Thursday, February 26, 2009

New Push SMS Services

After MyToday and SMS Gupshup, many new service providers are joining the crew by adding bulk push SMS services to their portfolio.
Aletrix, free SMS alert service from Spot On Media, a subsidiary of ValueFirst offers alerts on Career Tips, Cricket Trivia, Health / Fitness Tips and Inspiring Thoughts.

ibibo sms+, allows small businesses to send SMS at cost as low as 0.10 Rs. ibibo's rate card here.

SMS is generating revenues and also provides good setup for small, targeted and engaging advertising. I hope to see many other players in this arena soon!

Reliance to offer mobile stock trading

Volantis, wipro, reliance and religre have tied up to offer stock trading application via mobile. Stock trading will see new avatar as mobile stock trading is new for india. With 3G knocking the doors and stock trading becmoming prominant in India, this will bring radical shift in stock trading.

To download the application, you need to send MARKETS to 56636. Or else you can download this application using GPRS. RMoney.moby as they call this application will allow all reliance money users to directly login and trade through mobile. Though, this service is not active currently, people are waiting for it eagerly, says medianama.

Good news for indian music Bands

MyBand.co.in, website operated by nediaplus offers online community exclusively for Indian Music Bands. You can upload, share and sell music. You can announce events, interact with people and promote your band here! So, dear music lovers what are you waiting for??

This is second phase of social networking. What happens when one market saturates? Marketers tend to find a niche and design product around specific attributes. This is exactly what MyBand.co.in offers.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

MeDigit News

Digital and media stocks update for last week. http://cli.gs/pVTTrp

Long awaited mobile number portability starts from August. Cheers, India! http://cli.gs/8z1jQH

An insight in to Social media usage pattern of Indians. Indians spend comparatively low time on SNS. Orkut Rules!! http://cli.gs/NGybXU

Oodle, classified aggregator service provider to power AOL classifieds. http://cli.gs/NBuqA4

Study: Local / Mobile search has now overtaken yellow pages. http://cli.gs/UjmBBa

MySpace mobile - readying to beat facebook on mobile front. Mobile social networks on a roll... http://cli.gs/7Zut48

Twitter and question of Identity. A psychological point of view - must considered by markets. http://cli.gs/HpbBNY

Facebook and twitter are generating news around. What's the gist and who creates news?? http://cli.gs/SnrZ2q

What will you do when social media is not social anymore?? http://cli.gs/znVt1q

Mobile update: 8 upcoming technology that will change our lives! http://cli.gs/7GYstg

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

MeDigit News

Another Google application to make your life better. Google Power Meter - designed to measure your home power consumption. Application is still in test mode and will soon be launched [http://cli.gs/z2gNZ9]

Social networks join pact against cyberbullying. This pact is expected to improve safeguards against abuse of any social network online. [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29120870/]

Twitter - finally a new development on revenue generation front! I had posted before that something is wrong with twitter's revenue model... well, twitter is coming up with paid services for corporate. New features will be specially designed for businesses and will be charged!! [http://cli.gs/zLqW3m]

Find out what Microsoft still don't understand! [http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=3461]

Get ready for lower priced iPhone. $99 iPhone is scheduled to rock the market!! [http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/2/99-iphone-coming-this-summer]

Microsoft has picked up minority stake in mobile marketing firm Affle! Giant like microsoft taking interest in mobile marketing is surely a signal of mobile marketing becoming next big thing. [http://cli.gs/7VBBrj]

India on the way of Rural Revolution! State owned BSNL has started rolling out low cost Broadband connectivity for rural areas. The DoT has signed an agreement with BSNL to provide 8,61,459 connections to individual users and government institutions through rural and remote exchanges over a period of five years, i.e, by 2014. A good sign for Internet marketing industry! [http://cli.gs/2YdUbH]

LG mobile's marketing strategy... check out what's new. No one knows whether it will succeed or not. Worth reading I must say... [http://digital.afaqs.com/perl/digital/news/index.html?sid=23295]

Friday, February 06, 2009

3G launch in India by MTNL

Today starts a new chapter in India's mobile telephony sector. With 3G services soft launch in Delhi, MTNL has pioneered 3G services space in India. [Source: http://cli.gs/9qDh4S] With this, the most awaited and most anticipated chapter has begun and it will surely bring changes in the way mobile phones are being used in India.

Here is the snapshot of what you can do with 3G enabled smartphone:
  • Video conference on mobile.
  • High speed internet ranging from 256kbps to 2mbps accessible from mobile / computer.
  • Various data related VAS like: Mobile TV,GPS, Online Gaming, Video Streaming, High speed downloads
For accessing the MTNL 3G `Jadoo Service` a user will have to pay a onetime activation charge of Rs 500 and, thereafter, a monthly rental of Rs 599, besides usage charges with regards to voice calls and data downloads, MTNL chairman and managing director R S P Sinha said while launching the service. [Source: http://cli.gs/7L86Rr]

Usage charges for this comes around 5 Rs/MB. Of course, this is significantly high pricing and not affordable for large group of people. However, I would say that despite high pricing, 3G will find its usage in mobile telephony and will surely be a successful in India. High speed internet mobility is major problem for many of us and 3G is there to fill this need gap.
While 3G promises various advantages and promises, its success will largely depend on various other factors such as:
  • Long term pricing
  • Network feasibility
  • Adaptability of 3G services
  • Quality of services
  • How Indian consumer responds to it
As a marketer, I see lots of opportunities associated with 3G. Now a days, we hear lot of buzz about internet marketing, mobile marketing, advertising using social networks, blogs, microblogs and customer engagement through various applications based on Internet. Here is how I see 3G as major opportunity for marketers:
Internet possesses personal nature. That is, most of things you do on internet are personal. Be it your email, social networking sites, blog or anything else. Everything is accessed by username and password. The only barrier to this was non mobility of Internet! With 3G this problem will be solved and you will have access to your private mailbox, blog, photos and anything on internet wherever you want.
Potential is enormous, market place is changing, customers are responding and marketers are adapting to changes. Challenge is to tap the potential of this medium! MTNL calls its 3g services as "MTNL 3G JAADU". Let's see what JAADU it does to Indian telecom industry.

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Potential of Mobile

Here is a good article on Potential of mobile media as marketing vehicle on Bnet. Consumption of mobile as media vehicle is increasing and it is giving thrust to several para mobile industries. I am talking about industries such as Gaming, VAS, Mobile applications developments and WAP.

Figures are showing that mobile has penetrated up to last mile. In India, however last mile penetration is still distant dream and it will take 3-5 years to achieve this milestone. People's consumption habits of mobile is changing and it is becoming source of entertainment, information and communication needs; suggests this article.


As a marketer, I would say that Mobile is NOT JUST another media tool. Mobile's nature as media vehicle possesses few distinct features. It has Personal nature - same as a news paper as. Also, It is Persuasive nature because of its multimedia functions. Targeting on mobile is highly effective because of emerging technologies. It is these capabilities which gives mobile a distinct identity.

These are motivational factors for marketers and content providers to go Mobile. 'Rework your strategy to suit mobile and achieve good RoI by being present on mobile'. This is mantra for next gen marketing!!