We certainly would not have it any other way but before social media, life was less complicated and more connected with the use of South Africa’s first messaging app, Mxit.
Mxit: Going down memory lane
Before WhatsApp or BlackBerry Messenger was even a thought, South Africa’s 90s and 80s babies were connected via a virtual chatroom known as Mxit.
It was easy to download, super light on data (you could chat all day for as little as 10 cents) and if allowed people to connect and build relationships from all corners of the country.
Mxit is the brainchild of Herman Heunis, founder of Swist Group Technologies. The idea was born from the failures of Arya, a massive multiplayer mobile game that was SMS-based. At the time, GPRS was not widely used and for this reason, Arya was too expensive to maintain.
When was Mxit founded?
In 2003, Heunis reassessed the failures of Arya, applied genius and launched its successor, Mxit.
The death of the chat app was inevitable. Digital technology and sciences evolved over the years and Mxit, which by 2013 had undergone several management changes, could not keep up.
Eventually, the company was officially shut down in October 2015. The application can be downloaded and used, but it is no longer the responsibility of Heunis, Naspers or 2go.
Who owns the chat app now?
In fact, all of its intellectual property and assets have been transferred over to a non-profit organisation, The Reach Trust.
Mxit might have been sent packing by WhatsApp and the like a long time ago, but its memories are still fresh in our minds. That era of social media is nothing like how it is today.
Social media revisits Mxit old tales
At a time where truly, nothing is real in today’s virtual world, it doesn’t hurt to harken back to the good old days. On Tuesday, Mzansi Twitter found itself going down memory lane and brought up tales about the legendary chatrooms.
Here are some of our favourite:
