Nairaland is a Nigerian English-language internet forum/community. Founded by Nigerian entrepreneur Seun Osewa on March 8, 2005, it is targeted primarily at Nigerian domestic residents and is the 6th most visited website in Nigeria.
Nairaland currently has over 1,400,000 registered accounts (August 2015) and is ranked as the 7th most visited site in Nigeria (and the most visited indigenous site) according to Alexa.com.
Nairaland reportedly has over 55 million Internet users, corresponding to 32.9% of the entire population. With Nairaland having a considerable but unconfirmed number of users based in the diaspora, this statistic suggests that a maximum of 3% of Nigerian Internet users are registered on Nairaland compared to Facebook's 11 million Nigerian users which correspond to approximately 20% of the Internet population. Nairaland, however, does have a considerable number of unregistered users, as registration is only necessary for posting.
What is Nairaland used for?
Nairaland is an online community and public space that serves as a meeting place for Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora, who constantly follow up on the events in Nigeria and participate in political debates about the country.
About Nairaland founder
The CEO of Nairaland and Snake Naija,
Oluwaseun Temitope Osewa was born on December 17, 1982. He is a Nigerian internet entrepreneur and the founder of Nairaland, a popular internet forum launched in March 2005, which was projected as the biggest African forum by Forbes.
YNaija listed him as one of the most innovative Nigerians in technology.
He was also listed among T.I.N Magazine's top 10 most influential Nigerian online entrepreneurs in 2015.
He is a Comand puter programmer, entrepreneur, and Snake handler.
The beginning was not rosy
In this 2006 interview, he narrated how all his businesses before Nairaland failed
” All my business projects before Nairaland were failures, except the one that became Nairaland. My web hosting business failed after just 3 months because I ran out of money, while I couldn’t execute many other projects I researched due to shyness and lack of capital. My blogs and the mobile phone forum that preceded Nairaland were successful but not profitable. However, it was on that foundation that Nairaland was built.”
So how did he hit the Nairaland jackpot?
How did this young man, who was just around 22-23 years then, think of starting a forum that will later become Africa’s numero uno? Let’s hear from the horse’s mouth:
“About 2 years earlier (2003) I had attempted to start a web hosting business, but after 3 months I could only boast of one customer, so I ran out of capital and the business died. It would probably have succeeded if I had managed my capital more wisely or raised more money as I got many hosting requests I couldn’t satisfy later that year.
After that first failure, I was encouraged to get certifications and a regular job, but I couldn’t go back to that kind of path after tasting creative freedom, so I kept researching business ideas and presenting them to friends and family, but no capital was forthcoming to carry any of them out. I did this for less than 2 years. (The last idea was a site for sending SMS messages. I picked up Python to implement it.)
Eventually, I decided to start a web forum, because it was the only idea that required no additional capital: I already had Internet access and a $15 per month VPS graciously paid for by a family friend. I created 3 forums in November 2003 (one for higher institution students, one for IT discussions, and one to cover the emerging GSM industry; the Mobile Nigeria Forum at MobileNigeria.com).
The Mobile Nigeria Forum took off, so I relaunched it in February 2005 with the assistance of Mr John Sagai Adams, who posted a link to the forum on his mailing list and participated enthusiastically in those early days. Other mobile enthusiasts like Mr. Yomi Adegboye pitched in to make the site a success. In a month or so, the forum had about 300 members, but the growth potential didn’t satisfy me.
I decided to start Nairaland when I noticed two odd things about MobileNigeria:
(1) Despite its narrow focus, it was the only Nigerian community that gave a voice to Nigerians at home. Most other Nigerian sites were owned and dominated by Nigerians in the US or UK. They covered only issues of interest to Nigerians abroad.
(2) The off-topic section of the forum, covering topics outside telecoms, like romance and jokes, was becoming more vibrant than the Mobile Nigeria Forum itself, suggesting the need for a more general-purpose Nigerian forum.
