support the community.

@my2cents - Hear, Hear! Well said.

I don't believe Nigeria's Web maturity should be necessarily measured in the Number of sites that are online from Nigeria or the number of webdevelopers or programmers working from there. There is so much more to web maturity than we have stated in here so far. There is the issue of IT rules and regulation to be put in place to not only help Nigerian business conduct business successfully online but also help Nigerian users successfully surf or conduct any types of transactions online without worries.

About Nigerian web pages, I agree with the guy that state that there is more to web designing than just being able to identify which color is which. Like I mentioned in another thread, over 90% of Nigerian sites are complete turn offs. I mean I have on so many occassions surfed to sites to get information but the design immediately made me move on to other sites with better to offer. I mean there are many Nigerians online every minute of the day and most of the Nigerian sites, even governmental sites would draw more graphic if they had better designers and developers working for them on their online presence. I remember I have seen some Nigerian bank sites and first thought is it could be 419 since the sites did not appear professional in the least .

It is not time that we need, it is change that we need and we could be on per with many other countries and achieve this in less than a year IF we are willing to do it. Concerning making purchases online, I believe that is already happening and is doable.

yep, I agree with you kobo,

Quality is better than quantity and is indeed a better yardstick. Unfortunately, and again I say this based on my firm belief that the webmaster section of NL is a decent representation of the web community in naija (If I am wrong, shoot me ), it seems most of us are in a rush to develop the next app that google will buy for $1billion. If I dey lie, how long did it take a nigerian to come up with the equivalent of milliondollarpage.com (the site where you could buy 1px of ad space that pretty much made the owner a millionaire overnight)? How many naija blogs with google ads are there out there? Heck, focusing on NL, how many posts have to do with making money via google ads on the first page of the webmaster section alone? As a result, what we have is a lot of people, and God bless their hearts, googling for the next e-book, and implementing what they have read, without any regards whatsoever to the why, what, where and when of web development.

As far as rules go though, I would add that rather than us coming up with our own rules/regulations, we should borrow a leaf from what's already out there in other countries. The rules and regulations already exist and have for years. What we need to do is apply "Nigeriana" to them and come up with a Nigeria-specific solution.

As always, my 2 cents

My brothers and sisters there are so many factors that impact the level of a country's internet development. The truth is we are still lagging behind countries like India when it comes to our level of internet development. Let me quickly touch on those factors:

1. Power supply - When you have erratic power supply, how on earth can you put in the time to develop solutions or even spend the time that is needed online to master the necessary skills one needs to develop world-class products and services.
2. 419 - This thing has killed us when it comes to doing business online. We don't even trust doing business with each other. There are so many times a few people on this forum have made genuine offers to their fellow Nigerians, but some how because of the fear we have that something might be a scam, we simply do not support it.
3. Our leaders are not internet savvy at all and have no idea that the biggest resource we have is not oil, but what is between our ears - our brains. And the internet can help anyone with a good service or product market their creations online - worldwide. That is why Youtube and Facebook are worth much more than companies like Nitel that employs thousands of people.
4. Lack of government support - If the government does not spend money in the area of IT education, it will take our people forever to catch up with the rest of the world.
5. Low internet penetration. When we get to the point where 50% of cell phones subscribers becoming internet service subscribers, the size of the Nigerian internet market will increase and so will the number of internet entrepreneurs.
6. Few people own a PCs or Laptops. Few computer users equates to few internet users etc.
7. Few Nigerians know how to type - How many people in Nigeria really know how to type - how to use a simple keyboard without doing the one finger deal
8. Inadequate cyber crime fighting tools - With the EFCC chasing out young people out of cyber cafes thinking that everybody who browses the internet at night must be a yahoo boy, then it shows that even the government does not understand this medium and is not properly equipped to police the internet.
9. Most business owners are traders - Buy and Sell - That seems to be the only language most Nigerians understand. When I start talking to people about doing something online, they just tell you that they are not down with that internet stuff. They don't understand it. And I am talking about people with University degrees. So you can imagine what the rest of the population thinks of the internet.

Anyway, I will stop here - I need to attend to my kid. God bless Nigeria. One day we will get there - when our leaders stop selfishly sharing our national cake amongst themselves and start using our resources to develop the infrastructure the country needs to be on par with the rest of the civilized world.
If the Nigerian government can get two things right - Power supply and Telecommunications - Nigerians will do the rest. Man, I really weep for my country.

the Naija web community will remain at infancy as long as we don't reckon with made in Nigeria websites.We need to support sites like nairaland.com , oneloveng.com to attain their full potentials.

What exactly is a 'made in Nigeria' website - does using a forum template designed by SMF constitute a made in Nigeria site ?

How can you claim we don't support sites like nairaland when we are all registered members hence we can have this conversation and there are 140235 members on this forum as at 10.48pm 12/10/2007?

