CellZapp Blog

TRAI as we might....

2011-10-31T12:42:00.000-07:00

There is a lot of information out there about TRAI creating new regulations to fight SPAM so we will not attempt to report on it here. We like many others understand TRAI's goal to improve the customer's experience and eliminate SMS SPAM harassment. However the recent regulations have certainly not properly accounted for the fact that SMS services do add value and especially those that a user specifically opts-in for. Furthermore regulations have made interactivity a lot more cumbersome for users which destroys a key value proposition for SMS. We are sure that over the days as the regulations and unintended drawbacks become more apparent TRAI will create rules that align with those in many countries (where opt-in and interactivity thrive).

Gamification of SMS

2011-04-14T13:01:00.000-07:00

Happy to see WATBlog cover Hungama's Cricket Stock Exchange game.

Our piece in this game is the Pavilion which allows users to engage with content via SMS and earn virtual currency that can be used in the game. The integration is seamless and as users engage via SMS their winnings are reflected in their CSX$ balance.

We believe this is an ideal mechanism to enable users to earn virtual currency on social/mobile games in the Indian market (and possibly other SE Asian markets where credit card/Paypal penetration is low especially amongst younger demographics). This mechanism is similar to "offers" that game players on social networks can participate in, so as to earn currency. In the CSX game the offer is to engage with content that is relevant to the game itself but this could be extended to any form of engagement (including with third party content - take a survey, rate a movie/product, agree to subscribe to receive new video/game/application links, etc.).

In an earlier article WATBlog covered how Facebook and Zynga had partnered with MOL to bring credits to the Indian market via gift cards. We think that SMS offers enabled via our platform could be an attractive alternative for users.

Ouch: BSNL connectivity issues

2011-04-13T07:30:00.000-07:00

Working to resolve this asap. Impacting outgoing messages.

Unique low bidding game on BSNL

2011-02-09T11:31:00.000-08:00

Just launched unique low bid game on BSNL. To play, SMS BID to 59595. First item for bid is a Nokia E5 handset.

Rolling out Bol Bindas on BSNL 59595

2010-08-10T14:24:00.000-07:00

One more community deployed. SMS BOLB to 59595 (BSNL customers in India). Users can pick one of four communities to participate in: Taza Khabar, Bolllywood, Sports, Love Tadka.

Boliye BINDAS, kamaiye points, jeetiye rewards!

Have Your Say on ESPNStar

2010-05-18T09:56:00.000-07:00

Here's a biggie for us. We've powered a SMS sports community for ESPNStar. SMS HYS to 53776 (India).

Thrilling on many levels. Sure its a huge milestone for our company. More so, its huge for sports nuts like us. Being a sports nut is now also counted as work. Perfect!

Chirp 2010

2010-04-20T14:43:00.000-07:00

The first Chirp (Twitter developer) conference took place last week and this presentation is great. It validates why we built the twextter application. Slides 15-34 cover SMS. Enjoy.

Eating our own Dogfood - Twitter Mobile

View more presentations from lrechis.

SMS crazy

2010-04-04T10:47:00.000-07:00

In this day of iPads, iPhones, App stores we get asked why we are nuts about SMS. These new products are thrilling and represent a great opportunity. But if you want your mobile marketing campaigns to reach a broad target audience, SMS is the way to go. A picture is worth a thousand words and this one from Chetan Sharma Consulting (Global Wireless Data Market 2009 updated March 2010) is excellent.

CellZapp in the mix :)

2010-03-29T13:27:00.000-07:00

A little publicity. With the right crowd:

July Systems, Indiagames, GoBindaas Ink IPL 3 Deals; Complete List Of Mobile Partners - MediaNama

twextter is born

2010-03-18T08:22:00.001-07:00

We are extremely proud and pleased to release our Twitter app, twextter, to public beta. We love it - but then again there is just a hint of bias in this assessment! Its a simple little app and hope folks love it too. We'll take some time to gather some feedback and then promote it in earnest.

On a separate note we've got another great client SMS 2.0 community project underway. Can't say a whole lot now. Just that we are excited about it.

UPDATE: Aug 10, 2010

Twitter launches Fast Follow: http://blog.twitter.com/2010/08/introducing-fast-follow-and-other-sms.html

This can be a big game changer for SMS marketing vendors. As we outlined in our Twextter use case slides (http://www.slideshare.net/cellzapp/twextter-use-twitter-to-run-sms-contests-campaigns), Twitter can serve as a SMS platform for marketing events. Why would a brand want to pay to acquire a short code, hire services of a SMS marketing application vendor and then pay for SMS costs? If users can follow their twitter ID (and do so without needing an account) that would reach out to a majority of their customers via the mobile phone (all phones). Those wishing to respond back would need to SIGNUP (using this command via SMS). Twextter becomes a perfect SMS marketing app for these brands.

