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!

Ugandan Radio Helps Orphans via GiftBox

We knew there were some cool ways to use GiftBox, but we’d like to commend Eryck of Ugandanradio.com for his really great ideas. Eryck is using GiftBox to collect donations to purchase a generator for orphans in Uganda!

It’s great initiatives like that that make us proud – as our motto goes, “Innovation for Change”. When Eryck heard about GiftBox, he immediately jumped at the chance to host his own and has been a valuable source of beta testing and feedback.

UgandanRadio.com is the only online radio station in Uganda, providing the international community with Ugandan news and music 24 hours a day - Check it out!

Got a cool way you’re using GiftBox? Let us know!

With only a week to go till Valentines, you’re probably searching for the perfect Valentine’s Gift.

Well, we have good news for you: FlowerBox allows you to Send Flowers to your loved ones via GiftBox!

On top of all the other Gifts that you can send, GiftBox now let’s you send flowers to Kenya and Uganda – just select “Flower Delivery” as the Gift type, select “Flower Box”, choose your price and bouquet size, and we’ll do the rest!

Remember to include a message for that extra personal touch, and it helps if you let us know where to drop your gift …

Want your gift delivered on Valentine’s day? No problem! GiftBox let’s you tell us when you want your Gift delivered, so send your gift now!

Many of you are already using GiftBox sending (and receiving) Gift Vouchers for your favourite restaurants, shopping malls and clothes stores.

These Gifts make the perfect Valentines’s and we want to give you a chance to make it even more special!

For starters, we’re giving away 5% discount coupons for you to use on on all your transactions until the 14th of February! To get a discount coupon, all you have to do is:

• EITHER Participate in the review-and-tell-a-friend program by filling out the short form at http://www.beyonic.com/review and we’ll email you your coupon
• OR Follow @beyonictech on twitter and send us a review or “tell a friend” using the hash tag #beyonic-giftbox and we will send you a coupon!

But that’s not all – One lucky winner will be picked from the users of these coupons and will win a GiftBox Valentines Special at Steers!

Click here to get started on your GiftBox Valentines Special.

The platform provides SMS based Q&A facilities to OBA communities, allowing them to get instant response to health and program related queries. Queries are automatically proxied to experts based on the type of query.

The platform also enables both two-way and push messaging, allowing OBA officers to push both manual and automated announcements and notifications to the field, and collect instant feedback, which is stored all information in an MIS for future research and data analysis.

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!

But starting today, you can send more! You can now choose to send shopping vouchers, eat-out vouchers, bookshop vouchers & movie tickets for the top stores, cinemas, restaurants & hang-outs!

Vouchers are great gifts because they give your friend & loved one what we’re giving you now – Choice. So, if you want to send that unique gift that says more, give GiftBox a twhirl.

For a full list of available gifts click HERE.

To reward early adopters, we’re running an early adopter program starting January through February 2010.

If you host a GiftBox during this period, you access Early Adopter benefits including better profit shares.

Interested? Click HERE For the complete early adopter invitation.

The new UI is less crowded, making it easier to use. It’s also more pleasing to the eye (we hope) and generally more awesome than the one of yester-year. It will also look better on your website.

If you already have a GiftBox on your website, you should be seeing the new-ness already. If not – grab one now!

We’ll be making subtle changes to it based on your feedback, so give it a try and let us know what you think!