The app, called JudgeME, helps people meet each other by uploading photos and answering a handful of questions. Other users can guess the answers to the questions, browse the photos and ask for a virtual introduction.
Developed for MXit by Motribe, the app has served more than 31m page views, with uploaded photos rated more than 3m times.
Motribe CEO Nic Haralambous says part of this growth is thanks to MXit’s sizeable user base and its desire for new applications and offerings.
“When you point 10m active users at something it’s like washing your face with a firehose,” says Vincent Maher, Motribe co-founder and the technical mind behind the app.
To date, 9% of the JudgeME users have bought something using MXit’s virtual currency, Moola, generating more than 100 000 successful transactions.
Maher says the application was built in around a week using MXit’s API. He says that given its current rate of uptake, JudgeME could become the most successful app on the MXit platform in its history.
“In total, we’ve had just over 400 000 users access it and 100 000 of those have set up profiles,” Maher says. “We’re seeing 30 000 to 40 000 new users a day.”
According to Motribe’s statistics, 65% of users are female and by far the largest age group is 19 to 25, who account for 62% of the user base.
“It’s not quite dating,” Maher explains. “It’s more about casual introductions to people, or social discovery in the MXit environment where it can be quite hard to find people outside of your immediate social group.”
The service makes money by charging users 1 moola (or 1c in cash terms) to skip a photo. Users can buy “bulk skips” at cheaper rates — for example, 60 skips costs 50c. Users also pay the equivalent of 20c if they wish to upload a second photo to their profile, and R10 to introduce themselves to other users.
“The average transaction per paying user is 65c while the average revenue across the entire user base is 2,63c,” says Maher. He says the service is seeing in the region of 3 500 transactions per day.
