The May event of Mobile Monday Mumbai is on the topic “Enterprise VoIP” and will be held on May 26th, 2008.
Topic:
Enterprise VoIP
In this session, we will learn how to setup a VoIP solution for your company using the open source telephony engine Asterisk.
This is the second event in the Asterisk series. Last month’s session was on how to create a VoiceSite using Asterisk.
Agenda:
- Hemanth Purohit, CEO, e-Horizons
- Group Discussion
- Dinner
When:
Monday, 26th May
7.00pm - 9.00pm
Where:
Netcore Solutions
4th Floor, Peninsula Chambers,
Peninsula Corporate Park,
GR Kadam Marg,
Lower Parel,
Mumbai - 400 013.
Click here to register.
Sponsors:
Venue: Netcore Solutions
Food & Beverages: e-Horizons
Sometimes introduction of a few pieces of detail makes you look at something you know - in a completely new way! Last month’s MoMo session changed the way I saw the Voice-based VAS opportunity.
The April event of Mobile Monday Mumbai was on the topic “Voice-based VAS”, in which we learnt how to create and run a voice-based content portal for mobile phones.
Voice portals are the equivalent of Web portals, giving access to content and information through the voice channel on a mobile phone or landline.
Some Voice-portals runs by Operators and Media companies are:
- 543212 of Airtel
- 56789 of Vodafone
- 51234 of Reliance
- 55456 of Idea
- 5057827 of Star TV
- 5052525 of Sony TV
- 5056882 of MTV
- 5057272 of Dainik Jagran
- 5056776 of Manorama Online
- 5055454 of Big FM
Website = Voicesite
One does not need VC funding to start a website today. Domain names and hosting are cheap, while designing and programming can be arranged in a bootstrap budget.
The economics of websites and Web 2.0 allowed proliferation of startups and encouraged innovation because it took little for a startup with an idea to do a beta launch, gather feedback from community and then invest in scale and product enhancements.
The lightbulb that got activated in my head was that - just like websites, Voicesite is “startup’s play”.
The VoiceSite - ApniAwaz 02218181818
Lets imagine a VoiceSite called ApniAwaz available on the number 02218181818.
Just like a radio channel has a brand name and frequency, a voicesite too has a brand name (ApniAwaz) and access number (02218181818).
So if a user comes to know of the voicesite, he will dial the number from his mobile/phone and listen to the content of his choice available on this voicesite.
So what does it take to start such a service.
The E1 line will allow 32 simultaneous incoming calls on a number. This E1 line will be connected to an Asterisk box which will provide a IVRS-based menu that can be programmed to serve content from the content server/space.
So what does it cost to start such a service.
- E1 line will cost around Rs 65,000 to acquire and roughly about Rs 8,000 per month to operate inbound calling
- Low-end server to host Asterisk and content should cost around Rs 35,000
- If you are a techie you can setup and program Asterisk
- Assuming audio content is available and IPR owned
Here is a diagram explaining the broad flow.
Apache = Asterisk
LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) played a crucial role in bringing down the cost of acquisition and operation of web servers. It brought the cost of websites within the reach of startups.
Without getting into the technical details, it would not be incorrect to say that the open source PBX & telephony engine Asterisk is to VoiceSites what the LAMP platform, (Apache in particular) was to websites.
Why the time for VoiceSites is now
Telephones have been around for more than a century. But the explosion of voice-based VAS and voice-portals happened only in the last 5 years or so. Why did it take that long for voice-based content services to take-off in India?
Some reasons that come to mind are to do with the readiness of the ecosystem and coming together of its entities.
- There was no critical mass i.e. it wasn’t a sizable market before 2002.
- Making STD or local calls was expensive for the user.
- Billing systems of telcos were not advanced enough to charge for non-voice calling items.
- Penetration of other payment instruments like credit/cash cards was low.
Three important hurdles have been removed from the growth path of Voicesites.
Potential market size as of May 2008 is around 275 million.
Open source technology like Asterisk makes it feasible for startups to launch innovative voice-based services. Therefore, lots of voicesites will get launched and the consumer will benefit from a choice of services at a competitive price.
Also, very recently most operators dropped national calling (STD) rates to Re 1. It means that by taking an E1 line from one telco, the service goes national. Users will access 02218181818 from anywhere in India and will only pay Re 1 per minute as call charges.
