Web Application Design, Development & Innovation in Cape Town

M-Net’s Big Brother Africa Revolution has formed a strategic alliance with mobile social network and instant messenger MXit to provide a free voting and chatroom platform for fans of the popular reality television show. Big Brother Africa Revolution is bigger and better than before, filled with conspiracies, alliances, and entertainment.

To make this season the biggest ever, producers have doubled the prize money to USD 200 000 and audiences will be asked to vote for the housemates they want to see remain in the series rather than the housemates they want to see leave the house.

“Big Brother Africa Revolution is a very exciting initiative for us, because it fits so perfectly with our recent expansion into Africa,” says Juan du Toit, international marketing manager for MXit. “

MXit already has an extensive footprint across the African continent and is gaining enormous registrations in countries like Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and the rest of the continent. Its success is based on its ability to provide users with fun and interactive community participation at a fraction of the cost of sending text messages or making voice calls.

MXit partnered with the reality show to afford its users free voting, with the ability to cast up to ten votes for their favourite housemate. They’ve also provided the unique experience of truly interactive TV by giving their users the ability to chat about contestants in Big Brother Africa chatrooms while watching the goings on in the house from their TV screens. Without a doubt MXit has taken the social networking experience to a new level.

““The African mobile market is excited about mobile social networking, and we are meeting their demand for this by offering a range of exciting services and features that is synonymous with the global MXit community, says Du Toit.

“Africa’s mobile market is expected to yield the highest social networking on a mobile phone growth over the next three years. In a survey of mobile users across the continent, we found that 65% of our respondents believe that social networking on a mobile phone is the best, and cheapest, way to keep in contact with friends and family. Now we can extend this to voting, especially for Big Brother Revolution, who has a gigantic following throughout the continent.”

“Big Brother Revolution is screened across sub-Saharan Africa and voting for free on MXit via their mobile phones makes complete sense.”

Big Brother Revolution is screened 24 hours a day on DStv channel 198 or 199 and sees housemates from Angola, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique competing for the grand prize.

Viewers who would like to vote via MXit must have a WAP enabled mobile phone in order to download the application. Once the download has been complete, select MXit’s Tradepost, Voting and the final step is a Big Brother Africa option which will enable the user to cast a vote, chat in the chatrooms, access contestant info and profiling, latest updates all for no charge.

Viewers will see the winner of Big Brother Revolution walk off with the largest reality series prize that M-Net has ever offered at the series Finale on December 6.