Today is a big day on the Grid – we’ve just launched a 25-episode documentary about youth culture in Soweto, the famous South African township. The documentary, called Mobikasi, is the first to be delivered exclusively by a locative mobile social network like the Grid.

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.

To access Mobikasi, sms mobikasi to 33313 (50c).

Check out the photo gallery on the 5FM blog.

What is the Grid?
The Grid is a social network that uses your mobile phone to connect you with people, places and events around you. From your phone you can see which friends are in your area, chat to people across South Africa and share photos and videos ­ wherever you are.

The Grid is overlayed on street maps, meaning you¹re able to tag content to specific addresses, recommend venues (e.g. restaurants) and even find directions to venues recommended by others.

For your phone, The Grid is available as a downloadable Java application or, to those without Java capabilities, a WAP site. There is also a full-feature website as well as a handy Facebook Grid application for when you’re stuck behind your computer.

To get the Grid on your phone sms grid to 33313 (50c)