One of the famous African proverbs about friendships says that “To be without a friend is to be poor indeed.” Without a doubt, in today’s world your network matters a lot, and the power of friendship can’t be underestimated.

Considering this, Nigeria’s Opera Mini users have every reason to be happy because, with Opera’s built-in chat service called Hype, finding new friends across Africa, and chatting with them is now only one click away.

While Nigerians are generally friendly in nature and enjoy networking, making new friends can be daunting for some, especially those that would like to branch out and make friends across the continent.

What better way to broaden your network of friends than with Hype?

Hype is currently available and quickly gaining popularity in English-speaking African countries, with over 2.4 million activations so far. Recently, Opera introduced the Find new Friends feature with the new version of the chat service, Hype 1.3, in response to requests from Hype users who were interested in making new friends and finding interesting people to chat with.

This new feature allows you to chat with someone new with just the tap of a button. In less than a month since it was launched, it has already become a hit with many users. So how does this new feature work?

To start finding friends anytime anywhere, just open your Hype account, click “Find New Friends,” and voila! You are matched with a random person who clicked the same thing and is also willing to make new friends.

This is as easy as it gets, but that’s only the beginning of the fun and excitement. Hype has designed this feature so that you don’t know the age, nationality, occupation or any other details about your match, besides their name and profile picture. That way, people will just be enjoying the conversations.

So, when you find yourself on a weekend where there is no social function like a wedding to attend or football game to watch, or when you just feel like starting a new friendship with a fellow African, this feature is your lifeline.

Furthermore, Opera has infused some handy tips to ensure that the Find new Friends feature remains safe for all.
First, when a match is made, go ahead and chat away, but keep your privacy mode on. Then, if the conversation is going well and you both agree to become friends on Hype, you can find each other later and continue the conversation. Second, if you find the match to be uninteresting, you can simply end the chat at any point and find a new match.

Moreover, if you’re an MTN or Airtel customer, you get to enjoy daily 50MB of free browsing in Opera Mini and free chatting in Hype. That is up to 1.5GB a month, which allows you to chat with your friends on Hype without any ‘wahala.’ To get your free data, download the latest version of Opera Mini and just start browsing.

Now that we know how great a feature it is, how do you get onto Hype?
It’s simple. Hype is built into the Opera Mini mobile browser, so to activate the Hype account you just need to get the free Opera Mini application. Set up a Hype account by tapping the Hype logo at the bottom of the Opera Mini browser, or through the O menu. Next, choose your name and take a selfie or upload a personalised photo - it will become your profile picture and be visible to other Hype users. Then you can sync Hype with your phone’s contact list and start chatting with others.

In addition to finding new friends, Hype lets you easily browse the web, chat with existing friends, share self-created memes, stickers and GIFs with other Hype users, and find people with the same interests, all in one app.

So, all you need is to step out of your comfort zone, put yourself out there, just a bit, and make new friends from the comfort of your device. As they say, “the more the network, the higher the net worth.”