With companies shifting focus from mainstream media to cut costs, the next best alternative available to them is the mobile. Mobile marketing, through SMS and other mediums, is witnessing a healthy growth. This has led to mobile users being bombarded with a plethora of ads and other content.

In the process, the Indian user has become one of the most exposed user to mobile ads. Though it can be considered as an achievement on one hand by mobile marketing companies, who are making the best of it, it’s not the best time for the Indian mobile user. After all who wants to be bombarded with ads when you are least interested in them.

Going deeper, we see the rise of the free SMS and other similar platforms offered to brands, as one of the reasons for this outcome. Another contributor is the economic slowdown, which has caused brands to divert a part of their ad budget to cheaper alternatives. Looking forward, we see the exposure increasing with improvement in the content and the way it is delivered to the user. A good example of which is the Airtel SMS2.0 platform.

Recently, BPL Mobile users in Mumbai have been facing strange problems in sending SMSes. There have been complaints about the messages not reaching the person on the other end and also cases of the sender receiveing the delivery report without it being sent. Some users have been complaining about messages reaching them in bulk i.e. the messages that were sent to them during the day are recieved together in the night.

With BPL always being associated with bad network, the new problem has left the users quite harassed. As per one subscriber, their problems are not being addressed by the authorities, who claim about the absence of any problems. We would request you to come forward and let us know if you have faced such problems.

Source

[Thanks Sanjay]

Monday: Last week marked the sixth death anniversary of Mr. Dhirubhai Ambani and we at Tele Gyaan decided to pay him a small tribute.

Tuesday: Check out the cheapo vBling from Virgin Mobile. A flap phone for tight pockets. The latest update in the 3G spectrum scene is that DoT denied the allocation for CDMA operators. We know that these operators won’t gulp this pretty easily.

Wednesday: As one of our commenter points out “i hav been hearing since last yr
god knws when idea really hitz in mumbai circle”. And we thought the same initially but now they are raring to go. August is the month of the expected launch.

Thursday: Reliance is offering Jaadu Pack for Rs. 35. Check out the details here.

Friday: MTNL’s lifetime prepaid Jeevan Saathi has got cheaper. Now available for Rs. 149.

Virgin Mobile’s latest offering, vBling wants to tap those who wants a classy looking phone for a cheap price. Available at just Rs. 2499, the phone packs all the Virgin Mobile goodness like lifetime validity and access to vBytes (Virgin Mobile’s WAP download service).

On the feature front, the all silver phone sports two display screens, weighs on the lighter side at 72 grams, FM Radio and comes preloaded with games and other multimedia stuff.

Virgin Mobile

Correction: vBytes is not WAP enabled but it allows users to download ringtones, wallpapers etc. More info on vBytes.

Virgin Mobile adds another mobile to its portfolio in the form of vTrendy. It is targeted at the youths but I wonder if this will really attract them because of the minimal features it carries. vTrendy has got a 65K color screen, access to vBytes, loudspeaker and FM Radio. It is available at Virgin Mobile outlets for a getaway price of Rs. 1500.

Product

vSleek is one of the good looking phones in Virgin Mobile’s arsenal. It boasts an ultra-thin designer body and comes along with features like a VGA camera, MP3 player, FM radio, loud speaker, microSD card slot and an option of Hinglish SMS. This candybar is priced at Rs 4799.

All the above is said and heard, but the price of this cell phone seems to be on the upper end when compared to other phones in the market. If you thought so, here’s what Virgin is trying to compensate you for that ask.

Continue Reading…

Airtel had launched MChek, the service which allowed users to pay their phone bills through SMS. BPL Mobile has now gone a step further and has launched M Commerce, short for Mobile Commerce. This service allows you to:

• View and pay BPL bills
• Recharge your mobile account
• Book Airline, Train tickets
• Book Movie tickets
• Carry out online transactions - HDFC

How to download:

• SMS ngpay to 56767 or download from NGPay
• Just download the application and start using

How much do you pay: The users don’t have to pay any charge to download or use the application. The service would cost you nothing, except the basic GPRS charges, that are charged by your operator.

What’s your take on the topic? Share your views on TeleGyaan Forums.

Virgin Mobile added another recharge to its vPower section and this one is called THANK GOD ITS WEEKEND RECHARGE or the TGIW pack.

This special recharge priced at Rs. 18 offers local calls to all mobile at 30 paise/min and 100 free SMS’s. The drawback for this pack is that it offers only 3 days validity which means that you have to utilize those 100 SMS’s in a span of 3 days.

We Say: Good recharge pack as the SMS cost would be as low as 18 paise per SMS, but would have been great if the validity it offered was a little more.