Close Menu
TechCentralTechCentral

    Subscribe to the newsletter

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    Facebook X (Twitter) YouTube LinkedIn
    WhatsApp Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentralTechCentral
    • News

      Blue Label Telecoms to change its name as restructuring gathers pace

      11 July 2025

      Get your ID delivered like pizza – home affairs’ latest digital shake-up

      11 July 2025

      EFF vows to stop Starlink from launching in South Africa

      11 July 2025

      Apple plans product blitz to reignite growth

      11 July 2025

      Nissan doubles down on South Africa despite plant uncertainty

      11 July 2025
    • World

      Grok 4 arrives with bold claims and fresh controversy

      10 July 2025

      Bitcoin pushes higher into record territory

      10 July 2025

      Cupertino vs Brussels: Apple challenges Big Tech crackdown

      7 July 2025

      Grammarly acquires e-mail start-up Superhuman

      1 July 2025

      Apple considers ditching its own AI in Siri overhaul

      1 July 2025
    • In-depth

      Siemens is battling Big Tech for AI supremacy in factories

      24 June 2025

      The algorithm will sing now: why musicians should be worried about AI

      20 June 2025

      Meta bets $72-billion on AI – and investors love it

      17 June 2025

      MultiChoice may unbundle SuperSport from DStv

      12 June 2025

      Grok promised bias-free chat. Then came the edits

      2 June 2025
    • TCS

      TCS+ | MVNX on the opportunities in South Africa’s booming MVNO market

      11 July 2025

      TCS | Connecting Saffas – Renier Lombard on The Lekker Network

      7 July 2025

      TechCentral Nexus S0E4: Takealot’s big Post Office jobs plan

      4 July 2025

      TCS | Tech, townships and tenacity: Spar’s plan to win with Spar2U

      3 July 2025

      TCS+ | First Distribution on the latest and greatest cloud technologies

      27 June 2025
    • Opinion

      In defence of equity alternatives for BEE

      30 June 2025

      E-commerce in ICT distribution: enabler or disruptor?

      30 June 2025

      South Africa pioneered drone laws a decade ago – now it must catch up

      17 June 2025

      AI and the future of ICT distribution

      16 June 2025

      Singapore soared – why can’t we? Lessons South Africa refuses to learn

      13 June 2025
    • Company Hubs
      • Africa Data Centres
      • AfriGIS
      • Altron Digital Business
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Altron Group
      • Arctic Wolf
      • AvertITD
      • Braintree
      • CallMiner
      • CambriLearn
      • CYBER1 Solutions
      • Digicloud Africa
      • Digimune
      • Domains.co.za
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • Incredible Business
      • iONLINE
      • Iris Network Systems
      • LSD Open
      • NEC XON
      • Network Platforms
      • Next DLP
      • Ovations
      • Paracon
      • Paratus
      • Q-KON
      • SevenC
      • SkyWire
      • Solid8 Technologies
      • Telit Cinterion
      • Tenable
      • Vertiv
      • Videri Digital
      • Wipro
      • Workday
    • Sections
      • AI and machine learning
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud services
      • Contact centres and CX
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Electronics and hardware
      • Energy and sustainability
      • Enterprise software
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Lifestyle
      • Motoring
      • Public sector
      • Retail and e-commerce
      • Science
      • SMEs and start-ups
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Events
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home » In-depth » SA social network Qooh.me takes flight

    SA social network Qooh.me takes flight

    By Editor31 August 2011
    Twitter LinkedIn Facebook WhatsApp Email Telegram Copy Link
    News Alerts
    WhatsApp
    Vincent Mabuza

    Hazyview, Mpumalanga-based Vincent Mabuza, 23, is a candidate attorney with a passion for technology. He’s started a service called Qooh.me that allows users to ask one another questions anonymously. Launched in May, the service is enjoying explosive growth and already has more than 170 000 registered users.

    Users can limit their replies to questions to Qooh.me, or share them on Facebook and Twitter. Mabuza says Qooh.me makes it easier for people to get to know more about each other, beyond the information they post on their social media profiles.

    Mabuza got the idea for Qooh.me in 2009 after seeing similar services on offer in the US and Europe. He’d just finished studying law and says he thought the idea would work well in SA.

