Now, get SMS alerts free of cost!

Heralding a sign of times to come, a mobile solutions provider has begun delivering SMS alerts free-of-cost to cellular users across the country. Other companies are expected to follow suit, resulting in making mobile services further affordable.

The company - Mumbai-based Netcore Solutions - provides around 20 SMS-based channels like news, Sensex, cricket, jokes, horoscope and Bollywood free-of-cost to subscribers, irrespective of the operator or the circle. Further, these services are available across all the 23 circles in the country.

SMS is the most used service on a mobile phone, next only to voice, and this has prompted the company to tap into the potential of the medium.

The company has launched free alerts for users and tied up with mobile operators to offer the service. Compare this with the existing practise in the industry, where a service provider levies a minimum of Rs 30 per month for each channel of SMS.

"The mobile phone is a true convergence device which would shortly replace the TV and the computer and text messaging is the most potent medium to reach large addressable audience in the shortest span of time," Abhijit Saxena, CEO, Netcore said.

Netcore Solutions is providing the service under its brand 'Mytoday Dailies' and is available on request. A user needs to subscribe to the service by sending an SMS to a pre-designated number (9845398453) with the text START followed by the name of service (Like NEWS or JOKES).

According to Saxena, registration is mandatory. Even though it is a

recently-launched service, the company sends out around 8 million SMSes per day to around 2.5 million subscribers. It is also adding around 20,000 new subscribers every day.

Currently, Netcore has limited the number of SMSes to two per channel per day – one in the morning and one in evening. This is based on customer surveys, said Saxena, adding there are no plans to increase the frequency, unless there is demand.

Netcore Solutions, which has a tech team of around 110 personnel working in Mumbai [ Images ] and Bangalore, is looking at recovering its expenses for providing the service through advertisements.

Below the text of the subscribed content, it provides advertisements and links to the websites of the advertisers. It has roped in Birla Sun Life Insurance, Tata Sky, Nokia, Prudential ICICI [ Get Quote ] and Moneycontrol.com among others as advertisers.

What next? As this service has become operational, the company is looking at concentrating on SMS-based mobile blogging and chat sessions

Google : ‘We Aim to Bring Another 3 b Online in 10 Yrs’

For internet giants such as Google, emerging markets represent the next billion users 
to get online . Lalitesh Katragadda heads Google's research for emerging markets (EMs), which includes India, Asia, Africa and Latin America. In an interview with Harsimran Julka and N Shivapriya, Katragadda says he ensures barriers such as language do not prevent millions of new users from getting online. 

How is Google Search becoming more social? 
From Search to YouTube to Gmail, all our products are becoming social. Google + is just the face of our social strategy. It is easy to find answers to 80-90% of the world's queries. It's the next 10-20% of queries that make you a game changer. Social search is making web more fun. 
What is the challenge Google has set for itself in India and other EMs? 
The challenge before us is to make the next 3 billion people go online in the next decade. In India, we have a target of getting the next 200 million users go online from the current 100-120 million. India also has about 150 million English speakers. And there is a dogma in India that English and IT are important, if your child has to make it anywhere. India will be able to easily achieve 150 million users but to reach about 300-500 million users is a big task and we won't be able to reach there unless we break the Indic barrier. The next web is going to be mobile, it's going to be Indic. 
Is lack of proper input devices preventing internet penetration? 
Yes. That's why we are pushing Android so hard. When we can make a grandmom use internet without using a keyboard, I think we can make the next leap. In future, people may not type, they may just speak. The problem is that we have good speech recognition engines for English but not for the Indic languages. It is a problem we are trying to solve. 
harsimran.julka@timesgroup.com