Popular MXit upgrades
2006-09-24 22:35
Cape Town - The latest version of MXit, version 5.0, will be available for download from Monday.
The free cellphone instant messaging platform has taken the South African market by storm since its commercial launch a year ago.
There are currently 1.8 million registered MXit users with the numbers increasing by an average of 8 000 a day.
Herman Heunis, managing director of MXit says: "The response to the beta version we tested in early August was phenomenal. We put the wap site link out to a few selected users and within a day the news of the beta version had gone viral and there were over 3000 downloads.
"If this is the response from a closed group test then we can expect a fantastic response to a public announcement to the whole Mxit community."
The current version of the software, version 3, has been in use since May 2006. "I know what you are thinking," says Heunis.
"What about version 4? Well, there was a pirate version 4 doing the rounds a few months ago, so rather than confuse our community, we moved onto version 5."
There are a number of new features and functions to the instant messaging solution. The most significant is the ability to send and store files from text messages to pictures and ringtones.
The files are limited to a size of 150kb, which is slightly more than the size of a ringtone and the equivalent
of the size of most mobile games.
"This functionality is phone dependent but as the penetration of more advanced phones increases we will see more people using this functionality," says Heunis.
Heunis stresses that files can only be shared between contacts. This means that users will only be able to send and receive files from people they have actively accepted as contacts and with whom they are willing to communicate.
Users will not be able to post files in open forum chat rooms due to security reasons.
Other new functionalities include:
The ability to store up to 50 files on the MXit servers. Users can retrieve and forward files to individual contacts or a contact group of up to 10 members
The ability to personalise the MXit interface with a choice of skins
An emoticon menu for the easy use of the full range of emoticons when chatting
An online status menu to enable users to change their status to online, away or do not disturb
The ability to SMS to a MXit contact. The user will be charged normal SMS rates by the cellphone network provider.