Becoming The Muse

Ecocloud Storage

Another first from Econet Wireless… Ecocloud..

Econet subscribers may have seen the new option tucked alongside the USSD menu for purchasing data bundles. One can be forgiven for thinking that it’s a new cheap mobile data package… (maybe that’s the idea, chances are high there are people who are going to opt-in to this service under the assumption that it’s an internet data package…)

What is Ecocloud?

From what I can gather, it’s a cloud storage platform similar to Google Drive, Apple’s iCloud or Dropbox.

But since Econet has quietly rolled out this service without any announcements, either as a deliberate softlaunch or maybe it’s a glitch that escaped into the public domain… anyway, there it is daring you to subscribe and find out…

So, I tried it out the 30cent package for a test drive.

After you purchase the bundle you get an sms confirmation that you have successfully purchased the EcoCloud bundle. And then… nothing.

What next?

Your guess is as good as mine at this point… An internet search for Ecocloud shows there is an App you can use and there is a website with a login screen which implies that one should already have an assigned username and password…

Where oh where do I find the login details?… Looks like someone forgot to send the memo… I tried calling customer care and talked to Yamurai, a virtual chatbot which could not find the Econet service Ecocloud… understandable if it has not been trained on the word yet… try saying the word and you’ll see how it doesn’t quite roll off the tongue as you would expect..

I tried out this service out of curiosity, but I am not likely to switich over from any of the cloud storage platforms I already use.

Why am I not a fan of Ecocloud?

If the birth pains of this service are anything to go by, imagine trusting them with your data and for some reason you get locked out, or what if you do not pay your subscription, what happens to your data? What if one day they wake up and decide they are scrapping the service?  

Econet has a history of scrapping innovative products and services.

Once upon time they had eTXT, an Email to SMS service that would forward your emails to your text number and you could sync it with social media platforms to get notifications, see comments and respond to them via text messages, which was handy in the era before smart phones… Where is it? Gone.

And then there was Econet webmail, which turned your Econet Mobile number into an email address YourNumber@econetmail.com. While it didn’t convert the emails to text messages, you would get an sms notification for new mail. Also Gone.

Then there’s been Kwese TV, Vaya and Sasai which had potential to become an everything app, which all have quietly vanished into obscurity without so much as a farewell.

Its been 46 years of sovereignty and the economy is a volatile place where you are never sure how things will be in a week, month or a year from now… and of course someone will be more than willing to take your money and votes even when they are not ready to deliver…

Somewhere in all this is an Independence Day metaphor… Happy Independence day Zimbabwe.

~B