1. The Yoza Project
Steve Vosloo, Project Leader

2. The mobile revolution

3. www.yoza.mobi

5. Yoza Cellphone Stories
• A growing library of titles (26 at present)
• Some stories are serialised (a chapter a day) and every chapter of every story
has a comment prompt or vote prompt
• Stories found in English, Afrikaans and isiXhosa
• Stories are free but costs for mobile data (about 50 paisa / chapter)
• On MXit all comments are moderated before going live
• Available in South Africa and Kenya

6. What our users commented
“It's great ... for me it really hard to
pick up a book to start readin but i
don mind readin on my phone”
dotty1

7. Yoza stats
• Complete reads of m-novels: >121,000
• No. of comments: >34,000
• No. of votes: >44,000
• No. of MXit subscribers to Yoza: >61,000
(Period: September 2009 to January 2011)

8. “Aha” moment:
Mobile phones are a
viable distribution
platform for longer form
content and for enabling
user participation

9. “A gud st0ri alth0ugh vewi sh0rt id
lyk 2 c m0re 0n mxit bk0z it
enc0uragez readin!”
Lesleigh(F)

10. “If friar's plan wrks, then romeo wil b
able 2 cum nd take juliet wit hm 2 liv
hapily 2geda at mantua bt if it fails,
sumbdy's gna b dead. Lol!”
Elsie

11. Africa is “book poor”
but “mobile phone rich”

12. www.yoza.mobi
m4lit.wordpress.com

13. Southern African mLab
• Regional mobile applications
laboratories
• Incubation of innovative mobile
content and apps development
• Skills development and business
support for mobile apps
entrepreneurs
• Locally relevant solutions