A sign of the times: Mimiboards. For meaningful messaging

That's what the guys at Umuntu Media asked themselves - and they came up with a novel and highly effective noticeboard for today's digital world - the Mimiboard.

You, as a media company have three basic aims: To be relevant to your target market and the centre of their universe; to create and place real, meaningful information right there where your target market will see it and respond to it; and you want to make money out of it.

Mimiboards will allow you to do just that, using free-to-use technology, so that you can aggregate all your communication channels on an easy-to-use noticeboard, embed the conversation on your website and drive traffic to it - keep it there, and generate revenue while doing this.

And all it takes is five minutes.

"Every morning when I wake up, I cannot wait to get to the office and introduce Mimiboard to more media owners. Being in the media industry for years I understand the challenges, Mimiboard solves some of those challenges for the industry. And that is why it works and grows so fast. We are extremely positive about the future of Mimiboard and what it can do for the local content and monetisation ecosystem in Africa and then the world," says Johan Nel Umuntu Media CEO and founder.

Mimiboards are rapidly spreading across the continent and media owners from South Africa, Namibia, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria are the first adopters and are loving it. The proof of Mimiboards success is the uptake: even though it's still in the Beta stage and with almost no marketing, the Mimiboard network is attracting a million visits per month - and that is expected to reach five million visitors a month by February 2013. The monetisation model is due to be launched early next year.

So why such an uptake?

"Because it works," says Nel. "Mimiboards get the message across, whatever that message might be. Mimiboards are taking off because there is a need forthem. You can use them to advertise goods for sale, a schedule change, restaurant specials, offer a lift to another town, or advertise that job you need to fill, now!

"Like the noticeboard in the school or business, Mimiboards are the place where people come to find out what's going on, and what they need to know, and want to know. The boards become the heartbeat of a local area and when backed and managed by local bloggers, community leaders or media owners, they quickly become indispensable," says Nel.

Bok Radio: "We find that users visit our website on a daily basis to read our Local news on Mimiboard. They are using us for their everyday content needs. And that is awesome."

PC Tech Magazine: "The current challenge is that the in-country editorial teams haven't found their feet regarding the consistency of content. Mimiboard facilitates content creation and allows me to become the centre of my community."