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(Disclosure: I know someone who works for Mimo- he invited me to check it out a few months ago while the site was in a much rougher state and asked me to give some feedback and suggestions before I wrote this post)

I’m a big Twitter user- not that I have a ton of followers or anything, but I like to post. A big thing about using it in Vietnam is that it was hard to use it via mobile- there are all sorts of stupid things I want to say when I’m in a taxi or just out and about, random things I want to take pictures of and have them posted immediately online (it’s not the same to post them hours or day later, it’s all about the moment). I’d love to do a better job of sharing my life in Vietnam with friends and family over in the US.

Like I said, Twitter is not really so practical via mobile here (think of the costs to send a SMS internationally), and thus I’ve been hoping for a solution to this for a while, and it didn’t necessarily have to be free. There was a free Twitter/SMS option I saw sometime last year, but they would always embed their tag in your post, which I didn’t like so much.

I then started using Mimo. Mimo is Twitter. For Vietnamese (the site is hosted in VN, and the default language is Vietnamese). And when I say it’s Twitter, it really, really, looks like Twitter. And while that might scream “knock-off” or “clone”, I think it’s actually pretty good. I’d actually call it more of a Twitter Plus.

Mimo = Twitter Plus

Mimo has a ton of features that a lot of people wish were already in Twitter, while at the same not making the UI overly messy nor removing anything that people love about Twitter. To me, it’s obvious the Mimo team has used Twitter or at least researched how people use it.

• SMS Support: this is the big one for me. It’s 500 VND (about the same price as a normal SMS, I believe. 500 VND is 2.7 cents in USD) to send an SMS, but free to receive SMS from Mimo. So you can follow a ton of people and get their posts on your phone at no extra cost even if you never post. You can do a ton of things via SMS, like follow, private message, block users, even register. It’s a bit much for me, but I think you could basically use Mimo without going to the website at all if you wanted. The only bad thing I’ve found is that MMS is not supported, so you won’t be seeing silly pictures from me. Yet.
• Sync with Facebook and Twitter: since I’m on both Facebook and Twitter, this is pretty important to me as well. Now I can send a SMS update to Mimo for less than 3 cents, and my sister in the US sees it on her Facebook instantly. The sync works both ways, I’ve confirmed- if you post on Twitter or Facebook, it’ll come back into your Mimo.
• Language Support: Mimo supports both English and Vietnamese, and the English has been done really well! No signs of broken Google-translated English anywhere.
• Attachment functionality: up to 20 MB per post, supporting basically any file format you want. It’ll show images and play music files inline as well. Thumbnails next to the post text make it obvious when there’s an attachment. You can’t watch videos on the site yet, though, there will just be a download prompt.
• Webcam: support for avatars and uploads. Too bad you can’t record videos yet though.
• Apps: Mimo has a seriously ridiculous amount of apps ready for it. I use TwitterFox for Twitter, and Mimo has a version of it out already. They’ve also got apps for Adobe Air and Windows .Net, and you can use Yahoo Messenger (it’s the number 1 IM client here) with it. Now they just need an iPhone app, and they can go claim themselves king.

In terms of the UI, and not messing anything up, let me give you an example:

Mimo UI Basics:

• Top Center: Pick your Language. UK flag for English, Vietnamese Flag for Vietnamese.
• Upper Right: If you like to type with diacritics (accents), click that.
• Left of Avatar: Webcam uploads, Attachments, and Character Count.
• Upper Left: (below Mimo logo) autocomplete username on replies – it’s like Facebook when you search! When you start typing @ and the beginning of someone’s username, Mimo will suggest people based on whom you’re following for the autocomplete.
• Individual Posts: Favorite / Reply / Copy. Copy is basically Retweet- they do it the old school Twitter style, adding RT and copying the text of the post into the text entry box.
• Right Navigation Menu: If you have a new reply or Private (Direct) Message, it will let you know in an obvious manner (like Gmail). I always thought the total Direct Messages count you see in Twitter was useless- I could never tell if I had something new because I don’t remember what the count used to be.

Here’s an example of what a post with an attachment (photo thumbnail on the right) looks like:

Now, here’s Twitter’s UI:

Super familiar right? But that’s what I mean by Twitter Plus. If you already like Twitter, getting into Mimo is easy, and it has some nice small enhancements that make the experience a good deal nicer. I’m going to be using both Mimo and Twitter- Mimo to post updates and interact with my Vietnamese friends, and Twitter to monitor what my American friends are up to in the US.

Some negatives:

• I am not sure Hot Topics is working right. I like the Twitter one, where you can see all the new trending and hot topics. I hope they can fix this, as getting real time insights into what Vietnamese people are thinking and doing would be pretty awesome. Imagine stuff like when VN has a big football (soccer) match, and everyone’s getting ready to go out in the streets, or everyone is excited to see Avatar 3D at Megastar, but can’t get tickets.
• No Free SMS – ok, so I’m being picky. That’s not really a negative, that’s just me being greedy. Maybe they can have an ad-supported version in which you can send SMS posts for free. You could opt in to receive 2-3 SMS ads per day, and then you would be able to post to Mimo for free.
• Already mentioned: MMS not supported yet, no direct video playback, no video through webcam, no iPhone or Mobile app (so what if I don’t have an iPhone), but there is a WAP site, m.mimo.vn. GPRS in Vietnam can be super slow though, I’d rather stick with SMS.
• It took me 3 hrs to update my Twitter badge on the upper right (below the header) with a Mimo one. Why is this a negative? Because I am lazy and like to complain.

Some people to follow:

• SaoNoiTieng: trash talking gossip.
• QuaCauMaThuat is like Magic 8 Ball. I tried it (alright, I was a little drunk) with a friend via mobile, answering it random questions, and it would give me those random answers like back when we were kids. It does support English, it just depends on what language you have selected in the Mimo UI.
• Eduard Kazanov and Tommy Tran: Eduard and Tommy are listed as two of the Suggested Users when you register for an account. They’re celebrities/VIPs as models/actors, and they’re actually very nice. I happen to know them and for whatever reason, they got me a pass into the Hard Rock Cafe grand opening. So that’s a plug for them!

Of course, feel free to follow me on either Mimo or Twitter:

• www.mimo.vn/genericdude
• www.twitter.com/genericdude

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