Would Twitter have survived if it was an Indian company? I seriously doubt it. I mentioned this at a talk which I gave at Startup Saturday too. In India, a business is pretty much considered a failure if it is not making money.
I’m sure the guys at twitter have some really good plans because they’ve been raising a decent amount of money off late. The popular techblogs, TechCrunch and Mashable love talking about twitter. In fact TechCrunch even gave a justification a few days back.
Here is what SmsGupShup.com is doing to monetize their business….
SmsGupShup launched back in May 2007 and WATblog was one of the first to review them. They went on to become pretty huge. They raised around $10 million in funding and is one company which proves to you that ‘Mobile’ is going to be huger than ‘Internet’ in India.
I have the group cricket on SmsGupShup.com and as you might guess, it has quite a few members in it. Last count it had around 28,500 followers. So these guys from SmsGupShup.com call me today and notify me that they are going to spam my group with an ad. It wasn’t a request! They were just letting me know that they are going to be sending an advertising message.
So I ask them, ‘Do I get a share of the profits?’
Which I feel is a pretty valid question. Its my group, I’ve built it. If you are going to monetize it, why don’t you share profits with me? To which the person on the other line says, ‘Of course not. You’ve been using a free service for this long.‘
I get their point. Thats the difference between an Indian co. and maybe a US based co. They need to make money. But I don’t like the approach. I use SmsGupShup.com because its free. They are already authorised to send a 20 character ad with every msg I send! They’ve lost a member today who used to be an evangelist for their product.
What do you feel? Would you continue using a free service like Twitter, which sends advertising messages to all your followers?
I feel smsgupshup needs to meet its cost. And though I havnt used SMSgupshup, M sure you can send a message to your group which can be a advtg. You have that privilege. rite?
Sooner or later I feel we shall see twitter doing the same …
btw: was gr8 listening to you @ssmum
this what their term page says:
The sender of any message deemed to be “spam”, “marketing” or “mail bombing” to any other user or users will be liable for Rs. 5,000/- for each account/user that receives each unauthorized message, commercial (promoting services of a commercial entity) or not.
The sender will pay all fees owed to Webaroo within thirty (30) days of such transmission. [Note: this means that if a message like the one described above is sent to a club/group of 100 users, or to one user 100 times, then you will be liable for Rs. 5,00,000/-, payable to Webaroo, within 30 days].
if they are sending ad messages in addition to the ads inbuilt into content then they should specifically specify to users that their numbers will be used for spamming(ads)……and as far as your talk of paying the creator of the group is concerned don’t u think smsgupshup would hardly make money out of their current monetisation strategy cos messaging through special number is not that cheap…..and btw if you see it as a big problem then why not see the silverlight that it provides an opportunity for other entrepreneurs to make a mark there…….cos thats why entrepreneurship is all about turning bottlenecks into opportunities…….and again in todays environement if less online business are found burining money in india cos we indians know how to monetise better than the technical gurus abroad……
I don’t think you got the point Raghav.
When a user is helping you build your community, you reward the users. We’ve realised this at C2W.com at least. A site which thrives on UGC
Eklavya,
I’m sorry to see inaccuracies in your post – there is clearly some misunderstanding. Let me clarify:
- GupShup does not (nor intends to) spam its users.
- GupShup merely attaches ads to publisher message before forwarding to their subscribers.
- Please refer to our terms and conditions http://www.smsgupshup.com/terms for more info.
In our conversations with publishers, some of them have shown interest in driving additional promotional campaigns. To the extent they do, we may develop revenue sharing policies down the road. These are merely preliminary discussions for now.
Re the rest of your comments about India/US and profit/growth: we have employees, offices and investors both in Silicon Valley and in India. I haven’t exactly figured whether to classify ourselves as an Indian or an American company, but if you have, please let us know
-Chirag
VP Webaroo
The ‘inaccuracies’ rose from the conversation I had with the SMSGupShup employee who called me.
Yes she didn’t say – SMSGupShup was going to ‘spam’ my group. But said SMSGupShup was going to send a post to my group…and I had no rights to say no that. That for me equated to spam. I appreciate the fact that I was at least called.
I know SMSGupShup.com doesn’t spam users with irrelevant msgs…else they wouldn’t have grown to be this big and I wouldn’t have tried to make my group this big either.
And I would classify you as an Indian co. Mainly because SMSGupShup is primarily huge in India and also that the domain of the parent company (Webaroo.com) points to http://www.smsgupshup.com
Quote -
- GupShup does not (nor intends to) spam its users.
- GupShup merely attaches ads to publisher message before forwarding to their subscribers.
Unquote
The above 2 lines are contradictory. To me any unsolicited message is ‘spam’ especially riding piggyback on a sms message.
The next question is are you building a activity profile of the user to decide which ‘message’ you would send to which user?! Please note you are dealing with actual identities (phone numbers) and not plain old baked cookies !
companies would go bankrupt if they keep thinking about monetarily compensating their users ……..tomorrow a user of windows would ask monetary compensation to use windows because he is also termed as user…..so giving monetary gains in every service is useless crap unless you are a social entrepreneur……..cos every1 uses the service for their own utility……..
Kind of weird that my previous message is still “awaiting moderation”.
I think the report is correct and this is the way ALL SMS service owners are going..I am not sure if there is any better way to monetize.. better. SMS is expensive, the volume is huge and India’s advertising despite all the talk of potential is growing very slowly. It is maybe time for a cartel.
Raghavsoni — spamming(ads) — ads are not spam … spam can be an ad which you are forced to see/receive without your permission … i think you completely misunderstood it … ads are mean to monetize the service that you are being provided for free … there would be always a paid option without ads , but reluctantly many Indian Netizens hesitate to pay online citing various reasons and always look and run after the term ~FREE~ like mad dogs searching for food near the butcher shops.
Ekalavya … i think asking a share in the profit sounds just too funny … the problem is not with webaroo as you cited the difference .. the problem is with you posting this … you have to be honoured that they called you atleast informed you about it .. if its you so called the great US based company .. they would be least bothered to do that .. they would simply change thier policies and continue doing what ever they wish . You should happily utilize the platform smsgupshup is offereing and carry on doing what ever you would like to do else .. migrate your community to a US based company… degrading / false / insensible posts like this looks absurd …
Dingra : hope this post would get posted
How often does SMSGupshup attach an ad ? Is it with every message or every now and then?
Hi Eklavya,
I think you should be happy with what you get. Firstly, you get a free service to use, which btw is costing someone else money, then you cry if they try to make money from it. If your so annoyed about them making money, then why don’t YOU PAY THEM.
I think you should really stop whining and live your life and send free messages.
And Mr. Dhingra or whoever the moderator is – Do post this.