We have started seeing SMS subscription based services offered by cellular companies, such as Zong Music Channel, Akhbar Service by Telenor, Telenor Music Box, Telenor Tele Doctor and so on…. however, we lack the indulgence of such services in consumer products.
It would be very beneficiary, for instance, if I can order my burger from KFC by just sending an SMS, or if I pay my DSL bill through credit card (Very limited number of broadband companies offer online credit card based billing), or how about paying my taxi fare by sending an SMS?
I feel that we greatly lack in this segment, either our companies are not patched with latest solutions or our users are not that much aware…but my point lies in the fact that we, as a nation, had never thought of using cellular phones few years back, but now the scenario is different. Similarly, we never had though that the world would become a village before internet based networked world and Bill Gate’s windows based operating system.
Theory is that you offer the luxury, and if it makes some sense, soon it will become a necessity…leave the awareness part to the consumer. They will learn it themselves if your service has the potential.
We have examples around us, such as, Q-Cash in Abu Dhabi, a service through which users will be able to pay their taxi fare by sending an SMS, a system introduced by a famous taxi system working there. And there is no innovation involved in this, a very simple (but centralized) procedure is adopted. The said taxi company will introduce “Q-Cash Card”, with some credit in it (like we used to have in our calling cards), and you can send an SMS to a designated number to get your fare deducted from the card. This way, you can pay your fare without carrying cash and without worrying the change that you normally give away to taxi drivers.
Similarly, in coming days, operators can offer some extra out of our simple SMS services, such as, auto response, auto forward SMS…GSM packet based longer text messages and so on…We are already discussing mobile banking options, but now these projects are supposed to be taken to the ground…so we may get benefited of these.
Hope that cellular companies will think forward to bring in some innovations, rather than just shouting the number of customers or the dancing averts.
[Via ProPakistani]
June 1st, 2008 at 8:37 pm #Ali Raza Shaikh
Don’t you think Amaana (www.amaana.com) is working on something like this?
June 7th, 2008 at 1:47 am #Muhammad Qasim Pasta
I agree with Ali and TCS also launched similar service but with limited options …
But there is a room (on which I have worked) … do you not think we can create a complete online store with the help of Amaana?
Ops! Fariha … may I sell my ideas here ;)?
June 8th, 2008 at 10:46 pm #Fariha Akhtar
@M. Qasim
Qasim, you can certainly sell your ideas here and that’s what this place is for but at Ideas Hut, Selling Ideas=Contributing Ideas :) and don’t worry once anyone picks up that idea for implementation, as per rules of this forum, you’ll also be recognized for coming up with that idea in the first place :)
June 9th, 2008 at 2:57 am #Suleman
Can anybody help me find someone who could actually build an SMS service like.
It is called, Interactive SMS Service, where you send a txt msg to a short-code and the system then reads the message, and based on the command executes the message. I’ve been looking for such a system last few weeks but haven’t found one (except for the open source ones, which I never got around to working).
Qasim, how much work you’ve already done on this platform. Are you able to connect to Telecom Provider, and what would you require from your telecom provider in order to connect to your telecom provider (In terms of short-code, access and all).
Would you mind talking to me about it a bit, if you get some free time?
June 9th, 2008 at 3:09 am #Suleman
I live and work in Riyadh – Saudi Arabia.
SMS applications generally are on the rise here. Here how it happens is, there are two types of applications. One that is used only for notification purposes ( The users subscribes to an informational SMS service for approx 12 riyals a month), and the service providers periodically sends out notifications and useful messages based on the content promised. This type here is known as PUSH SMS. (There are, of course, some other uses of such services/capabilities. Businesses (banks, stores with good offerings & discounts) here are aggressively using it for marketing campaigns either with your permission = ‘permission marekting’ or without your permission = ‘spam’ )
The other type being PULL SMS, whereby the user is given a short-code to send his/her request to, in a specific format, and get back the desired Information/or action.
I am looking for such a platform. Who has done it?
June 17th, 2008 at 12:07 pm #Fariha Akhtar
@Suleman
Suleman, I also know about one guy Ali who is working on a similar idea. So, may be you can get in touch him too :)
June 29th, 2008 at 9:49 pm #X ---
I have worked extensively on product development on this front from an independent services company and can tell from experience that there is an acute lack of interest in this business sector due to two reasons.
Primarily, the there is a significant lack of uncertainity for the delivery place of the order. If you remember, when pizza hut and kfc initiated their delivery units, they strictly ask for a PTCL number for the delivery destination and would often call that number and check if the order had actually been placed. There is a trust element in the order being placed.
Next comes the cash value. unless the restaurant is charging at the point they recieve the order, for them its a waste of effort if they go out and deliver. They also know that once someone has made the payment, it probably wont be a scam.
