July Systems which recently announced its series C funding has gone ahead and roped in the biggest cricket tournament of the year for a mobile internet deal. IPL 3 has tied up with July systems to power IPL 3 on the mobile Internet
The Indian Premier League (IPL) and its licensing partner Global Cricket Ventures (GCV) have announced a partnership with July System under which handsets of all kinds will for the first time have access to live ball-by-ball video updates, action replays, video score cards and much more. Users can access this service from their mobile phone by calling the MiX toll-free number 08 123 123 123 or by accessing m.iplt20.com.
What does this tie up mean for each stakeholder?
For free consumers: The service has been designed for the common man who may not have accessed the internet ever before. The consumers may not be aware of typing out URLs or navigating pages in a browser. A simple phone call is all that is required to get started.
For Paying consumers: Freemium, a combination of free and premium content, based pricing makes the service affordable to all users. A significant part of the IPL service including video content has been provided for free – subsidized by advertising. While certain premium sections are available at a nominal fee.
For Advertisers: With over 120 million mobile internet subscribers (as per TRAI Jan 2010 numbers) and IPL having a huge following in India this could be an interesting mode of advertising for advertisers.
Marketing of MiX
During the television broadcast of the IPL, the phone number 08123123123 will be displayed on the TV screens. The IPL service is initiated by calling this simple toll free phone number, which results in a SMS being sent to the user, with the link to the IPL mobile internet service. Users click on this link to watch real-time video clips IPL videos on their mobile phone.
July Systems is said to also be working with the telecom operators to provide inexpensive ‘all you can eat’ data access plans and easy ways to activate these plans.
Our Take
Ive always believed that for mobile internet to take of in India popular services need to be made accessible and affordable at the same time. IPL is one such property which is touted to have a lot of end user interent. Now if the mass media TV can be used effectively to promote the mobile internet access and aspects that can bring the content to the user at nominal cost then I truly believe that users across India would be willing to subscribe to it.
It would be very interesting to see the numbers of actual mobile internet usage during the IPL 3 season.
