As most of you know, I joined Vodacom to head up the social networking portfolio in June last year and have been hard at work on our flagship product the grid. Last year we won the Comms MEA award for best new telecoms product and in April we launched the grid in Tanzania. Since September we have released four versions of our Java mobile application, each with substantial technical and functional improvements and today we launch the fifth version along with our new web site. Today we also launch our new web site and OpenGrid, our API.
This post will explain some of the feature highlights, the thinking behind the changes and discuss what is probably the most significant change of all, the launch of location-based web and mobile advertising.
The new web site
As with previous products I have worked on like Amatomu, the Mail & Guardian Online and Thought Leader, this site has been a labour of love. There isn’t any other way to build a system that has soul.
It is quite unusual to start with a mobile social network and retroactively translate this into a web environment, so a lot of thinking went into how the visual language and the user experience of these two media differ. From the outset it was clear that we needed something that fits with what web users understand a social network to be, given that they are probably regular visitors of Facebook, Twitter and blogs. As the production of the site unfolded, it became clear that the narrow, low-bandwidth display of our mobile application has profoundly influenced the way we treat data structures. One of the biggest adjustments that we had to make technically was to allow for richer data for display in lists and detail pages about content and users. Another was the inherent difficulty in synchronizing instant messaging with all the other components of the system.
The web site was built on Open Source Software using Apache, MySQL, PHP, CodeIgniter, JQuery and the OpenGrid API (more on that later). Below are some of the highlights.
New and fast maps
We are really proud of these maps, they are running on our new map servers and are substantially faster than our previous maps. They appear inline on most pages and can be used to get a quick overview of where the content is coming from.
Beautiful Blips
With the introduction of aerial photography onto the maps the blips really come to life.
Twitter integration with location push
You can now set up the grid to push status updates from your profile directly to Twitter. When you do that we append “near (Location Name)” to your tweets so your followers can see where you are tweeting from. This is possible from the Java app and the web site as of today.
Inline instant messaging
The grid’s IM functionality is available anywhere during a session on the site. Users can send you messages that pop-up while you’re browsing and you can reply there and then. This means that IM is not going to get in the way of other activities. Significantly this allows you to chat with someone logged into our mobi site or the Java application seamlessly.
Real-time alerts
Based on an idea in some of the earlier brainstorms last year from Tyler Reed we put in a Growl-style alert system that keeps a user up-to-date without having to specifically visit the Alerts page. Inside alerts you get status message updates, location changes, blip notifications, friend requests and all the other stuff we alert users about.
Inline friend requests
Friend requests are displayed in the sidebar, making it easy for users to accept or deny requests while using the web site.
I’ll leave the rest for you to discover, this is just a small taste. If you discover any bugs, send them to me and we’ll fix them 
Location-Based Advertising
This is a news story in and of itself. One of the most significant elements of the new web site and Java application is that some of the advertisements are delivered based on the location of your cellphone. For launch we have partnered with Nandos, Sportscene, Jay Jays and Synergy pharmacies to deliver advertising within radii ranging from 0 – 10km from your physical location, delivered via the web. When an ad is location-targeted on the web you will see a line of text below it that tells you how far away from you the physical location is. Nandos have used this to pinpoint some of their stores in Cape Town on our maps and have customized each ad to that specific location.
On the Java application we have introduced two new text ads on the dashboard that can also be location-targeted and clicked on by the user.
New Java mobile application
Today we also launch our new java application for mobile phones. Here is a list of the new features:
- A dashboard when you land open the application that has shortcuts to all the most popular functionality including your mobile blog and a map of where you are
- You can now set your online status to busy, away etc
- You can now set your mood with a choice of different smiles
- The maps have been re-skinned
- Maps now show profile pics of users close to you
- The menus have been re-organised into sub-menus
- Status updates can now push to Twitter with location
- The login process has been streamlined to get you into the app much faster
- First-time users get prompted with a 3-step wizad to set up profile and sync their phone addressbook with the user list
- The Blackberry version has several keypad shortcuts and navigation modifications that bring it more in line with other Blackberry apps
- You can now change the settings for SMS alerts. This means you can turn off friend requests via SMS, which many users will like
- Your local weather is now available on the dashboard
- There is now a list of new users
- There is a new “quicksearch” function that allows you to find users and blips much quicker
- You can now create public chatrooms
- Your friends can be organised into groups and you can create a group conference very quickly
- You can now set the number of blips to display on a map
To get the application on your phone, SMS ‘download’ to 33313 (50c)
OpenGrid API
The new grid web site was built 100% on top of the new grid API called OpenGrid. The API allows partners to use our LBS service which aggregates MTN and Vodacom and use all the backend functionality of the grid. Although its called OpenGrid we are not opening it to the general public because of the legal and privacy agreements that first need to be in place to guarantee our users safety. That being said we are looking for development partners and are set to assist with the launch of one new service built on the API during the coming two weeks. If you want to work with us, send me an email vincent at vincentmaher.com and I’ll send you more details.
From here
There are five more announcements coming so watch this space over the coming weeks as we roll out our full product line.
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