This gave me the confidence to take forums like Naijaryders and Talknaija head-on by starting a general-purpose discussion forum with a strong bias toward issues of interest to Nigerians at home. I felt that such a site could attract enough traffic to make enough money from Google adverts. That’s why I started the Nairaland Forum.” (CP-AFRICA.COM)
Nairaland currently has over 1,400,000 registered accounts (August 2015) and is ranked as the 7th most visited site in Nigeria (and the most visited indigenous site) according to Alexa.com.
Nairaland reportedly has over 55 million Internet users, corresponding to 32.9% of the entire population. With Nairaland having a considerable but unconfirmed number of users based in the diaspora, this statistic suggests that a maximum of 3% of Nigerian Internet users are registered on Nairaland compared to Facebook's 11 million Nigerian users which correspond to approximately 20% of the Internet population. Nairaland, however, does have a considerable number of unregistered users, as registration is only necessary for posting.
What is Nairaland used for?
Nairaland is an online community and public space that serves as a meeting place for Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora, who constantly follow up on the events in Nigeria and participate in political debates about the country.
About Nairaland founder
The CEO of Nairaland and Snake Naija,
Oluwaseun Temitope Osewa was born on December 17, 1982. He is a Nigerian internet entrepreneur and the founder of Nairaland, a popular internet forum launched in March 2005, which was projected as the biggest African forum by Forbes.
YNaija listed him as one of the most innovative Nigerians in technology.
He was also listed among T.I.N Magazine's top 10 most influential Nigerian online entrepreneurs in 2015.
He is a Comand puter programmer, entrepreneur, and Snake handler.
The beginning was not rosy
In this 2006 interview, he narrated how all his businesses before Nairaland failed
” All my business projects before Nairaland were failures, except the one that became Nairaland. My web hosting business failed after just 3 months because I ran out of money, while I couldn’t execute many other projects I researched due to shyness and lack of capital. My blogs and the mobile phone forum that preceded Nairaland were successful but not profitable. However, it was on that foundation that Nairaland was built.”
So how did he hit the Nairaland jackpot?
How did this young man, who was just around 22-23 years then, think of starting a forum that will later become Africa’s numero uno? Let’s hear from the horse’s mouth:
“About 2 years earlier (2003) I had attempted to start a web hosting business, but after 3 months I could only boast of one customer, so I ran out of capital and the business died. It would probably have succeeded if I had managed my capital more wisely or raised more money as I got many hosting requests I couldn’t satisfy later that year.
After that first failure, I was encouraged to get certifications and a regular job, but I couldn’t go back to that kind of path after tasting creative freedom, so I kept researching business ideas and presenting them to friends and family, but no capital was forthcoming to carry any of them out. I did this for less than 2 years. (The last idea was a site for sending SMS messages. I picked up Python to implement it.)
Eventually, I decided to start a web forum, because it was the only idea that required no additional capital: I already had Internet access and a $15 per month VPS graciously paid for by a family friend. I created 3 forums in November 2003 (one for higher institution students, one for IT discussions, and one to cover the emerging GSM industry; the Mobile Nigeria Forum at MobileNigeria.com).
The Mobile Nigeria Forum took off, so I relaunched it in February 2005 with the assistance of Mr John Sagai Adams, who posted a link to the forum on his mailing list and participated enthusiastically in those early days. Other mobile enthusiasts like Mr. Yomi Adegboye pitched in to make the site a success. In a month or so, the forum had about 300 members, but the growth potential didn’t satisfy me.
I decided to start Nairaland when I noticed two odd things about MobileNigeria:
(1) Despite its narrow focus, it was the only Nigerian community that gave a voice to Nigerians at home. Most other Nigerian sites were owned and dominated by Nigerians in the US or UK. They covered only issues of interest to Nigerians abroad.
(2) The off-topic section of the forum, covering topics outside telecoms, like romance and jokes, was becoming more vibrant than the Mobile Nigeria Forum itself, suggesting the need for a more general-purpose Nigerian forum.
This gave me the confidence to take forums like Naijaryders and Talknaija head-on by starting a general-purpose discussion forum with a strong bias toward issues of interest to Nigerians at home. I felt that such a site could attract enough traffic to make enough money from Google adverts. That’s why I started the Nairaland Forum.” (CP-AFRICA.COM)