If you’ve posted a link at Qiqima lately you will see that URL’s are now automatically abbreviated to leave more space for the rest of your message. No buttons to click, just paste in a long website address and it will be shortened when you post.

Last week I spent some time in the San Francisco Bay Area talking to some tech insiders about Qiqima, and basically just trying to soak in that Silicon Valley energy. One of my stops was at the Tech Shop in Menlo Park, I have to say I was completely blown away.

In short, the TechShop is workshop that provides membership access to tools and equipment, instruction, and a creative community of like-minded people so they can build the things you have always wanted to make. Or, as I describe it, the TechShop is a place where adults can set their imaginations free and play with all those power tools and industrial lasers you were never allowed to touch as a child. I have never seen anything like it. In a sense, it is the same principle as open source code that is made available to all for the betterment of society.

The TechShop was recently featured in the February issue of Wired magazine, in which Chris Anderson wrote, ”When TechShop founder Jim Newton went looking for an executive to run it, he quickly decided on Mark Hatch, a former Kinko’s executive. The analogy is apt: In the same way that Kinko’s democratized printing and, in the process, created a national chain of service bureaus, TechShop wants to democratize manufacturing.”

Image courtesy of www.techshop.ws

So what does this mean for Africa? Lowering the barriers to entering the manufacturing business by making tools easily accessible means that we can now potentially compete on the imagination and creativity. As Mark commented while we toured the premises, human creativity is the single largest untapped resource in the world. I hope that such opportunities to manifest creativity will be extended to Africa and other emerging markets around the world. Of course, I made sure to plug Afrigadget as a site to discover the inventiveness, resoursefulness and entreprenuership of the African spirit.

If you are ever in the Bay Area, I strongly encourage you to stop by the TechShop and check it out for yourself. They also have locations in in Durham, North Carolina, and Beaverton, Oregon, and will be opening more centers around the country.

We have received our first review on TechMasai today. And I am very excited. Please take the time to sign up for your free Qiqima account and give us your take. Thank you TechMasai for the (mostly) positive feedback. It is very welcome. Of course there is still much work to be done to realize our full potential as a social network. Be on the look out for new features that are in the works.

We are happy to announce that you can now opt to have your Qiqima posts automatically post to Facebook at the same time. If you are already a Facebook user you will most certainly want to try out this new feature. After logging in to Qiqima, go to “Settings” and you will see a tab labeled “Facebook.” Make sure you complete the three simple steps to allow Qiqima to communicate with your Facebook account, and that’s it.

Next time you post a message on Qiqima it will also appear on Facebook for all your friends to see and comment on. As Facebook users ourselves, this feature has been very useful and a time-saver.

If you’ve visited the Qiqima website recently you may have noticed something different. We have redesigned the site to make it cleaner and fresher. The layout remains the same so you can easily find all the buttons and links right where you left them.

...and the old.

Let us know what you think of the new design by leaving a comment below.

If you recently paid a visit to our blog using an iPhone you may have noticed that it has a very different look. That’s because we’ve made it easier to read blog posts on the iPhone. I’ll be the first to admit that it is not very pretty looking but it does the job. And if you get tired of that dull look then just scroll down to the bottom of the page and use the “View Full Version” link.

OLPC's XO-3

From time to time I will post something that catches my attention, usually technology-related, that is helping to close the digital divide in less developed countries. Recently I read a post about the organization called One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) who have conceptualized a $75 tablet PC that is absolutely beautiful to look at. The XO-3, as it has been named, is a slim-line touchscreen computer that will supposedly be ready for distribution in 2012. It will eventually replace the XO-1 model that, so far, has been given out to more than 1.4 million children in 35 countries at a cost of $200 per machine. Both laptops can run Windows or Linux.

According to Wikipedia “The One Laptop Per Child Association, Inc. (OLPC) is a U.S. non-profit organization set up to oversee the creation of an affordable educational device for use in the developing world. Its mission is “To create educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning.” Its current focus is on the development, construction and deployment of the XO-1 laptop.”

OLPC's original XO model

While I applaud and support the efforts of OLPC and, love the idea of a $75 laptop, tablet or other-wise, for now you can count me among the ranks of the skeptics who say that it is just not possible to produce a laptop for that price. But I sincerely hope that history will prove me wrong and that each child will have the opportunity to enjoy the benefits that come with early exposure to technology.

See if your friends or family members are already using Qiqima.

Find on Qiqima: You can search for people you know who already have a Qiqima account by typing in a name or email address.
Find on other Networks: We can check if your friends on other services already have a Qiqima account. Choose from services like Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail and more.
Invite by Email: You can invite people by sending them an email. Multiple emails can be separated with a comma. Read the rest of this entry »

Good news for those of you who use Qiqima from South Africa. We are very happy to announce that you can now perform most of Qiqima’s most crucial functions using text messages. For the time being, local standard text messages apply, but that may change in the future as we try to solidify a suitable revenue model.

Below are the text commands that you can use. So go ahead and give it a try, and send the SMS to 31022.

To start receiving notifications via SMS:
QIQ START

To stop receiving notifications via SMS:
QIQ STOP

Last week TechMasai announced that he was planning to leave the Kenyan microblogging platform, Twyka, because of all the spam that he was receiving. We took note and today I’m glad to announce that we added a mechanism to quickly, and easily, report spam or any abusive posts on Qiqima.com.

Below each post is a “Report Abuse” link that will let you send us a report and thus allow us to take action.

We welcome any feedback you have that will make Qiqima a fun place for everyone. So please keep those comments coming. We also invite you to join the #IMPROVE QIQIMA group to share ideas with fellow users.