The Grid, Vodacom’s mobile social network, has gone global. Following successful launches last year in Nigeria and Tanzania, as of today people worldwide can access his unique service offering mobile chat and content sharing features.
Up to now the two million existing members of The Grid – in South Africa, Nigeria and Tanzania – were only able to chat and share content with other Grid members from their own country. Members could also chat to their Google Talk, MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger contacts from The Grid.
With the new release, however, Grid members – irrespective of country or network operator – can become friends, chat to each other or share, rate and comment on photos and videos posted by the community.
The Grid was originally launched in South Africa in 2008 and has since developed into one of the leading South African social networks. In 2009 The Grid launched into both Tanzania and Nigeria – both developing African countries with high volumes of mobile web traffic.
The international expansion will make it possible for anyone with a cellphone to sign up and join the social network – at no subscription cost. Operations will be based in South Africa with the infrastructure hosted locally by Vodacom Business in their Midrand Data Centre.
Says Phillip Boshielo, Executive Head at Vodacom Ventures: “This international roll-out represents yet another important milestone in the development of The Grid as a leading social network. It’s also a milestone that I am particularly proud of. By making The Grid available to everyone everywhere, we’re harnessing the full power of the mobile web to create a truly global meeting place.”
The Grid can be accessed through its mobi site at http://wap.thegrid.co.za. Membership is free and members only pay standard data rates to their service provider.
This post was written by
Information Desk – who has written 236 posts on Mobility blog.
The Mobility blog Information Desk publishes press releases and general info on all things mobile globally.
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September 2nd, 2010 at 1:29 pm Browsing with
1st time am hearing about them.
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September 2nd, 2010 at 6:08 pm Browsing with
Was on the grid last year but dropped out because it was not that dynamic and exciting. I must say their application you download unto your phone is quite nice with good interface and you can download what others post on the grid.
Nice app on the phone but boring social network.
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September 2nd, 2010 at 7:59 pm Browsing with
When was the Nigerian Launch? Silly, First time I am also learning about it~!
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September 3rd, 2010 at 10:41 am Browsing with
Pheeww!! I wanted to comment on this yesterday, but decided to wait for others to confirm my opinion. The 1st time I heard of this GRID was yesterday, when Admin started this discussion. Since then I’ve searched for more info online, and have to say that the majority of 9ja’s infomaniaca have never heard of [or at least never participated in] this Grid. It’s not even in Wikipedia.
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September 3rd, 2010 at 1:25 pm Browsing with
I first heard of it when social networking on Prodigit. It was then as an advert of a coming event. We were asked to register for it and would be informed when its out. I did. I think that must have been in 2008. I was sent a text and download link last year and got it installed. I explored it for a while got some friends and downloaded a few pics and video but later got bored and dropped out. The app went with factory reset when i passed my nokia n78 to my boy.
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September 3rd, 2010 at 4:35 pm Browsing with
facebook, twitter, myspace, hi5 mxit, orkut, now the grid how many social networks can one subscribe to at a time?
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