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.
