infinit.mobi has launched: SA’s first mobile site for high quality cellphone videos

• Specifically produced made-for-mobile series with a local flavour give South Africans something they’ve never seen before, in a way that breaks the monopoly of the mainstream broadcasters
• First for South Africa:  20-part thriller and 20-part horror “mobisodes”
• From magic tricks and dance tips to hot girls and hotter cars to extreme sports to crazy stunts to animation – for adults, teens and in-betweens

Users can get the latest made-for-mobile video content, encoded to work with any video-enabled mobile phone. infinit.mobi has a huge selection of premium clips and subscription series for action fans, movie lovers, gamers, extreme sports enthusiasts, animation buffs and fast car junkies. It also features tips and tricks for anything from cocktail making to magic tricks to hot hip-hop and underground dance steps.

There are exclusive mobile series that infinit.mobi brings to South Africa for the first time: highlights are "When Evil Calls", a 20 episode made-for-mobile horror series, and "Cell", a 20 episode spy thriller. Also new are a number of the latest animated satire and mature humour series to be seen for the first time in this country. No piles of awful user-generated content to wade through to find an occasional gem, and no annoying adverts to sit through: infinit.mobi offers free and premium video clips of two to three minutes in length. It’s the kind of stuff you’ll watch over and over again when you’re at home or work, on the move, or out with friends.

“Until now mobile video uptake in SA has been restricted by the mobile operators with their limited content offering and network lock-in; by web videos that download slowly and often don’t display properly; and by the ‘let users upload their stuff and hope some of it is any good’ content model. Now with infinit.mobi we start to have access to great content and a real alternative to the broadcasters that choose what you can and can’t see,” says Rowan Polovin, chief executive of MEDIAS.

Videos are divided into categories such as music, animation, entertainment, babes, tips and tricks, music, sport (skateboarding, biking, snowboarding, motocross and other out-of-the-mainstream kinds), “crazy and dangerous” for wipe-outs and inspiring acts of talent and lunacy, a variety of “how to” guides, car videos from CAR magazine, men’s interest (bikini babes and glamour girls), women’s interest (including content from Saltwater Girl) and maths and science education videos from Mindset.

Much of the premium quality content on the platform has been produced by MEDIAS using local talent. The instructional dance series, called "Getting Down", is an inspirational and funky fusion of multiple dance styles from different cultures across South Africa, enhanced by locally produced music.  “We wanted to create a series that was truly South African,” says Polovin. “‘Getting Down’ is multiracial and multicultural and encourages South Africans to stop fretting and just get down and dance. It is a truly positive production.”

The variety of content is enormous. The cocktail making series was produced using expert bar tenders to teach cocktail making tips and recipes. Well-known magician Marcel Oudejans presents a how-to series on magic and bar tricks called ‘Mobimagic’. Each trick is has both a performance and a ‘reveal’ section, showing it in action, as well as how to repeat it to others. There are several more series in the pipeline.

This ability to reach niche audiences will bring a revolution in the SA video and entertainment scene – there are so few options for broadcast that anything other than the most mainstream content simply has no way to reach audiences.

The service has been built with ease of access and usability in mind. Users visit infinit.mobi via their mobile phone browser, and select the video or subscription series they want, either by browsing the selections or choosing from the most popular material. They select what they want, and infinit.mobi deducts the amount (averaging between R5.00 - R10.00 per clip, although there is excellent free content) from their airtime and sends them the content. If they subscribe to a series (such as ‘Cell’), they will get sent an episode from the series on a regular basis. Each video is encoded to be no more than a few megabytes for fast download, but still have clear display and smooth motion.

Users can also SMS a keyword to 32876 (charged at R1.00) to receive a link to a piece of content. This feature is great for magazine articles or print ads wanting to link stories with video material.

infinit.mobi is a proprietary technology built by MEDIAS to solve several usability issues with video on mobile devices, such as handset compatibility and content delivery. The infinit.mobi technology will deliver the video selection site as well as the content in the most suited format for a user’s particular handset. The technical team honed their skills developing the MyVideo.co.za service, which offers SA users a local site to upload, share and view videos on the web.

The company has big plans for the future – extending this video platform into Africa and the rest of the world. It is also in advanced discussions with other media companies, brands and ad agencies to develop customised mobile video solutions for their marketing campaigns or to extend their print, radio and TV content onto mobile – the last great frontier of broadcast and publishing.