Mobile advertising platform from mobile-worx

On June 21 I wrote about 160by2.com, an advertisement supported free sms service from smscountry.com. Just came to know about zestadz which is a complete mobile advertising platform and it allows advertisers to advertise on SMS, WAP sites and even mobile games.

Interestingly they are inviting game and content developers to join them and embed their ad-displaying code in their mobile games/content. They will share revenue with them as well, which I think can prove to be an attractive proposition for many developers and content developers.

They claim 1 million impressions per month on SMS traffic, however they don't reveal if they have some tie-up with carriers to send such sms or have some users signed up, who have opted for letting them embed ads in their sms in return for free sms or other goodies.

Anyway a good mobile advertising option, I must say.

Make your Trip on Mobile

MakeMyTrip, a very famous Indian travel portal has launched a mobile application in association with Nokia which allows users to make travel bookings on their mobile. As part of promotion they are offering 50 weekend getaways everyday, cash-backs and airline bookings at half price and a grand prize of dream holiday to Bali.

I saw an advertisement in Economic Times which mentions site - http://nokia.co.in/nseries, but I didn't find any mention of this mobile application on the site, later I visited the MakeMyTrip website and came to know that correct URL to download the application and for details regarding participating in the contest is - http://www.nseriesindia.com/makeMyTrip/mmtHome.htm

They say that its for Nokia Nseries phones only, but I think many other java enabled phones should be able to run it as well, however you won't be eligible for contest if you are not a Nseries owner.

Scrum and Gandhigiri

It was interesting to know about discussions Pete Deemer had with would be CSMs in his recent certification class. It was both inspiring and matter of feeling proud as he beautifully described how relevant Gandhism (Gandhigiri in lighter sense) is to the role of ScrumMaster.

Below text is what Pete posted in scrumdevelopment yahoogroup:

For those who weren't in the class, the question was asked "How can the ScrumMaster have any power or influence, since the team doesn't report to them, and they don't have the authority to give orders?"

We talked about how in the absence of "managerial" authority, a ScrumMaster can still have enormous influence. But it's earned influence, and it comes from gaining the trust and the respect of the team, by serving them zealously, and protecting them courageously. This isn't the cheap authority that comes with an fancy job title; it takes time and work to grow, but it's a lot more hardy and deep-rooted. And we talked about models for this out there in the world – starting with Mahatma Gandhi, a man who through courage and a spirit of selfless service changed the course of history, all without ever having a high title or powerful position.

Virus Hoax

Everybody is afraid of computer viruses now a days, so whenever we come to know about a new virus, we want to let everybody know about it. A hoax really thrives on this urge, so whenever you receive a mail which talks about a virus and tells you to forward to your contacts so that they can be aware about it too. Stop and first try to find if mail talks about a real virus or its just a hoax.

These hoaxes have become so frequent these days that major anti-virus companies now maintain a database of hoaxes beside viruses. I recently received an email talking about an Olympic Torch Virus. I did a quick search and found that its a hoax.

You can read about the hoax at websites of McAfee and Symantac

So in the future please do not pass on such messages. Passing on messages about the hoax only serves to further propagate it.

160by2.com offers free SMS service for India

160BY2.com a website by the SMS solution provider - smscountry is offering free SMS to any mobile phone in India if you allow them to send the contextual advertisement with them. From what I have read on their website, they seem to mimicking the Google Adwords model.

Nonetheless I think its a good option. College students and youths can use it to send unlimited text messages to their friends for free. However I feel there are 3 issues with this service:

1. They don't allow to send sms/text directly from user's mobile phone. One has to visit their website to send sms. I think technology is there which can make it possible to send sms from mobile. Probably they are first experimenting with this approach and if they get some advertisers hooked up, they will begin offering sms originating from mobiles to be delivered to the designated mobile without the need for website.

2. As a policy to prevent spams they offer option to opt out to receiver, but you need to again goto their website to opt-out. This can be very annoying for someone when he is not able to go on internet to opt-out. There should be someway to opt-out using sms itself.

3. They don't allow sending SMS to a list. You can only send sms one by one to your friends, so that kinda puts you off from forwarding some joke to all of your friends.

I feel if they are able to tie-up with some operators like Hutch, Airtel on revenue sharing basis then they can really rake in the moolahs from advertisers and operators can offer a special SMS package to willing subscribers and subscribers can send unlimted SMS messagees for free. I see this will be a win-win situation for everybody.

Overall I think its a good service and I wish them all the luck. Currently their service is by invitation only. However you can reach their invitation page at - http://160by2.com/requestinvite.aspx and request for an invite.