A South African company has teamed up with Facebook to allow users of the social networking platform to send unlimited free SMSes to one another.
Egypt currently has the 5th largest user base of the application, following South Africa, UK, US and Australia
Cape Town-based Fontera has joined the trend of adding applications to Facebook by launching Nudgemii, which allows users to send text messages – “nudges” – of up to 70 characters to one another's cellphones.
Grant Fleming, director of Fontera, says: “This is the first application of its kind by a South African company on Facebook”.
Facebook was the first social networking Website to open up its system to outside developers and has a menu of about 1 400 applications that have been added on to it.
Simon Leps, CEO of Fontera, says: "For something to be considered a true form of social networking, it needs to go beyond your computer. Creating an application that links to your cellphone therefore seems like the logical next step."
Nudgemii is installed on an individual's Facebook profile and will send an SMS to fellow Facebook users with a “nudge” to alert them that they are online.
The SMSes can be sent anywhere in the world, as long as both the person sending and receiving it are Facebook subscribers and have installed the Nudgemii application.
Fleming says while they have created the Nudgemii application in a way that prevents people from “spamming”