Business models
So how does one make money by running a voicesite? There are only two ways - advertiser pays or the user pays.
Charging the user for paid-content:
Credit card penetration is increasing at a good pace - India has close to 50 million credit card users. Cash-cards like ItzCash have also reached healthy usage levels. Therefore one way to charge users for paid content is via IVRS based online credit card or cash card charging. There are IVRS-based payment gateway companies ready to integrate with your voicesite.
Ad-funded model:
A voicesite can adopt the ad-funded model where the content is free and revenue is generated via audio-ads. Voicesites can be seen as on-demand radio. They are to radio what IPTV is to television. Therefore, radio advertisers would become the obvious target for advertising on voicesites.
But wait - voicesites are a better deal to advertisers than radio.
- Measurable ad delivery
- Captive listernership - user can’t fast forward or switch channel
- Actionable ads - advertiser can ask for response via IVRS
Voice portals are extending the reach and introducing new categories of users to value-added services, becasue they are multi-lingual and can be operated through IVRS or spoken commands (speech-recognition) without necessitating complicated downloads or settings.
The navigation menu, content and ads can be multi-lingual - a boon in a language rich country like India. Voicesites are handset agnostic and can be made available across operators on both CDMA & GSM networks. Even an illiterate rural user with the most basic handset can use the service.
The only limiting factor is the entrepreneur’s ability to think of innovative services!
So is there a catch? Am I missing something here? Would love to know from knowledgeable readers whether my lightbulb is faulty or is it indeed true that VoiceSites are an opportunity for startups and not just a realm of large companies.
The April event of Mobile Monday Mumbai is on the topic “Voice-based VAS” and will be held on April 28th, 2008.
Voice portals are the voice equivalent of Web Portals, giving access to content and information through spoken commands (speech-recognition) and touch tones by using IVRS.
Voice portals are extending the reach and introducing new categories of users to value-added services, since they are multi-lingual and can be operated through IVRS without complicated downloads or settings.
In this session of Mobile Monday, we will learn how to create and run a voice-based content portal for mobile phones.
Topic:
Voice-based VAS
Agenda:
When:
Monday, 28th April
7.00pm - 9.00pm
Where:
Netcore Solutions
4th Floor, Peninsula Chambers,
Peninsula Corporate Park,
GR Kadam Marg,
Lower Parel,
Mumbai - 400 013.
Click here to register.
Thanks to Netcore Solutions for hosting the event at its office and supporting the community.
Continuing the series on Mobile Payments and Commerce from last month, the March event of Mobile Monday Mumbai is on the topic “Wireless Commerce” and will be held on March 31st, 2008.
Thanks to PayMate for sponsoring the event and supporting the community.
Topic:
Wireles Commerce
Agenda:
- Akshay Sharma, AVP, Marketing & Brand Development, PayMate India
- Vishal Gupta, VP - Program Management, ClearTrip
- Saurabh Kanwar, VP - Content & Communication, Channel V
- Group Discussion
- Dinner
When:
Monday, 31st March
6.30pm - 9.30pm
Where:
Grapeviine
Club Peninsula,
Peninsula Corporate Park,
GR Kadam Marg,
Lower Parel,
Mumbai - 400 013.
Click here to register.
Sponsors:
The Indian budget for 2008-09 was expected to rationalise the taxes and duties applicable on the telecom sector. But the industry is dissatisfied with the proposals.
Business paper Mint, has a sectoral analysis of telecom.
Proposals: Customs duty on project imports attracting 7.5% proposed to be reduced to 5%; Customs duty on specified raw materials and inputs for use in IT/electronic hardware industry proposed to be reduced from 10%/7.5% to Nil, on end-use basis; National Calamity Contingent duty (NCCD) at the rate of 1% proposed to be imposed on mobile phones. On imported mobile phones, this duty shall be levied as additional duty of customs;
Impact: In view of the low telephone penetration in India, reduction in customs duty on project imports and on specified raw materials and inputs for use in IT/electronic hardware industry likely to reduce per-line capital costs and make telecom services more affordable.
TechTree has a sectoral analysis of IT.
Excise duty on wireless datacards reduced from 16 percent to nil.
