Zygo Hubs: Group SMS

Although text messaging has been such an enormous success, it could have been even bigger if it had been designed to support M:M messaging. The vast majority of the messages we send are to one person, yet so much of our non-mobile communication is in a group context - forums, bb's, group email, conf calls, etc etc.
The problem with M:M SMS has always been the economics. In Europe, i pay to send an SMS, but if it has multiple recipients, my operator wants to charge me x times as many recipients that receive the message. It gets costly and so i dont bother. What the outdated and simplistic mobile operator interconnect model misses is the financial echo of that first message. So i send a message to 5 people, I get two replies that also go to the other 5 people - my operator gets 2 x the interconnect receipt (assuming i'm the only person in that group on that one operator) + any revenue from any additional messages I send to that group. For an operator with 30/40% market share - this starts to look quite fruity as you increase the amount of originating revenue in accordance with your share of the group participants.

I looked at this in quite some depth at Voda and found a way to make this work. We conducted a social network analysis of SMSC data to understand the social footprint and fabric of messaging. Even though there was no 'product' in place, customers were already demonstrating this behaviour - i.e. a % of SMS was being sent to multiple recipients and there was evidence of repeat conversation. Productising and promoting this would surely have been profitable.



Anyway, I'm digressing, the point is there is a gaping opportunity in this product space and a company called Zygo Communications (which was founded by some of my ex-colleagues at Orange) have just launched a proposition to address this; Zygo Hubs.

The service allows you to set up a group with up to 20 participants, you get allocated a dedicated long number, and every message you send to the number will be forwarded to the other group members. You can set the group up via mobile or web, and the communication history of the group is accessible via a web interface. You pay your normal operator message rate for every message you send to the group, and for every message that is sent to group members, a credit is deducted from the group account. You get 50 free to start with, and can top-up via the web. SMS credits start at 7.1p each and decrease in price in accordance with the amount of the top-up. This seems a little pricey given the wholesale cost of SMS, and may not be cheap enough to draw users in v's what they have today (1:M SMS included in their bundle).
The site, brand and design seem targeted at the 'youth', who are the most price-sensitive segment of all, and who may be unwilling to swallow 7p per text given the relative pricing of bolt-on SMS offers on both PAYG and PM price plans. Despite this, there is clearly a market for this kind of offer within SME's, Education, Public Services and other areas - re-branding the site for these verticals will be cheap and easy.

"Social Advertising"

The corporate part of the Zygo site explains that the Zygo platform can be used by Brand partners to engage in targeted conversations with the groups that use Zygo. Presumably, the per message pricing can be subsidised with mobile advertising - this is neat, and a nice example of how mobile VAS can be funded through advertising. What impact this has on the customer experience (e.g. share of ads to group messages) has yet to be seen.



ZygoHubs
• Allows anyone to set up their own group messaging service (via the web at www.zygohubs.com) and provides that group with a single central telephone number through which any member can contact the whole group instantly.
• One text message sent to the group number and the ZygoHub relays it out to all members, similarly any reply goes back to the whole group creating an instant and true group text conversation.
• Is designed to be inclusive for everyone in a group so works on any network, any handset and is as simple as sending an individual text message.
• Has an easy to use web interface that allows the members to add profiles, send sms, manage their group and archives the group’s conversations.

Mobile links, bits and bobs

Last week was a busy busy week so there was little time for posting. However, here’s a quick roundup of some stuff I noticed in our mobile utopia.

The Yahoo Advanced Products Group have launched Mixd – a social “experiment” targeted at the US college demographic. The service enables users to send a text to multiple people and to share photos, arrange a party etc. Similar to 3Jam, it enables reply-to-all on text-messaging facilitating a multi-party chat conversation. Zingku has something similar currently in beta. Zemble also.

Shortly following a post I wrote about mobilizing YouTube content, the provider TinyTube I mentioned was asked to remove access to YouTube content. I thought Googles mantra was “don’t be evil”?

The W3C initiative is aggregating a number of mobile focused blogs at Planet Mobile Web.

CScout has an article here on the trend that Social Network sites are going mobile. The article covers YouTube, MySpace, Hookt and AirG.

And finally, the Economist did a great article on what the future of the mobile phone may look like in their Quarterly Technology Review. Go here

The future of Mobile Voice & Text?

I've written previously about numerous mobile messaging services that are all targeted at taking a piece of existing mobile operators voice and messaging revenues. In Europe alone, these revenues are in excess of €250bn, and consequently this category presents a lip-licking opportunity to VC's, entrepreneurs and existing industry players

The last couple of years have seen a number product launches from the likes of Hotxt , Text2me, and Pica who are all trying to move SMS volume away from the operators monetisation mechanism (the SMSC) by allowing P2P application based messaging over a data connection. All require users to have the same application installed which presents a barrier to uptake due to the fact that not every one in a communication circle will have the same type of device – i.e. that supports J2ME. In younger age segments where users are more likely to have the latest, coolest and funkiest devices, then the chances of the communication circle having compatible devices is higher and a common messaging experience achieved.
Other apps including Mig33, Vyke, Woize, Skype, Truphone (deserves its own post) and now Nimbuzz include the mobile voice use case, providing mostly Java apps that allow you to make a call over you data connection, again avoiding the operators billing mechanism (apart from data charges) and offering non-member connection via cheap international wholesale termination rates (similar to Skype-Out).
I expect we will see a load more applications like this over the coming months, all in the same product space but with a slightly different product approach and spin. The big open question is which ones will prevail? On the current radar, Skype has the best chance of succeeding, principally due to having the financial and marketing muscle of an industry leader and an established non-mobile user base in excess of 170m. Other players that can quickly impact this space are mobile and fixed operators, who both have an existing customer relationship and billing mechanism and in the case of the mobile operators, a forced distribution channel – the device.
Another interesting aspect of this space is that the application offerings are increasing acting as integrated user experiences for what were previously silo applications (e.g. email, IM, blogging, content). Examples such as Pica, combine communication (email, chat, IM, voice messaging and text) with a range of community features (moblogging, personal profiles, emoticons and voicecast) offering users a single device destination for interacting and communicating with circles of friends and like minded users. Pica has now over 3m users, predominantly in China but raised $10m from Bluerun back in Dec 05 which could easily support localization and business dev. efforts in US and Europe.

These examples provide evidence of an increasing trend which is likely to gain traction over the coming years and IMHO presents a credible threat to operators which should be monitored. Applications like Pica give us an idea of what the future of mobile comms may look like, and serve as a valuable reminder on how fragmented today’s mobile experience is.

Read also Nimbuzz featured in MobileCrunch
12/09 - see also HelloSoft
12/09 - see also NootMobile
15/09 - see also Fring
10/10 - see also Berggi
18/10 - see also Reporo
29/11 - see GigaOM

Vixo - experimental social network using SMS

Vixo are running a SMS service that enables any group of mobile users to group message one another on a particular topic without (currently) incurring multiple SMS-sending costs. You can set up a topic (e.g. World Cup) and invite other users to join the group. The service includes a "trust" command which when applied in the context of the six degrees of separation, dictates which messages you receive, originated from your group circle. You can modify your "trust" levels (by changing what Vixo describe as the 'volume') to ensure that you only receive messages from close friends, or lower the "trust" volume to include anyone in the six degrees.
Currently only available to UK mobile users.

Oh, Don't Forget... SMS Reminders

Type in your mob number, when you want to be reminded, and what you want to be reminded of, and this service will send you a text. Nice & simple. It also provides an example of how Mobile Party Pays (MPP) can be useful in avoiding complexity in application design through the avoidance of account creation and billing detail submission - although the downside is that you might get spammed.