We got a sense of this as we talked to digital agencies in India. Brands would certainly appreciate not having to pay for SMS costs and now they can do so. We also realized that we should focus our SMS community product for customers who wanted to make money via premium short codes (which Twitter does not enable) and those who already have an established SMS brand identity (a shortcode, a keyword, a long code). Lets see how this all plays out.

CellZapp partners with GoBindas

2010-02-16T12:24:00.000-08:00

CellZapp partners with GoBindas (http://www.gobindas.in/Partners.html) to deploy SMS 2.0 marketing services in Indian market.

CellZapp launches Radio Indigo SMS 2.0 Community

2009-10-27T22:18:00.000-07:00

Yippee! On our way - went live Oct 23.

Nielsen white paper on SMS marketing

2009-08-12T23:46:00.000-07:00

Love it! They write about short codes (free) in SMS marketing campaigns. Similarly these concepts can be extended to long codes which can be used in combination with premium/free short codes. Lots of interesting possibilities and we're happy to be in the mix.

Here's a link to get to the full report.

Mobile Market Report - SMS Usage In Urban India

2009-07-14T07:38:00.000-07:00

Great report! Key points:

* 1 in 5 urban Indians have used a SMS based VAS service either as a one-off or on subscription basis
* SMS is an effective marketing tool, showing conversion rates a lot higher than other conventional mediums i.e. TV/Radio etc. 1 in 3 Urban Indian has acted in some manner over the SMS i.e. forwarding to others or enquiring about it.
* SMS, an advertising medium, has an interaction rate of around 5%
* A quarter of urban Indians have participated in some sort of SMS contest, a valuable tool for getting consumers involved with products/services

Mobile Market Report SMS Usage In Urban India

View more documents from CellZapp.

SMS 2.0 Marketing - CZ Intro pitch

2009-07-06T13:12:00.000-07:00

Time flies when you are having fun. Its been way too long since our last update. We've been in hand-to-hand combat mode - trying to win over new clients.

Thought we would upload our latest presentation. Contact : umesh@cellzapp.com; 9886624054

CellZapp SMS 2.0 Marketing July 2009

View more documents from CellZapp.

Just a few things..sms, mobile app

2009-04-11T13:30:00.000-07:00

Couple of items to clear up -

We had a SMS glitch for a bit on Saturday evening-night. Connectivity issue with the operator. Resolved now and hope it stays that way.

Mobile application - just to clarify this again. We are in a closed beta phase for this part and only support a few Nokia phones. If you requested to download the application and your phone is not supported we will contact you via phone/sms. We are looking for folks who are willing to participate in the closed beta and most importantly to provide detailed feedback.

And we're off...

2009-04-06T09:51:00.000-07:00

and running.

Here is our launch email.....

We are pleased to let you know that we have gone live with our beta release. Please check out http://www.cellzapp.com/, specifically the partner, faq, sms commands pages, the two tours, and ofcourse the zappatap link.

Many thanks to those who have supported us in getting to this point.

To our beta sign-ups, we appreciate your interest and hope to further engage with you.

To our friends, family, associates and business contacts – well, we just had to share this news :)

What’s next? This is just the beginning and we are focusing on three key areas as we move forward:

1. Partnering - we are working on partnerships with brands, media houses, movie studios, IPL teams, political parties, etc. and mobile eco-system players, to launch customized communities. We will use a “white label” approach to proliferate our products.

2. Executives - we are building out the leadership team (preferably Bangalore based) to support growth.

3. Investors – we are engaging with investors to raise Rs. 3-5 crores to take us through the next phase of development and to support partnering/deployment.

As always, we would appreciate any assistance in these three areas, or if you’ve got other ideas that could help us move forward, please contact us by replying to this email.

Thanks again. The journey continues.

Best,

CellZapp team

Beta...

2009-03-17T21:55:00.000-07:00

Whew! Almost there. Just a few loose ends to wrap up. We've got a closed beta on the mobile app under way to gather feedback and debug (initially on a couple of Nokia phones). (And - we've given up on IE6 so please do not look at zappatap with this browser!)

We've started engaging with potential partners so the heat is on.

We'll get more prolific with this blog as we get past this launch period.

Meanwhile if anyone has feedback you can always reach us via this blog or email us at info at cellzapp dot com.

Hello World!

2008-05-01T10:55:00.000-07:00

here we come...