But how do ou charge? With most of your market (over 98%) being prepaid driven, there generally is not enough balance in one account to pay for such a transaction. Also, from what we have seen, mobile firms want to offer these services on revenue sharing bases, and the amounts they charge are insane. Until a company like ipass, or even qpay comes and sets up a centralized platform for this, it most probably wont happen.
@suleman: nearly every mobile services company in pakistan has done pull sms services. these are fairly basic services. I can put you in touch with some people if you want.
June 30th, 2008 at 10:46 am #Suleman
Fariha: I’d be sure to get in touch with him ? thank you.
X—: Yeah, sure. Please put me in touch with people with relevant experience. That’d be a great help.
July 5th, 2008 at 10:20 pm #X ---
Suleman:
Gladly
I need to know how to get in touch with you though…..drop me a note?
Fariha has my email address if you dont see it on the site.
Thanks,
July 13th, 2008 at 11:05 am #BA
It’s not SMS per se, but the newly launched Genie mobile payments service launched by Mobilink / Inov8 Limited does satisfy a few of the issues above. Most times it isn’t as simple as sending an SMS and having your meal delivered. Extensive integrations with mobile networks and financial institutions ALONG with the product providers are necessary to create the platform needed. From my experience with Genie, i believe it has great potential.
It’s a basic JAVA application that can work with most mobile phones over GPRS and (once you have linked a bank account / credit card), you can pay for services like utility bills and mobile airtime. From the news section on Inov8′s website, i believe you might also be able to order meals from McDonalds soon.
I have used the service as part of its pilot launch for a while now and think it’s great! It is extremely secure as you don’t have to expose your credit card / account details anywhere to the application itself or to the party you are paying. Has any of you tried it out?
August 14th, 2008 at 4:11 am #Yousuf
This is an interesting discussion.
@Suleman: The keyword for you SMPP engines. You can find the opensource API at http://code.google.com . Most of the available libraries on SMPP does limit you. e.g They dont allow you to manipulate with changing the sending origin of the SMS, but you should be able to change as per se ETSI GSM 11.11 and 11.14 Standards.
@X. I completely agree with you. The guy has done his homework. I worked on SMS based services for over a year, and in the end we came up with the same solution. Mobile operators everywhere act as a gatekeepers unlike ISPs, thus the VAS driven services are operator based. Good news is mobile operators would partner with you and groom you as a startup as long as you show them the money in your idea. This is how they evaluate
1. The business plan (how is your idea going to generate the money)
2. If they launch it right now, how much popular would it be and when will any competitor will be able to catch upto it.
3. Is it worth paying premium money and grooming a bunch of non-serious monday who think they hit upon a million dollar idea.
A word of advice of all enterpreneurs out there, before you go onto meet an investor, or a telecom operator you must have answers to the questions quoted above, and should cater for the points below.
Before you go on to sell an idea, you must have a bare bones demo ready that should be able to withstand the technical grilling your idea is going to take. If your starts with, we are working on a platform, the game is over. and there are no second chances
about java based applications, by implementing your idea on GPRS, you are limiting your idea
1. Not all handsets support J2ME (and yes I am talking about cheap mobile phones, and majority of public have those)
2. The application development time will be huge. (Different addressing modes and api;s for different handset manufacturing)
3. The testing and benchmarking will be very very costly.
A company like yahoo with yahoo! go cannot support its application on all the handsets out there, so you think you can address them all? The most widely supported mobile application is opera mini and gmail for mobile, and even they support only 65% of the mobile handsets.
August 14th, 2008 at 4:12 am #Yousuf
PS: you might want to look at http://www.bytesense.biz to know about the execution of this idea.
September 15th, 2008 at 4:24 pm #farzal
AA guys,
I guess I am very late to the thread, but hopefully provide some help.
amaana has over 200,000 beta users who have exchanged payments and bought products using simple SMS commands. The website, amaana.com is a little cryptic, but the usability of product has allowed it to go so far within beta. The interface to the payment platforms are SMS, Email, Web, etc. A simple checkout API can be found under tools. But we have many more available on request.
Now we are in process of commercializing (signing up banks, retail agents where unbanked can load/encash amaana accounts, telcos).
yes, complete e-commerce and m-commerce services can be offered as some of you have alluded to.
my email is farzal $ amaana.com
September 15th, 2008 at 4:28 pm #farzal
sorry – should have mentioned that the core of amaana is about p2p payments of monetary value as low as Rs. 1 on any mobile phone using any carrier in Pakistan.
once you do that, everything else is easier.
the p in p2p can be an airline, your taxi wala, your utility company or your family in the US sending you instant remittance payment.