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Afrinolly

Afrinolly is a mobile application (App) which allows African movies, movie trailers, short movies and music videos that have been made public by content owners or their legal representative mostly from the Nollywood film industry. Afrinolly is available for free on Android , iOS , BlackBerry , Nokia , Windows Phone , Windows 8 and Java-enabled phones.

Afrinolly (Android version) was developed in 2011 in Nigeria and submitted for Google Android Developers Challenge, Sub-Saharan Africa. After winning the competition, [1]Afrinolly has been downloaded by over 4 million users and has grown to most downloaded apps, designed and developed in Africa. [2]

History

In September 2011, Afrinolly was announced winner in the category of the first Google Android Developers Challenge, Sub-Saharan Africa in Nairobi, Kenya. [3] [4] After two rounds of scoring by an official panel of judges, one Nigerian app and two Kenyan apps emerged winners of the competition. Nigeria’s Afrinolly app emerged in the Entertainment / Media / Games category, awarded $ 25,000 to help them build and grow their business. [5] In March 2012, IT News Africa; A Technology News Leader in Africa listed as African Mobile Apps describing it as “well designed, loads quickly, easy to navigate and an African version of IMDB .” [6]

In May 2012, Afrinolly signed a partnership deal with leading African telecommunications provider MTN Nigeria to help drive Nigerian consumers and promote the Nollywoodindustry on mobile devices. Through a co-branding deal, the MTN Afrinolly partnership was launched delivering the Afrinolly experience to MTN’s base of subscribers spread across Nigeria. In the same month Afrinolly announced that it has over 450,000 downloads of its app on Android, Blackberry and Java. [7]

In February 2013, Afrinolly announced that the app had crossed the 2 million app download mark. Afrinolly has a progressive growth rate in terms of downloads across Africa. Ghana, South Africa and other African countries follow, USA, UK, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and India [8]

In March 2013, Afrinolly announced the first African Entertainment App for BlackBerry 10 with the release of its app for Blackberry Z10 and Q10 at the Blackberry 10 official launch in Lagos, Nigeria. [9] While in July 2013, Afrinolly announced the release of its app for Microsoft Windows 8 and Windows 8 scoring another first with its Windows 8 (PC) application as the first. [10]

In September 2013, after-HAVING-been downloaded over 3 million times across various mobile operating systems, Afrinolly signed a partnership deal with the leading African telecommunications giant MTN Group to not just drive app usage across the networks 16 operating countries in Africa aim aussi pour augmenter data use. The MTN Afrinolly Partnership was launched to deliver African Entertainment content via mobile devices to MTN’s subscribers across the continent. [11]

In August 2016, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg visited Afrinolly in Lagos, Nigeria as part of his first ever visit to Sub-Saharan Africa. [12] Zuckerberg wanted to see the creative hub of Nollywood , Nigeria’s phenomenal film industry. Afrinolly Space is a creative hub for filmmakers, screenwriters, mobile technology developers, animators and other creatives. Essentially Afrinolly’s studio The Afrinolly Space functions as “Where Technology Meets Art”. [13]

Afrinolly Short Film Competition

In November 2012, Afrinolly launched the first edition of the Afrinolly Short Film Competition ; A video-based competition targeted at developing film-makers and documentary / animation content creators. The competition aimed at showcasing African talent online, and providing a platform for fostering the creation of new online content produced by Africans was supported by MTN Nigeria , BlackBerry , iRep, and Goethe-Institut.

The competition was open to all Africans from across the world, creating or shooting movies of not more than 15 minutes. Participants are expected to upload their films to a dedicated Competition Website and the finalists decided by a panel of jury and public voting. Members of the panel of judges included award-winning Nollywood movie producers – Kelani Tunde , Femi Odugbemi and Obi Emelonye . Hollywood writer / producer and curator of The Black List Franklin Leonard , Mahen Bonetti of the New York African Film Festival and Nmachi Jidenma blogger and founder of Celebrating Progress Africa (CP-Africa) among others.

With $ 100,000 in cash and prizes, the Afrinolly Short Film Competition soon became the most prestigious Short Film / Documentary Competition in Africa. The first runner up has $ 10,000 and the second runner up received $ 5,000. 4th – 10th-place winners in both categories received $ 500 each. [14]

Competition Winners Season 1

Short Film Category :

First Place; Dara Ju – By Anthony Onah

Second Place; The Promise – By Akin Okunrinboye

Third Place; To serve with all our Strength – By Ishaya Bako

Documentary Category :

First Place; Hustle On A Mile – By Bemigho Awala

Second Place; A short “DOCUMENTARY” – By Soji Oyinsan II

Third Place; Black and Gold – By Joseph Akwasi

External links

  • Official website
  • Afrinolly on Twitter
  • Afrinolly on Facebook
  • Afrinolly on Google+

Reviews

  • “The Afrinolly Android App Review By Techloy [PHOTOS]” . Techloy.com . September 2, 2011 . Retrieved December 29, 2013 .
  • “Afrinolly: The Nollywood Database” . Connectnigeria.com . April 30, 2012 . Retrieved December 29, 2013 .
  • “People of Africa – Take a look at Afrinolly for BlackBerry 10” . Crackberry . March 29, 2013 . Retrieved December 29, 2013 .
  • “Apps Developed in Africa – Afrinolly” . Otekbits.com . July 19, 2013. Archived from the original on December 30, 2013 . Retrieved December 29, 2013 .

References

  1. Jump up^ Google Developers. “Android Developer Challenge, Sub-Saharan Africa Winners” .
  2. Jump up^ YouTube. “Africa Connected Success Story, Afrinolly” .
  3. Jump up^ Google, Africa. “It’s Time! Android Developer Challenge, Sub-Saharan Africa Winners” . Retrieved 13 September 2011 .
  4. Jump up^ tekedia. “Afrinolly Wins Google Android Developer Challenge, Sub Saharan Africa” . Archived from the original on 17 November 2011 . Retrieved 13 September 2011 .
  5. Jump up^ Balancing Act. “Google Announces Winners for the Android Developer Challenge for Sub-Saharan Africa” . Retrieved 16 September 2011 .
  6. Jump up^ IT News Africa. “Top Ten African mobile apps” .
  7. Jump up^ TheNextWeb. “How Nigeria’s Afrinolly app gets almost half a million downloads in 10 months” . Retrieved 6 July 2012 .
  8. Jump up^ CP-Africa. “Afrinolly crosses 2 million app downloads” . Retrieved 19 February 2013 .
  9. Jump up^ Otekbits. “Afrinolly Launches First African Entertainment App For Blackberry 10” . Archived from the original on 16 March 2013 . Retrieved 14 March 2013 .
  10. Jump up^ Techmtaa. “Afrinolly App Now Available For Windows Phone And Windows 8” .
  11. Jump up^ City Press, South Africa. “Nigerian start-up has real upstart” . Archived from the original on 2014-05-23.
  12. Jump up^ “Mark Zuckerberg Visits Afrinolly And Sees The Digital Future of Nollywood” . September 3, 2016 . Retrieved November 20, 2016 .
  13. Jump up^ “Photos: Facebook Boss, Mark Zuckerberg Visits Afrinolly, Meets Nollywood Stars” . August 31, 2016 . Retrieved November 20, 2016 .
  14. Jump up^ Premium Times . “MTN Afrinolly doles out $ 100,000 to encourage movie makers” . Retrieved 1 November 2012 .

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