Mxit looks to give ‘kickstart’ to indy developers

Massively popular youth-based social network Mxit is looking to give small-time developers a boost with its ‘Developer Kickstart Programme’.

Under the programme, independent developers who develop for the Mxit platform will be given the chance to “get their apps promoted on Mxit, and find their users”.

The rules for the programme are pretty simple:

1. Only newly published apps on Mxit can apply. (published in the last 8 weeks)

2. Early-stage / independent developers only. Big companies won’t qualify, we want to subsidize developers who are just starting on their own, and can’t afford to buy ads in bulk.

3. This is an experiment. We may discontinue the program or change it at any time.

The programme appears to be the latest attempt by the platform to assist its developers. At the end of March it launched a new set of developer APIs as well as a redesigned Developer Centre.

At the time, it claimed it was shifting to open web standards, meaning that anyone who wanted to develop for the platform could do so easily.

Developers can also reportedly tie their apps into the Mxit payment system, called forin-app microtransactions. The social network claims that the payment system has over ten-million global users.