Increase in grant of Rs 180 crores to the Department of Information Technology, and allocation of funds to set up Broadband-enabled service centers in rural areas. Allocation of Rs 1,680 crore (from an earlier 1,500 crore) to the Department of Information Technology in 2008-09 while allocated funds to set up 100,000 Broadband Internet-enabled Common Service Centers in rural areas, State Wide Area Networks (SWAN), and for a new scheme for State Data Centers. Rs 75 crores wil be provided in the next financial year to the common service centers; Rs 450 crores have been allocated to SWAN, while Rs 275 crores have been granted for the State Data Centres.
Zero customs duty on Set-Top boxes
The finance minister also announced that specified parts of set-top boxes and specified raw materials for use in the IT/electronics hardware industry would be exempt from customs duty. This could mean a drop in prices of set-top boxes as well as TV, DVD players, etc. Add to it, customs duty on convergence products to be reduced from 10 percent to 5 percent.
Also Read: Telecom set for tax overhaul
The February event of Mobile Monday Mumbai is on the topic “Mobile Payments” and will be held on February 25th, 2008.
Thanks to mChek for sponsoring the event and supporting the community.
Topic:
Mobile Payments
Agenda:
- Sanjay Swami, CEO, mChek
- Vivek Gawri, AVP Mobility, MakeMyTrip
- Q&A
- Group Discussion
- Dinner
When:
Monday, 25th January
6.30pm - 9.30pm
Where:
Grapeviine
Club Peninsula,
Peninsula Corporate Park,
GR Kadam Marg,
Lower Parel,
Mumbai - 400 013.
Click here to register.
Sponsors:
About mChek:
mChek is a Bangalore based mobile security and payments services. It recently won the GSMA Global Mobile Award 2008 for Best Billing and Customer Care Solution with Airtel for its mChek on Airtel postpaid bill payment service.
The mChek on Airtel mobile payments service has more than 60,000 transacting customers with a 90% repeat usage pattern, and has processed more than 100 million Rupees of mobile payments since its launch in September 2007.
Business Standard has an article on Netcore’s MyToday SMS service.
MyToday offers 20+ SMS channels on various topics like News, Sensex, Cricket, Jokes, Horoscope and Bollywood free-of-cost to subscribers.
A user needs to subscribe to the service by sending an SMS to a pre-designated number (9845398453) with the text START followed by the name of service (Like NEWS or JOKES).
Abhijit Saxena, CEO, Netcore Solutions:
“The mobile phone is a true convergence device which would shortly replace the TV and the computer and text messaging is the most potent medium to reach large addressable audience in the shortest span of time,”
Even though it is a recently-launched service, the company sends out around 8 million SMSes per day to around 2.5 million subscribers. It is also adding around 20,000 new subscribers every day.
Free of cost!? Here’s how Netcore plans to make money.
Netcore Solutions, which has a tech team of around 110 personnel working in Mumbai and Bangalore, is looking at recovering its expenses for providing the service through advertisements.
Below the text of the subscribed content, it provides advertisements and links to the websites of the advertisers. It has roped in Birla Sun Life Insurance, Tata Sky, Nokia, Prudential ICICI and Moneycontrol.com among others as advertisers.
Netcore Solutions is the company I work for, when I’m not busy blogging or organising Mobile Mondays.
The January event of Mobile Monday Mumbai is on the topic “Opportunities in Proximity Marketing through Bluetooth” and will be held on January 21st, 2008.
Thanks to TELiBrahma for sponsoring the event and supporting the community.
Topic:
Opportunities in Proximity Marketing through Bluetooth
Bluetooth Marketing is a way of allowing users to interact with an advertising panel or kiosk with their mobile phones to receive advertising content associated with a place or product or promotional content such as video clips, music, vouchers and coupons on their mobile phones in the vicinity of the display.
Agenda:
- Suresh Narasimha, CEO, TELiBrahma
- Rohinton Maloo, Director, TELiBrahma
- Q&A
- Group Discussion
- Dinner
When:
Monday, 21st January
6.30pm - 9.30pm
Where:
Grapeviine
Club Peninsula,
Peninsula Corporate Park,
GR Kadam Marg,
Lower Parel,
Mumbai - 400 013.
Click here to register.
Sponsors:
Aditya Mishra of TCS has written an event summary of MoMo Mumbai’s December event in the Mint newspaper.
