Spotlight On Tubidy, The Music Download Website That’s Taking Over Kenya

Last year, Google released a report showing the most searched terms in Kenya in 2012. One of the fastest growing search terms in the country was the word “Tubidy,” which came in 4th position. Tubidy is the name of a new music download website which has grown to take over the Kenyan online community, overcoming competitors such as Waptrick.

The thing about Tubidy though, is that it is run under a dark shroud of secrecy by a company named “Mobiventura.” However, let’s just take a look under the hood and explain to our readers how the whole thing works(trust me, I’m a web developer:)

– First of all, the videos and MP3s on Tubidy are NOT uploaded by users. Tubidy grabs videos from YouTube, converts them into mobile friendly formats for video and music. Proof of this is in the fact that all Tubidy’s preview images are the same as those found on YouTube videos.

– Secondly, because Tubidy grabs videos without permission, that means that they are in violation of copyright laws against not only YouTube, but also the artists whose music it distributes for free. This results in them playing a cat and mouse game they play where YouTube occasionally blocks Tubidy from scraping their content, but Tubidy find a way around it eventually, and the cycle continues. This is why from time to time, you find that Tubidy might not be updated. That is why Tubidy is run in secret.

– Despite all this, you have to give it to Tubidy, who have created one of the most user-friendly music download services around. You just go to the site, search for a song and download it instantly. No logins, no CAPTCHA forms, no scrolling through multiple screens like Waptrick, just simple and straight to the point. And the downloads are Fast. As. Hell. That is probably the main reason why they have “succeeded,” despite doing no marketing.

*For those of you who want to download Kenyan music legally, you can buy Mdundo.com scratchcards from local artists.