But what about those in Africa? Well, we’ve been working on a series of services that will allow you to use your mobile phone to pay for goods and services, and today we’re glad to announce the first phase of this roll-out:

If you have a Beyonic Web-services account, you can now update your account credit from your mobile phone!

Read on to find out how …

This allows existing users of our Airtime-Online service to update their accounts instantly, providing faster access to Airtime-Online items.

How it works

For a start, this service is only available on MTN Uganda, using MTN Mobile Money.

Step 1: Configure Your Mobile Number.
First you’ll have to let us know what your mobile number is. You can do this by logging into your Beyonic services account and going to SETTINGS > My Settings. Enter a telephone number and pin of your choice, and save them.

Step 2: Send your money!
You’re now ready to update your account! Just send mobile money from your mobile number (configured above) to 0785902565.

That’s it! If the transaction is successful, you will receive an SMS telling you that your account has been updated.

Give it a try and let us know what you think!

One significant omission at the time was the ability to login with your Facebook account. Today, we’re starting to make good on our promise to integrate our services with Facebook by letting you do just that: login with your Facebook account!

It’s as easy as ever. Just select “Facebook” from the drop down menu on the login form, and you will be redirected to Facebook to authorize “Beyonic Web Services”, once that’s done, u’re logged in!

This is the first part of our Facebook integration. We’re putting final touches to the second part, which will bring Beyonic GiftBox to your Facebook profile!

Join the community discussion on this post

If you’ve been around for any period of time, chances are:

1. You already have an account with Google, Yahoo, AOL, etc – in fact you have more than one already
2. You frown every time you come across yet another website that wants you to create a user account before you can access its services

We feel the same way, and this is where OpenID (and a little OAuth) comes in. These technologies allow you to login to Beyonic Services using your existing account at one of the websites I mentioned earlier. This is exciting because you no longer need to fill out a lengthy sign up form to test our services… Read More >>

What’s more, it’s also secure because you do not ever have to share your password with Beyonic to get this to work. OpenID ensures that your login information.

Starting Today, you can login to Beyonic Services using your Google, Yahoo, Twitter, AOL, MyOpenid, Flickr, Technocrati, Wordpress.com, Blogspot, Livejournal, Claimid, Vidoop & Verisign IDs OR any OpenID provider. If you do not have an OpenId, grab an account from any of these services!

Existing users will continue to use their regular credentials as if nothing’s changed.

We’re also integrating OpenID into the forums and comments using RPX – you should be able to use your Google, Yahoo, WindowsLive, Twitter and Facebook to post in the forums and comment on articles.

Give it a whirl and let us know what you think or if something’s broken!

We’re starting out with 2 major gifts you can send: Mobile Money – MPESA (Kenya), ZAP (Kenya and Uganda) and MTN Mobile Money (Uganda) and Airtime-Online products – Prepaid airtime vouchers for Kenya and Uganda. We’ll be rolling out more gifts for Rwanda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe over the next month or so. If there’s a gift you’d like to see in GiftBox, let us know! Contact Us or Discuss your idea with other giftboxers in the forums!

What makes GiftBox even more interesting is that you can have your own giftbox! If you’re a blogger, a webmaster, or simply want to spice up your intranet, grab a giftbox of your own & as a bonus “goodie”, you earn whenever your giftbox is “opened”! – and you can customize your giftbox to match your website. Learn more here!

Lastly, watch out for a facebook app – coming soon to a pc near you…