First, rural does not indicate poor. Service providers found mobile users in rural areas willing to pay good money, if offered the right services. However, local content would be key to growing the rural VAS market, said Krishna Durbha, head VAS, business and marketing at Reliance Communications. For example, a farmer would be interested to know the mandi price in his area, rather than quotes from remote cities. The challenge for an operator is to aggregate content that is as locally relevant as possible.
A feature unique to rural customers is the seasonal nature of their finances. A farmer wants to sell his crop before he pays for mobile application services, said Arun Pande, head of the Innovation Lab at Tata Consultancy Services Ltd in Mumbai. He emphasized the need for local information by adding that a farmer doesn’t want to know the weather forecast for “northern Maharashtra but for his field.”
Aditya Sood, founder and CEO, Center for Knowledge Societies, joined the discussion from Bangalore via teleconferencing. He shared findings from his Mobile Development Report done for Nokia. Click here to download the report.
A research report “Future of Mobile Value Added services in India” done by Stanford University graduate student Mohit Gundecha and Prof. Tom Kosnik in association with BDA is available for free download. Its a must download for anyone interested in the Indian Mobile VAS space.
Was good to interact with Mohit and contribute my bits towards the making of this report; and he is kind enough to mention my name in it.
The report gives a clear idea of the current and future of the mobile VAS market, including analysis of the dominant players in every part of the value chain. Along with identifying the key challenges currently existing in the market and how these challenges will evolve in the future or be overcome, the report also discusses the future wave of product and service offerings and the industry sentiment around each.
For the full report download of “Future of Mobile Value Added Services (VAS) in India”, click here.
For the Executive Summary Presentation of the report, click here.
To watch the Video of the Launch Event held on Stanford’s campus where the findings of the report were presented, followed by a panel discussion of industry leaders, click here.
To watch the event over Mobile phone, click here.
The December event of Mobile Monday Mumbai is on the topic “Opportunities in VAS for Rural India” and will be held on December 17th.
Thanks to Reliance Communications for sponsoring the event and supporting the community.
Topic:
Opportunities in VAS for Rural India
70% of India is rural. Considering low PC penetration and lower internet/broadband penetration, the mobile has the potential to emerge as the content and communication platform for rural India. What are the content, applications and use case scenarios that leverage the mobile phone to solve problems and create opportunities for the rural Indian population.
Agenda:
- Anil Pande, Head - Product Developement Management, Reliance Communications
- Suresh Shanmugam, National Head - Business Information Technology Solutions, Mahindra Finance
- Jay Jain, Director, Astute Technologies
- Panel Discussion
- Group Discussion
- Dinner
When:
Monday, 17th December
6.30pm - 9.30pm
Where:
Plateau Hall
Club Peninsula,
Peninsula Corporate Park,
GR Kadam Marg,
Lower Parel,
Mumbai - 400 013.
Click here to register.
Sponsors:
I recently download the Opera Mini 4 browser on my Nokia 6630. And the experience of using it prompted me to write this post. I have been a long time user of Opera Mini and it transformed the way I consumed the internet/web on my mobile. The latest version (Opera Mini 4) has a new improved formula for cleaner-whiter browsing provides better browsing experience with such cool features like mini-map, landscape mode, mouse cursor, shortcuts and contextual keystrokes.
One test to check whether a product its indeed good, is to see if it increases the usage of any activity. Opera Mini 4 qualifies on that count; and the proof is my increased bill for GPRS usage charges.
I would rate the different browsers as follows, with the one listed at top as the best.
If you don’t have a latest Nokia phone like N95 or Apple’s iPhone - go for Opera Mini 4, to at least climb up the mobile browsing social ladder.
To download:
- Activate GPRS by calling your operator
- Get GPRS settings on your phone (most new phones come with settings, just select the one for your operator)
- Go to http://mini.opera.com/ in your phone’s default mobile web browser
- If your phone model is supported, the web-page will have a download link
Click here for a demo of Opera Mini 4.
The November event of Mobile Monday Mumbai was around the emerging area of mobile advergaming.
Advergaming is the practice of using video games to advertise a product, or brand. Such games, mobile or PC based, are generally free to download and play. Companies use advergaming as part of their brand promotion strategy.
