Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the hummba side

The Castrol Chicken Run kicked off on the 7th of December 2009 in Bloemfontein. The Chicken Run is sponsored by Castrol Magnatec and is a proudly South African road trip to six cities in five days. Ten teams are taking part in the race that covers a predetermined route of almost 2000 kilometres. Pretoria is the final destination where the first team to cross the finish line wins the R50 000 prize money. Hummba came on board to track the route and publish geo tagged photographs of the event to Facebook and Castrol’s www.hummba.com profile. Hummba was launched in April 2009 as a mobile application and social network for travellers. On hummba, users can share geo tagged travel photographs and travel routes with their friends. Users can also download free audio travel guides to their mobile phone and post their own audio recordings of discoveries they’ve made while travelling.

“We’re really pleased to be included in this extraordinary event. We’ve had some very positive feedback from the users on the road and from the content we’ve published to hummba and Facebook,” said Mark Allewell, COO of hummba. “We’re really enjoying watching the road trip as it unfolds and look forward to being part of many more of these events in the future.”

Hummba was a finalist in the 2009 Loerie Awards in the Digital Website Category. A new version recently been launched that allows users to connect directly to their Facebook profiles and post Footprint photo albums live from their mobile phone. Currently available on Nokia GPS-enabled mobile phones, the application will be released to run on the iPhone, Android and Blackberry in March 2010. “We look forward to making an interactive, location-based travel service available to many more people. We’re prepared to host many more independent travellers during the 2010 FIFA World Cup, as I’m sure the guys from the Castrol Chicken Run will tell you…we’re not chicken,” said Allewell. Rallied on by ‘Magna Chicken,’ the country’s first bionic chicken and mascot for the Castrol Chicken Run, contestants are halfway through the challenge, due to end on the 11th of December 2009. For more information about the Chicken Run and to view the trip, visit the Castrol Chicken Run Facebook fan page or log on to www.hummba.com.