Uno de Waal Blog

As is covered by MyBroadband and Tyler Reed, Vodacom is to launch a new network called The Grid.

Some features that you can look forward to:
IM (obviously – but that would eat into their SMS market?)
Friending (duh)
Aggregation (between your other networks)

From another press release:

“A powerful mobile social network funded by mobile advertising could be established by combining the power of social networking and mobiles. We are also considering mobile TV and video insertions, a Vodacom radio station, as well as voice, text, content and mobile Internet searching funded by advertising,” Kumalo said.

It’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out. Vodacom obviously wants to get into the share that Mxit has managed to carve out for themselves. However, Mxit has a huge user base already, and as it has proven itself, it’s not about the technology but about the community. Vodacom would have a long way to go before they can get that kind of community going. Mxit however doesn’t have the social networking aspect built into it, it’s something that they’ve been struggling with for a while.

Seeding options for Vodacom would obviously be to bundle the application together with all the new phones that they sell. While Java apps have proved to be not such a huge barrier to entry (with Mxit), it’s still something that requires a lot of technology investment (you have to develop a different program for every device). Still, having to not have people download the app will lower that barrier even more. Web interfaces are still even better (from a flexibility perspective) but they offer poor user experiences (and their feature set is limited).

I’ve heard rumors about Mxit bundling in with an operator or handset before (I believe this specific one was Nokia). This is going to be interesting, also because Mxit has also recently expanded to open up quite a few new datacentres in the EU. Could this mean expansion into the European market? Probably yes. If Mxit bundles with a handset they could possibly cement growth as well. Also, if you buy a Nokia on a Vodacom contract… What will that mean?

Yet still, at the end of the day it’s about the community. Vodacom would have the advertising budget and partnerships to be able to pull a lot of strings. No doubt they are going to use that horrible rat of theirs to promote the service. Maybe Mo will become the Tom for “The Grid”. The recent Youth Brands Survey from Sunday Times shows that he’s quite popular amongst the Youth, pity most adults hate the bastard. If they can get the kids to transfer over then they would have some clout.

Also, most of the press releases that I’ve been reading have all said something about “we’ll support it through ads”. That’s a bit of a topsided approach… Saying something like that, when you don’t even have a product, belies the thinking behind it. For them it’s a commercial product first and foremost. Nothing wrong with that, I just prefer it a bit more if the user is thought of first. I hate design by comittee.

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