Salil Bhargava, CEO of Jump Games made a case for advergaming showing how brand based mobile games help in brand recall and brand engagement. He presented a few case studies of some early adopters of the concept in India including Coca Cola, Thumbs Up, Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota movie and Bingo chips. The number of downloads such games generated was very encouraging and demonstrated the return on investment for brands. He also pointed out that advergames need not be complicated blockbuster games but can be simple to play casual games.
The value chain in advergaming includes the Brand, Advertising Agency, Game Developer, Operator and the end User. The brand pays for the development of the mobile game, ad agency co-ordinates the project, game developer charges for the development, operator charges rental for hosting the game and user gets it for free.
The panel discussion brought out the importance of involvement and buy-in from the ad agencies for making the concept mainstream and increasing its exposure to a large number of brands. There were concerns raised that the operators may not want to disturb their steady income from paid games by making available free advergames.
Nidhi Taparia from Tata Indicom pointed out that the operator offers not only helps in promoting the advergame but also is a cost-effective medium for distribution of the game.
Anant Rangaswami from Campaign India stressed on the importance of sampling for all stakeholders, especially the ad agencies which will be taking the concept to the brands. He said that unless account managers in agencies experience advergames, they will not be able to relate, leave alone sell, the concept.
Also Read: Gaurav Mishra’s blog post on the discussion at MoMo.
P.S. The MoMo event report is also carried by the Mint business newspaper every month.
The October event of Mobile Monday Mumbai was held around the topic “Permission Marketing Opportunities on Mobile“. More than 100 mobile industry folks from Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Pune participated in the panel and group discussion.
Although still in its infancy, the mobile permission marketing ecosystem is coming together in India. The event saw participants from various constituents of the mobile marketing ecosystem like publishers with pull, push and user-generated inventory, small and big advertisers, intermediaries like ad agencies and ad networks as well as the operators.
Panelists included SMS publishers, which are the equivalent in the mobile world to online publishers i.e. internet websites:
Rajesh Jain of MyTodaySMS.com - a SMS content channels service which is an example of push SMS inventory for ads.
Ajay Vaishnavi of 58888 - a request-reply service which has pull SMS inventory for advertisers.
Sanyog Jain of 160by2.com - a free SMS service, which provides half of SMS as ad space to advertisers.
Vinod Thadani of GroupM takled about the need for SMS publishers to collect profiles of their users so that greater targetting of ads can be provided to advertisers. There was discussion on pricing of SMS ads and how an ads-auction system similar to Google AdSense can create value for publishers and advertisers.
Rajesh Jain presented his ideas around SMS advertising and defined permission as “user in control” of the opt-in/opt-out as well as the mode and time of delivery. He also talked about how companies can use “Invertising” (invited-advertising), in which users choose to receive brand communication as content.
Some of things which are still work-in-progress include whether pay-per-response or pay-per-impression pricing will rule, DNC is still a black-box and not much is known about its impact on permission based SMS advertising, and the key issue of the value add done by operators in SMS advertising. The event concluded with acknowledgment of the potential of SMS advertising, the early adoption of the medium by mainstream advertisers and the need for industry innovators to work together and shape the fledgling mobile permission marketing ecosystem.
The November event of Mobile Monday Mumbai is on the topic “Mobile Advergaming” and will be held on 26th November.
Thanks to Jumpgames for sponsoring the event and supporting the community.
Agenda:
- Presentation by Salil Bhargava, CEO, Jumpgames
- Panel Discussion
- Group Discussion
- Dinner
When:
Monday, 26th November
6.30pm - 9.30pm
Where:
Plateau Hall
Club Peninsula,
Peninsula Corporate Park,
Lower Parel.
Sponsors:
Click here to Register.
Reliance Developer Programme of Reliance Communications has launched the Rural Mobile Application Contest, 2007 - 08 to encourage mobile application development in the country.
This year the focus will be on rural applications for transportation, m-commerce, health care services, governance, education, information and location based services that cater to the needs of rural population.
Applications can be submitted for WAP, Java, Reliance Java, Brew, Brew Lite, VoxML and Symbian environments on both GSM and CDMA technology.
The Contest is open to all Software professionals, Software Developers, Companies, Students, self employed professionals and Content vendors/ Aggregators.
The participants can look forward to cash prizes and an opportunity to monetize their applications.
