SMS GupShup has been winning accolades for its superior messaging infrastructure and the capability shown by it in attracting user generated content. The site claims to have some 20+ million users and has earned respect for its business model despite bleeding severely in short-term by repeated interest shown by VC’s.
In a recent development SMS GupShup has announced its current tie-up to power the messaging platform on Facebook India, which would enable the use of its seamless infrastructure in messaging arena. This would certainly help Facebook users in India to truly experience mobility in interaction with the social network.
To Enable Facebook on their Mobile:
- User can Visit www.facebook.com/mobile to activate mobile text features to receive and send updates.
- Users can then update their status by sending a message to 92-FACEBOOK (9232232665).
- Users can also reply to their friend’s messages by simply replying to the incoming SMS.
The availability of SMS feature was first launched for Tata Indicom users and now allows Non-Indicom users too. It would certainly proliferate the use of Facebook in India and it is also rumored that Facebook would soon be launching Indian office to derive separate focus on growth markets like India.
Benefits of the deal ?
For SMS Gup Shup:
SMS GupShup would certainly be looking at such deals where it empowers the messaging platform of social networking sites. The company may also launch a slew of such deal with many domestic oriented portals.
These kind of deals increase the reach of their service and thus would also increase the bargaining power with Telecom operators for SMS carrying charges.
The company through these solutions can leverage the Seamless messaging platform which they have pioneered for so long and provide an enhanced API based solution. WATBlog earlier did a careful study of Monetization models adopted by Webaroo,Company behind SMS GupShup.
For Facebook:
The funda of providing free SMS updates can go a long way in successfully penetrating into Social web audiences in India. The de-coupling of such important services by adopting third party services can devoid it from wasting time on non-core activities.
Facebook currently has some 3.3+ million users in India and is growing rapidly despite the serious threat of Orkut on Indian shores. The US market is nearing saturation after its overtaking of Myspace and major growth focus is shifting towards emerging countries,thus such consecrated move can lead to higher position in such markets.
This type of deal only goes onto show the coming up age of Indian Online Sector and growing global tract of Web 2.0 companies in India
Sms notifications are great..twit..twit..
So is SMSGupshup now like a bulk sms service provider?
None of the features are provided by SMSGupShup – these text features are provided by Facebook to users from any country.
So what exactly is the value provided by SMSGupshup? Is it saving Facebook the hassle of dealing with Indian operators/bulk providers? Value to SMSGupshup is more clear – aggregation and lower volume pricing for SMS.
@ confused
Facebook is leveraging the telecom infrastructure of SMS GupShup at the same time facebok may save messaging cost as SMS GupShup may later monetize those messages too……..Its not just plain vanilla bulk messaging deal but sort of revenue neutral or positive revenue inflow move.Facebook would be saving huge cost through this tie-up.
Doesn’t SMS Gup Shup have ad-backed SMSes? So if Facebook partners with Gup Shup, it has access to a network which, potentially (or one of the ways), earns money through embedded advertisements in SMSes. So Facebook can immediately start earning revenues through this partnership.
Secondly, SMS Gup shup also develops applications for mobiles phones If I am correct. In that case, it could potentially launch Facebook application targeted at the Indian mobile users.