The Grid launches Mobikasi
Mobile social network The Grid today launches Mobikasi, South Africa’s first geo-tagged documentary for cellphones, which explores youth culture in Soweto. Mobikasi utilises The Grid’s LBS (location-based service) capabilities to tag real-life physical locations and link them to relevant documentary content.
Users can explore Sowetan youth culture on their cellphones from anywhere in South Africa through The Grid’s map interface, or by physically touring the famous township and watching documentary clips on their phones at the locations where they were shot.
The location-based documentary looks at people, music, fashion, social issues and places of interest. Instead of showing the twenty-five minute documentary in a linear fashion from start to finish, Mobikasi splits the content up into twenty-five inserts of one minute each.
Each one-minute clip covers a different topic that is relevant to the youth in Soweto and is geo-tagged to the location where it was shot. This means that viewers can now explore Soweto’s vibrant youth culture by virtually "travelling" through a mobile streetmap of the township and stopping off at various locations to enjoy the one-minute video clips.
The first Mobikasi episode features, among others, a street fashion crew called the Smarteez, music producers Hempza and Vikinduku, a popular hair braider named Anna and the reigning Miss Soweto, Rochelle Mothapo. Also featured are Soweto’s premier hangouts Sedibeng, Back Room and the popular Sunday buy-and-braai spot Panyaza.
Vodacom’s Executive Head of Mobile Advertising and Social Media, Rick Joubert, says, “Soweto is a very exciting space. There is always so much happening and it’s often the youth driving this forward.
“We didn’t want to do the usual ‘township tour’ to showcase The Grid’s new LBS technology. We wanted to give people and the rest of the world a glimpse into the future of South Africa and what is hot and happening at street level. What better way than to launch Mobikasi, the world¹s first geo-tagged doccie for cellphones?”
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