For more details on the contest and to resgister for the contest log on to www.dadp.com.
With proliferation of mobile phones, it has become the medium of choice for marketers to reach consumers directly. But the mobile is a highly personal and intrusive device. Therefore, permission marketing becomes a necessity when using this medium. Regulatory measures like the DNC serve to enforce the permission marketing ideals.
In recent times, the mobile permission marketing ecosystem is coming together in India. There are various constituents of this ecosystem like publishers with pull or push based inventory, small and big advertisers, intermediaries like ad agencies and ad networks as well as the operators.
To discuss this evolution of mobile marketing, the October event of Mobile Monday Mumbai is being held on the topic “Permission Marketing Opportunities on Mobile”.
Agenda:
- Panel Discussion
- Rajesh Jain, MD, Netcore Solutions
- Ajay Vaishnavi, Director - Telecom, Indiatimes.com
- Vinod Thadani, Senior Director, GroupM Interaction
- Naveen Tewari, CEO, mKhoj.com
- Sanyog Jain, COO, 160by2.com
- Priya Gupta, CEO, SpotOn - Ad Network
- VeerChand Bothra, VP - Mobility Sales, Netcore Solutions (Moderator)
- Group Discussion
- Dinner
When:
Monday, 29th October
6.30pm - 9.30pm
Where:
Plateau Hall
Club Peninsula,
Peninsula Corporate Park,
GR Kadam Marg,
Lower Parel,
Mumbai - 400 013.
Sponsors:
Click here to register.
Joji Thomas Philip writes in ET that data compiled by TRAI reveal that SMS use has steadily fallen from September 2006.
- GSM operators have witnessed close to 9% drop in the outgoing SMSs during the Apr-Jun ‘07 quarter.
- An average GSM user now sends about 35 SMSs per month as compared to 39 during the previous quarter.
- GSM operators’ total revenue from SMS has now fallen below the 5% mark.
- During the Jan-Mar ‘07 quarter, GSM operators saw a 19% decline in outgoing text messages.
- Outgoing SMS per subscriber (for GSM) declined by 18.75% from 48 in Dec ‘06 to 39 in Mar ‘07.
- CDMA customers sent 20 sms during the quarter-ended June against 24 SMSs during the Jan-Mar ‘07 quarter.
Reasons attributed to the decline in usage and revenue are:
Upward revision in SMS tariffs by several GSM service providers. And rationalization of tariff plans, where many operators discontinued non-profitable SMS packages.
During the quarter, there have been tariff reports indicating reduction in the number of free and discounted SMS under various packs and plans, increase in the rate for SMS, restriction on the usage of free/discounted SMS on festival/customary days.
Steady increase in the minutes of usage. The average SMS usage is bound to fall as operators went rural because customers in non-urban areas are comparably less text savvy.
For GSM players, the average increase in outgoing minutes of usage (MOU) was 2.2% during the last quarter.
This may be good news for the VAS industry. Despite the dip in SMS usage, the overall VAS revenues is increasing every quarter.
SMS is no longer the single driving force behind VAS revenues — music, gaming and other applications contribute significantly
Announcing Barcamp Mumbai 2 (BCM2) at SOM, IIT Bombay on Sunday, October 14, 2007.
http://barcamp.org/BarCampMumbai2
The idea of a Barcamp is to turn the idea of a ‘conference’ on its head by removing all possible rules out of the way of a intense discussion. These are meeting places of people with great business ideas and ones with sound technical caliber where they ideate, discuss and brainstorm
on all the topics of common interest ranging from wildlife photography and venture funding to blogging and Flex programming.
Due to their widespread appeal and quality of discussion, Barcamps are increasingly being seen as hubs of technical entrepreneurship all across the world.
BCM2 is fast becoming a rage across the ecosystem with leading corporates like SUN and Nokia sponsoring the event.
The team of BCM2 has experience of organizing second, third and fourth Barcamps of Bangalore (4th Barcamp - July 28-29, 2007 - the largest in the world with 600 participants!) and the first Barcamp of Mumbai (July 2006) and multiple Barcamps in Pune.
Barcamps are free events - there is no entry/registration fee and you can register by simply editing the event wiki.
http://barcamp.org/BarCampMumbai2
Due to capacity constraint we might have to give preference to people who have registered, so it might be wise to register at the earliest.
