MXit’s innovation manager speaks …

Although MXit is an exciting development in the South African social media space, it has suffered from a lot of FUD.

As per Wikipedia, FUD is “Fear, uncertainty and doubt: a tactic of rhetoric used in sales, marketing, public relations.” I believe the same FUD created by some South African journalists, politicians and parents around MXiT has caused MXit to shy away from interacting with any of these concerned parties.

Not any more.

MXit has agreed to let their Innovation Manager, Gavin Marshall, answer a few questions regarding this mobile instant messaging platform which is the lives of millions of South Africans…(7 million and growing, to be exact.)

A typical day in the office for Gavin Marshall, MXit’s innovation manager:

Morning cup of coffee
Reading through email, RSS feeds, blogs & articles on trends and innovation.
Then do any of a number of things:

drawing mindmaps of a new idea,

putting together a spec for a new product,

sitting in a brainstorm meeting,

reading posts on the MXit forum, or what other people have had to say (Google alerts),

reading up on new technology or what’s happening on the web and trying to see how we can apply that to our platform.

following up with my team as to what they’re busy with, assigning tasks or brainstorming a new idea or problem to solve with them.

developing a prototype or proof of concept for a new idea.

getting the rest of the crew excited about a new concept or idea.

doing research on a number of things – either trying to solve something, or figuring out how something can be done

finding out from people who don’t work for MXit what they would like to see

To clear the air: Will Vodacom/MTN/Virgin Mobile/Cell C ever block access MXit?

I don’t see that happening. MXit is a legitimate service.

I see MXit adoption in South Africa with mobile internet users as a great opportunity to educate/introduce other local mobile and online social networking tools like Liv.tv, TheGRID, BlueWorld.co.za even International startups like BrightKite, Twitter and Facebook.

Without delving into MXit’s business strategy, would MXit ever consider collaborating with other Mobile Social Networks? If MXit has in the past, can you name a few examples please.

I think that people are realising that the walled garden approach with social networks isn’t going to last — with the creation of a number of open API’s, especially Google’s Open Social, collaboration between social networks is where it seems to be going. So yes, that is part of the Evolution.

Will we see MXit on the iPhone?

hmm — can’t say much about that.

MXit is growing internationally with over one million users outside of South Africa. What are the three top countries with the biggest user base outside of South Africa?