    “I’m really interested in technology, but while I was studying I didn’t want to mix business with pleasure,” Mabuza says. “But I still wanted to start some sort of technology company because I have a strong entrepreneurial spirit. It became a matter of getting the right people and resources together.”

    Mabuza says he realised early on that building and hosting in SA wasn’t feasible because of the costs involved. Instead, he outsourced the development and design to a team in India and employed a Romanian-based developer to provide quality assurance services.

    Launched just four months ago, Qooh.me grew slowly at first, much to Mabuza’s dismay. He said his friends told him to be patient. They were right to say that. At the beginning of August, the site had only 2 000 users, but in the last four weeks usage has skyrocketed.

    “When sign-ups hit 8 000, I started to get excited,” says Mabuza. “There are now more than 170 000 registered Qooh.me users”.

    Mabuza says most of the growth has come from the mobile browser version of Qooh.me. “SA is dominated by mobile,” he says. “If you don’t have your approach to mobile right you’re doomed. So I told the designers that I wanted to see what it would look like on a mobile first, even on small screens.”

    Rather than trying to make applications for each major platform, Mabuza says he decided to focus on support for BlackBerry devices and the mobile Web browser Opera Mini. “You reach the most people with a mobile Web browser.”

    Qooh.me founder Vincent Mabuza hams it up (click image to enlarge)

    The BlackBerry Curve 8520 is the most used device on Qooh.me, and also the one causing the most headaches for Mabuza.

    He says it’s difficult to develop for BlackBerry devices and that during testing the BlackBerry Internet Service would often time out when trying to load the page. “I don’t even own a BlackBerry, but there are so many of them in SA that you simply can’t ignore them.”

    Qooh.me conducts regular user surveys about the site and how easy users find it to navigate and makes changes accordingly.

    Mabuza doesn’t have global ambitions for Qooh.me — at least not yet — and instead wants to “acquire users and build a local service that offers SA users new ways to interact with each other and consume information on the Internet”.

    He does, however, hint that he plans to extend the functionality of the service once the user base is large enough. “Once there are, say, 500 000 users we’ll be adding more social networking-type functionality.”

    For now, Mabuza pays the monthly hosting costs associated with Qooh.me himself and says he has had to postpone incorporating advertising or otherwise monetising the service because as a candidate attorney he isn’t allowed to have outside business interests.

    Qooh.me Web screenshot (click to enlarge)

    “If I start adding advertisers and focus on monetising the site, I might impact my standing with the law society. For now, it’s a hobby really.”

    Mabuza has already had an offer of about R450 000 to buy the service. “I figure they just wanted the database. I thought about it, but I want to grow the site further before I consider selling it.”

    For Mabuza, Qooh.me is primarily about allowing users to discover more about their friends, and that it’s with this end in mind that the service offers integration with Facebook and Twitter.

    “If I’m your Facebook friend, I can ask and reply to questions openly or anonymously. Some people are using it more like a chat service.”

    He says that because users can easily add their Facebook friends there are “enough early adopters to keep it growing” and that it was the move to Facebook integration “that really got the sign-ups to take off”.

    “SA is a great place for technology start-ups,” says Mabuza. “In some ways, SA is like China without the firewall. It’s a place where rapid growth is possible because there’s an enormous number of people who are only just getting online.”  — Craig Wilson, TechCentral

    • Subscribe to our free daily newsletter
    • Follow us on Twitter or on Facebook


    Facebook Qooh.me Twitter Vincent Mabuza
    Subscribe to TechCentral Subscribe to TechCentral
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email Copy Link
    Previous ArticleMalema: the online reputation cost
    Next Article Operators must up service game – Bain

    Related Posts

    Yaccarino out: Musk’s handpicked CEO quits X suddenly

    9 July 2025

    Shrimp Jesus and the AI ad invasion

    4 June 2025

    Silicon slip-ups: the tech industry’s biggest flops

    29 May 2025
    Company News

    $125-trillion traded: Binance redefines global finance in just eight years

    11 July 2025

    NEC XON welcomes HPE acquisition of Juniper Networks

    11 July 2025

    LTE Cat 1 vs Cat 1 bis – what’s the difference?

    11 July 2025
    Opinion

    In defence of equity alternatives for BEE

    30 June 2025

    E-commerce in ICT distribution: enabler or disruptor?

    30 June 2025

    South Africa pioneered drone laws a decade ago – now it must catch up

    17 June 2025

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2025 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.