Analysis of the TradeNet service

TradeNet is a service developed in Ghana by Mark Davies, who’s concept is comparible in some ways to Ebay. TradeNet however is designed specifically for the market within Africa, targeting those who do not necessarily have access to the Internet, by using SMS to communicate instead, as SMS is generally recognised as the most appropriate way to communicate currently in Africa due to the growing number of cellphone users.

The service has been developed for the exchange of agricultural products, and allows users to submit information about products they have to sell (for free), subscribe to allow users to request what kind of products they are interested in (and receive SMS with the requested information for free), and then allows the potential buyers and sellers to communicate directly to make a sale. The issue of facilities for farmers to buy and sell efficiently is one that has been widely identified as a need (for example, this blog post from the VeSel group).

TradeNet’s Vision:

‘Our goal is to increase revenues for farmers and traders by making markets more transparent, and by shifting the balance of power slightly towards producers who suffer from the thinnest margins on what they trade. We also aim to assist projects and associations to serve their members with better and current information to sell more and buy better, and to market their products to a global audience. More recent tools enable producers to enhance their yields and find better buyers by managing their information networks more effectively.’ (source)

There are two areas of the project that are unique to TradeNet and it is these that make it a more viable long-term solution.

The first is that TradeNet not only make money from advertisements posted into the SMS that the users receive, but they also make money from selling data that it collects from the users (their personal info - telephone numbers, names, locations etc) to advertisers.

This concept of collecting and selling data is one that seems to have different interpretations from different people. The Economist’s opinion is:

‘The price of economic development may be junk mail by mobile phone.’ (source)

Whereas Trisignia’s article sees it as:

The service is…gathering valuable economic data about the marketplace it’s helping develop, and it’s leveraging its knowledge about the marketplace to sell more ads. (source)

Whilst both these articles recognise that the collection of the data helps to sell more adverts, the Economist see the data as enabling junk mail, whereas Trisignia see it a collecting valuable data. My question would be, exactly what data are they collecting? Because that question has not really been answered from the research I have done. How can that data be used in the future? Who can have access to it?

In short, there is a problem in Africa that there is a lack of data available, and it seems that potentially this service may be helping that issue (White African blog wrote a post about it a while back). But it seems that more needs to be known about what data, and how it could be used or accessed before making that judgement. (Although that is not to say that if the data is not going to be of direct benefit to Africa itself, but solely to advertisers, that it is a bad thing. It is still enabling development through enabling this service to run and therefore may be a necessary evil.)

The second area that gives TradeNet an edge over other comparative services, is that the company is making it’s software available for use by other projects. This means that the concept can be applied to other markets and uses, by other developers having the ability to create their own websites using the same back-end software.

Overall, TradeNet seems like a very positive step in development within Africa. A comment that Mark Davies made on White African’s post seems to demonstrate that this project does have real potential, as it seems that his ideology and approach to the project have a solid foundation:

‘This must be a profitable venture, a service-based venture, a customer focussed venture, and it must unleash what i imagine is loads of commerce opportunities leading to wealth generation. I’m skeptical about technology ’solving’ things, but it’s one contribution to the debate.’