Vodacom launches Facebook Flex for free status updates, comments

Vodacom wants to get you updating your Facebook status again, but its new product will let you do this for free. Dubbed Facebook Flex, the product is the “first of many” and will allow Vodacom users to access Facebook’s basic version.

This means that users can post comments, update their status and keep in touch with others’ text posts without depleting their data stores.

Vodacom explains that Facebook Flex will aim to reduce the cost of communicating with friends and family in the country.

Facebook Flex will allow users to update their status, comment on users’ posts but not view photos or video

“Network operators like ourselves have a role to play in reducing the digital divide, particularly between those in urban and rural areas,” explains Nyimpini Mabunda, chief officer of Vodacom’s consumer business unit.

“In all our efforts we are mindful of the immense pressures that consumers face which are largely associated with the cost to communicate. The popularity and the extensive use of social media services such as Facebook as a means of communication has made it a necessity rather than a luxury.”

Users will need to sign up to the service, but once enrolled, Vodacom customers can access the massive social media site using its traditional URL, or dialing *111*32#.

The company notes that if users intend to view video of photographs, they’ll need to switch to “data mode”.