Two Kenyan artists, Brian Omolo and Lulu Kitololo were selected to collaborate with Opera, the Norwegian browser developer, in creating original sticker packs that reflect everyday expressions unique to Kenyans for Hype, its new dedicated chat service.
Hype, the first African inspired chat service which is built into the mobile browser Opera Mini offers its users a series of stickers created by the two Kenyan artists and as such, Opera has become the first major browser developer to collaborate with African artists.
“We are extremely happy to celebrate African culture with Hype and we are very excited with the end result and the collaboration we had with Brian and Lulu,” said Charles Hamel, Product Lead for Hype. “These unique stickers with original designs are something we are very proud of at Opera as we become the first major browser to integrate real African art and pop culture into our products.”
Hype is launching first in Kenya as a pilot market, were starting today, users will be able to easily set up their Hype account and start chatting with secure end-to-end encryption.
Current messaging services were created almost a decade ago, and none of these has ever focused on having such a collaboration with local artists to make online conversations more engaging. This unique offer from Hype stands out from other chat services and provides Kenyans with the ability to express themselves more accurately when using chat apps.
Today, people are relying on new formats like memes and stickers to express themselves, often relating to pop culture references and internet content they find. To make this easier and fun, Hype brings WebSnap, a feature previously known from the Opera desktop browser, that allows users to take snapshots from the web.
Once a websnap is captured, users can edit it by adding colours, text, and emojis, making it fun and entertaining before sharing it with others.
WebSnap also allows users to smoothly share the link of the original website from which they took their snaps. This comes in handy as users no longer need to copy links from websites and switch between apps to share the content they want.
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