On a more serious note I do not think Nigeria web community is immature. In fact I am very impressed with the hunger and awareness I perceive in the Web community given the known challenges of internet access, and the low percentage of people with unlimited access, added to the failure of the government to play its role and provide the required infrastructure. At the rate we are going I am sure our hunger and awareness would give birth to good things. I have been on the internet for over ten years and I can say categorically that even in countries like Uk where the government has initiated training to encourage people to go online it has not been embraced with such zeal as the Nigeria web community.

bashali:

if just want a webpage or community like nairaland that easy . But I have experience (international). Your ATM machine is web base, even Television is webbase over here, What they call Digital television is really a web base application. Telephone is web base. Nigeria do not need web developer, or people who can design website, but people who can write program, How many of your so call Web deisgner or developer know what is "heritance" Or how to write software to include client and server or Programable logic control. or VLSI. This is where the NIgeria govt should put it money in. I am here to teach if Nigeria govt want me. I am not for cheap, if Nigeria govt is willing to pay $120,000 a year. I would teach Nigeria engineers some of the thing. I can build an ATM machine from the start to end including Machine and software. I also can design VOIPs. and many more. Nigeria should take out the so call National service(NYSC) for electrical and computer science student and let them do a Master degree within the period. How many prof in Nigeria can design their software.

I am interested in written software in Yoruba , igbo and hausa. But I can't find help. I can make your computer speak and understand Yoruba, igbo and hausa. I can talk to the computer. This is what computer is about, not your web design.

God Almighty. Help Us.

What has this guy just said? Mumble jumbled information!!!! God this is the very problem. Another Emeagwali type. Check out the English. U think u can just come here with gathered "Acronyms" that do not connect in anyway and abuse Nigerians? "Heritance"? What the f*ck!!! Please dont show your shame and ignorance on Nairaland.

Empty < > tags like U give us a bad name. Go back to school !

Has The Nigerian Web Community Come Of Age Yet?

In what sense? What exactly is the poster trying to ask?

This question may be simple but yet completely open ended.

One cannot provide answers to a question unless the question is clear enough otherwise time and energy may be expended providing answers to non existent questions.

Afam, just about everyone before you shared their opinion on this issue, in the right context.
Web community in this context refers to web developers, web designers, web graphics experts, search engine optimization experts, web hosting companies and every other endeavor related directly to web presence. The question is simple, has the website development industry in Nigeria reached a state of maturity? Lets hear your opinion on this.

@Niyyie,

web developers

Generally speaking, in this area I will say no. Apart from websites belonging to banks (and these simply use software developed from foreigners) you can hardly point to a Nigerian initiative on the web that is worth talking about.


web designers

These group perform better than web developers apart from the issue of flash abuse. I have seen very bad web design jobs from people in US and UK so in this area Nigerians are doing well even though there is room for improvement.

web graphics experts

For some websites I have seen we have good graphic experts but like every other thing in life over doing anything is bad. Graphic experts should know where to draw the line between show casing their skills to the detriment of the clients and showcasing their skills to help the clients and believe me there is a thin line between the two.

search engine optimization experts

Don't think so but again not the fault of the SEO experts because most clients are even finding it difficult to come to terms with basic website costs let alone bother with something they cannot see for themselves on their websites.

web hosting companies

We have few decent web hosting packages out there as many offer web packages that no serious client that understands anything about web hosting will bother to take up.

All these unlimited this and unlimited that which in some cases gives you a shocking reality that a single machine may be hosting up to 10,000 websites and these websites will have their unique visitors trying to compete for processor attention.

my2cents:

yes, I agree with you kobo,

Quality is better than quantity and is indeed a better yardstick. Unfortunately, and again I say this based on my firm belief that the webmaster section of Nairaland is a decent representation of the web community in naija (If I am wrong, shoot me ), it seems most of us are in a rush to develop the next app that google will buy for $1billion. If I dey lie, how long did it take a nigerian to come up with the equivalent of milliondollarpage.com (the site where you could buy 1px of ad space that pretty much made the owner a millionaire overnight)? How many naija blogs with google ads are there out there? Heck, focusing on Nairaland, how many posts have to do with making money via google ads on the first page of the webmaster section alone? As a result, what we have is a lot of people, and God bless their hearts, googling for the next e-book, and implementing what they have read, without any regards whatsoever to the why, what, where and when of web development.

As far as rules go though, I would add that rather than us coming up with our own rules/regulations, we should borrow a leaf from what's already out there in other countries. The rules and regulations already exist and have for years. What we need to do is apply "Nigeriana" to them and come up with a Nigeria-specific solution.

As always, my 2 cents

I would go a step further and say you are not wrong. Even Companies and institutions are too in a rush to get their sites online, than they are to get a fully functional and decent site online. I came upon a post some time ago that included a link to WAECs own site and I must say that site was one of the most insulting I have ever laid my eyes on. I will say same of the Federal Ministry of Education Site. A site that does not seem to be well planned and well put together. I believe Companies and institutions need to take more time in planning of their web presence and execution of these place to ensure they present to the WORLD a picture that not only promotes their cause but also does not SCREAM "OH NO!!! ANOTHER NIGERIAN SITE" .

It is unfair to say that the Nigerian Community has not come of age yet. the truth is that Growth is a never ending process and Nigeria just like every other country is experiencing growth in their web community. Nigerian has just recently been given 2nd plave in terms of Internet Usage in Africa, 2nd only to Egypt. And of course, i've seen many successful web projects executed by Nigerians. Don't try to fulfill the saying that a prophet is not homoured in his own house,

The major problem is that a large number of Nigerians who are online have inclination to things faraway (I mean not really indigenous) Therefore web developers with local content in mine do not get considerable large visits compare to the number of those online.

Going online is not yet a common events. A large chunk of visits are still being compelled and may not come back until another necessity. The cost of access, power, poverty, education and more are still a very big inhibitors.

There is hope, we will get there.