2go Heads for smartphones After Cracking Feature Phone Challenge

2go, mobile social network is extending its successful feature phone app to smartphones, while growing its team of software developers and support staff.
 
The mobile social network currently has over 10 million active users who send more than 6 billion messages a month, mostly on lower-end feature phones in Nigeria and South Africa.

“Feature phones have been an incredibly successful platform for us and will continue to be so for the next few years at least’ said Alan Wolff, who founded 2go with fellow student Ashley Peter while still at university.

“Research firms such as Informa indicate that by 2015 there will still be 5.6 feature phones in the African market for every one smartphone. But now is the right time to start extending to iOS, Blackberry and Android platforms as well” Wolff added.
 
The secret to 2go¹s success, said Wolff and Peter, is careful attention to user needs and a rock-solid technical foundation.

They say this is especially important in African contexts where users face high data costs
and scarce bandwidth.
 
“We¹ve custom-built both the user app and our backend systems to work fast, reliably and efficiently” said Peter.

“We¹ve been self-funded from the start and so we¹ve learned how to make the most of very scarce resources ­ we still have a very low ratio of engineers to users.³With our recent rapid user growth and the emergence of newer platforms such as Android and iOS, there¹s now a need to aggressively grow the team”  he added.

Wolff also said that “We are actively recruiting new developers who have an appetite for the technical challenges we¹re taking on.² Having abundant resources can make people lazy”

“We didn¹t have money at the beginning, so we had to squeeze every last bit of performance out of our hardware. That¹s why we still own, control and manage all of our servers, which now total more than 50. We¹re working very close to the hardware layer.” He continued.

These backend challenges are mirrored at the level of the feature phones the 2go app was originally developed for. Wolff notes that designing a successful app for feature phones brings complexity not faced in the smartphone world.
 
The company is currently on the lookout for world class developers with expertise in Java, Blackberry and Android.
 
“2go recruits passionate developers who want to make an impact on the world while solving complex problems,² said Wolff.

“The most interesting challenges in software development are not necessarily the most glamorous. We¹re solving problems at the level of millions of users, which makes for a stimulating technical challenge. We¹re also enriching lives by providing affordable, entertaining communication” he also said
 
2go is a mobile social network targeting users in emerging markets, particularly in Africa with over 20 million registered users.