₦airaland Forum

All we are saying, give us your picture!

Welcome to the forum, Tolumi. I know you! And how's that your girlfriend?

This thread has proved to be an interesting way to discover new websites. Please, people, keep it coming!

E-kolanuts for the first lady to convince Oleku to post his pics on Nairaland!

Yeah.  We mentioned AYA recently on the thread GosmartMobile Information Service. 

Over and over again I have failed to get any of the Glo GPRS based services to work on a borrowed phone belonging to a relative, so I've given up on Glo GPRS. 

I'm glad you've at least gotten WAP to work; remember, wap.nairaland.com works and works really well! AYA will help you with the MMS; I think you need to get a password from Glo Customer service or something like that.

FaceOfFestac.net, developed by Oleku Konko, an independent web developer in Nigeria, is probably the most popular made-in-Nigeria website of all time. Based on the very simple concept of picture rating, and with very little active promotion and no advertising, the site was able get 87,000 registered users in a year or so. Talk about viral marketing!

Awards won by his Face Of Festac website include the 2003 - 2004 Golden Web Awards and Fastest Growing Nigerian Website awards.

The Nairaland Forum is privileged to present to you this first ever official interview with this man who calls himself "Omo Iyaoniya" (child of unknown mother). Enjoy!

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NAIRALAND EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH OLEKU KONKO

Who is Oleku Konko?
Who is Oleku? That one it's long story o. Let me be brief: Oleku is a crazy typical Yoruba guy, a lover of African beauty and culture.

Oleku is the type that prefers drinking palm wine and watch African ladies dancing with their "Ileke Idi" rather than listening to Hip-hop.

Oleku likes foods, even if it's rice it should be assorted e.g. the rice should be saved with vegetable, panla, fresh fish, crab, ogunfe, brokoto, shaki, summo, snail, cray fish, and my palm wine no go miss.

Oleku is an Actor, Comedian, Director, Graphic Artist, Digital Editor, not a good dance but loves dancing, chorographer, Concept Developer, Web Application Developer, Cryptographer, and Biometrics Specialist. I guess the best description about my field of work is that "teach me anything, I'll become better than you".

Oleku is not married - no kids, and not searching.

There is a lot to say about Oleku but don't think Oleku is my nick; it's my real name. The name Oleku was given to me by my grand mum and as a Yoruba guy, I have other names but I prefer Oleku maybe because I love my grandma so much.


Can you tell us about your educational and career background?

I have never had a computer background or attend a Computer Institution. I left University of Ife in my 300L because I was not given the my desired course which is Computer Science. I decided to be on my own and achieve what some people term to be impossible. Without B.Sc "nothing, nothing for you oooo", so I am back in school presently running a part time course.


Why did you create the FacesOfFestac.net Website?

Ha, a lot of people do ask me that. Face Of Festac as you see it was developed due to the strong passion I have for the African beauty & culture. It was designed to make part of my vision a reality. My vision was to see every body become like a family, a place nobody is trying to be someone else, feeling inferior or superior. You know our people now, some go dey do like say them no dey go toilet. It's so.

Face Of Festac, it's like a medium to reach to every one on how wonderful we can be. It's only a friend that can cay you are crazy and you will laugh about it.


What are the Site's Vital Stats (daily unique & page views, total registered users)?

The present Face OF Festac is the forth version, I have developed it 4 times and never completed one design (Too bad of me). Let me concentrate on the last and present status.

Total page views since September 9 2004 is 12,282,546.

Due to the last upgrade some users are not as active yet. We have a total of 80,000 users but only 20,000 are active.

Active Users means people that access the site at least once in a month.

Minimum of 1,800 DNS per Day. This means if there are 20 users in a cafe on the site, Face of Festac counts cafe as one not the number of users. [unique IP address probably]

Its has Over 1,600 pictures in the gallery, 36,529 comments, 630,038 picture views.


Does it make money, or do you support it with other income?

As you can see, it’s a free site. I don't make any money for it. I thank God that its running on one of the best dedicated hosting.


What (unmentioned) major challenges do you face?

Number one it's cash. Despite the fact I designed the site, there was a time I was paying $450 per month to keep the site going. There has been nobody, I repeat nobody that has ever assisted the site with ₦1 (one naira).

Secondly, we our self’s (Africans) do not appreciate anything. This is not “Face Of Oleku” or a paid site, this is a site developed to promote ourselves, instead for us to contribute in anyway to help improve the site we rather complain and do shakara

There are lot of challenges but i thank God that despite all, the site is still running at made a lot of achievement. We won 2003 - 2004 Golden Web Award , CNN fastest growing Nigerian Site, 2005 e-Content & Creativity, many more.


Why should Nairaland members join FaceOfFestac.net?

