SA Rocks

I received a press release from a good friend of mine today. It’s pretty interesting and extremely relevant to this blog. SA does rock and it’s often very hard to explain this to local people, let alone foreigners.

What you will need to experience the below is relatively simple: A cellphone, a connection, The Grid and bob’s your uncle. To access Mobikasi, sms mobikasi to 33313 (50c).

Mobikasi Promo Video from Cow Africa on Vimeo.

What it is

Mobile social network The Grid on 5 November launches Mobikasi, South
Africa¹s first geo-tagged documentary for cellphones, which explores youth
culture in Soweto. Mobikasi utilises The Grid¹s 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 Grid¹s map interface, or by physically touring the
famous township and watching documentary clips on their phones at the
locations where they were shot.

How’s it work?

I have a profile on The Grid already so I simply searched for and found the Mobikasi group, joined it and began downloading and viewing the videos (blips) in the group. I am incredibly impressed with the ease of use, simplicity in accessing the group, grid and videos. Very quick to download and incredibly viewable content that isn’t at all typically condescending, insulting or aggravating as much “documentary” content emerging out of SA seems to be. In fact I found the videos to be well produced and very cool.

The Content

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 Soweto¹s premier hangouts Sedibeng, Back Room and the popular
Sunday buy-and-braai spot Panyaza.

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