On international seminar in South Africa this week. We met the kings of digital media here today (NASPERS), which is a large media conglomerate that owns most of the premiere digital media properties in South Africa and Sub-Sarahan Africa in general. The management team introduced us to several of their holding companies including MXIT.com (short description below and blurb from splash page). Why was this fascinating to me - because it shows that social networks are not new ideas and dont require first world infrastructure to thrive. MXIT doesn't use broadband technology for the most part. Most users connect via free message applications such as Yahoo, AIM, ICQ or Windows Messenger or BBM. You can connect via Facebook, but no one does. Honestly, tribal/rural natives use this service on their feature phones and pre smartphones cell devices. But it still fulfills people's social networking needs. Which are basically connecting with each other and staying involved in each other's lives. What's more, NASPERS uses a simple display advertising model to monetize the network. Check it out. Africa is at the very beginning of discovery of social networks. It's very exciting.
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MXit (pronounced "mix it") is a free instant messaging application developed by MXit Lifestyle (Pty) Ltd. in South Africa that runs on multiple mobile and computing platforms. Along with its own standard protocol, it can connect to Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk,Facebook, AIM, or Windows Live Messenger contacts as well.[1]
According to a 2011 study by consultancy World Wide Worx, MXit currently has about 10 million active subscribers, making it the largest mobile social network in Africa.[2]
from website:
Hello, Welcome To Mxit
Chat. Play. Trade. Make friends. Find love. Get the latest news and sports updates. Download music. Or join groups of like minded people. Connect with 50 million Mxit users across Africa using FREE online mobile messages. Express yourself. Share ideas. Exchange goods. Mxit works on almost 3000 mobile handsets, including yours.
Join Africa’s biggest social network today or simply login if you are already a part of the Mxit community. Visit http://m.mxit.com on your mobile.
1 comment:
It would be really interesting to see if/how the personal social network links through MXIT are different than those of Facebook users. Do the technical/user interface limitations of having the majority of its user base interact through essentially text messaging lead to smaller/more dense networks and how the characteristics of user network affect advertising models?
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