So far you are African or you love Africans and their culture then you are all welcome.

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Among Nigerian webmasters, Oleku Konko is definitely a web legend, but he's also a shy guy. So sorry, ladies, there no picture of him to admire yet! Feel free to send a pm to his Nairaland box, and tell him I sent you to collect his picture! And of course, don't forget to visit Face Of Festac today. What do you think?

Hello,

On this forum, we're going to dedicate each thread to one Nairaland user. Each one of us will have a thread in the community area, which may be used as a journal, as a new user greeting area, a place where you can announce your birthday and have people send you presents, announce your wedding, naming ceremonies, etc.

All Nairaland users, especially the new users, are expected to start one thread in this section. Feel free to make yourself a part of our community, because you're very much welcome!

Seun.

How to Choose a Title
Threads in this section should use the following format:
username - accurate description

The Following would make good topic titles for the Nairaland Community Forum:
hot-angel - Female, 15, USA, nairaland addict
trae_z - TRAE Days Blogger
timba - CEO of TimbaObjects
Seun - Seun Osewa of Nairaland.com
kazey - Kayode Muyibi of KayodeMuyibi.com

Please feel free to ask your questions if there's anything that needs clarification, and don't log out without posting your own thread. Yes, I mean you!

Seun.

I'd ask you to lend me a copy.

What would you do if I asked you why you prefer nairaland to the other Nigerian Forums, if any, that you've tried?

Don't forget www.ritadominic.com

hot-angel, thanks for explaining.  And Latoya, thanks for your participation on Nairaland.  Only a blind person will see that pic and not agree that you're fine; and I'm not blind B-).

Well I am Mr. Important; Junior brother to Bill Gates.

I would prefer a system that doesn't require the installation of any additional software. What about the installation of a simple shoutbox on the home page?

It's a temptation. I know it's not the best but people are chatting on the forum! No, I am not mentioning the names of hot-angel, nike4luv,makgod, Latoya.

Due to the prolific chat-posting of some of our users, I'm tempted to try a Nairaland chat room.

He means the water supply is much more regular than Almightly NEPA!

Latoya, so because you are a little bit fine you're 'forming' for me and asking me to beg for your picture. Can I eat your beauty, or can I spend it? Please sit down let elders talk!

(I'm grumbling now) Little plastic surgery and, though I'm a man, I'll be more beautiful than you!

It doesn't seem to have gone bad, yet.

Kayode is a muslim and he's yet to declare fatwa on Nairaland. If a muslim asks me to remove this topic, and gives reasons backed by the Holy Quran, I'll remove it.

You can point online contacts to your personal website when they're asking you annoying questions like:
- What's your name?
- Where do you live?
- Where do you work?
- Are you a web designer?
- Do you have a blog?

If you interact with bloggers, it's helpful to include a link to your website/blog in comments so they can check you up a bit before e-mailing you if there's something you can help them with in exchange for $$$!

The competition closes on the 5th of August (two days from now, so hurry up!)

Very recently I got the following e-mail from one of the members of this forum:

Dear Seun,

I want to contact GLO mobile networks for some major corrections to effect in the coverage listing in their site.

The 'Contact Us' link doesn't seem to be working.

Please can you help me with their contact e-mail address?

Can you help? I'd suggest webmaster@gloworld.com and info@gloworld.com, but I'm hoping an insider would be able to give us better information. Thanks in advance!

To make many millions from stock market investing, you first of all have to have a few millions to invest!

Try Crossover Office (about $75) which will allow you to run windows programs like Macromedia Flash MX or SWISHmax on Linux. Now you're beginning to appreciate the disadvantage of using Linux as a Desktop OS!

The Towards Open Source Flash Development article describes a way of developing Flash animations using MTASC Actionscript Compiler, the Eclipse IDE, and the ActionScript Development Tool and Flashout plugin for Eclipse.

Of course the reasons she gave were right. Afterall, it's Ophrah!

Tell your husband, and start searching for another job.  I've given the advice 3 times now.  This is a situation in which you're at risk of losing both your job and the trust your husband, but I'll advice you to place more value on the trust of your husband and tell him today.  Please do this the whole situation gets more complicated, thanks.

[quote author="angela k"]and where i stay, there's constant water supply. Although occasionally it seizes for few hours.[/quote]"Suffering and smiling" is what Fela calls this. We have constant water suppy, but occasionally it is unavailable. Funny! Anyway, I understand the reasoning behind this error.

Racist girls.

Not at all. But you were dangerously close!

Prior to one disastrous semester at OAU-Ife in which I actually missed 4 exams, the only time I ad failed an exam was in JSS 1 when I scored 39 (or 35) in French Language. Less than years and one lesson teacher later, in the WAEC JSCE, I scored an A in French Language.