It promises to bring the world at your finger-tips. iMobizo, a mobile value-added service application, offers customised information on any of your GPRS-enabled mobile handset (and it need not be a Blackberry), ranging from applications like cricket, movies, astrology and lifestyle.
A co-branded initiative of Indiatimes and US-based software company Mobio, the new platform would enable users to get information of their choice right on their mobile phones — free of cost. Ramneek Bhasin, founder and chief executive officer of Mobio, said the platform is designed to mobilise web services and not websites.
"We take a platform-based approach, that allows us to create mobile content and applications that are incredibly powerful but also less filling on the mobile phone," he said, adding that users of the service would also get to view a web version of the Times of India newspaper on their mobile phones.
Dinesh Wadhwan, MD and CEO of Times Internet Ltd (TIL), said special care has been taken to tune the information for web-based applications. The market for value-added services was on the rise in India, he said, pointing out that it provided a new opportunity for such applications as people wanted immediate access to information. "We would provide up-to-date information to our users and it would be real-time, considering that it would be updated every five minutes," he said.
The application would also have its own set of advertisements, some of which would also be useful for the users like providing access to top-up cards for pre-paid mobile users. "However, we would ensure that the mobile screens are not cluttered," Dinesh Wadhwan said.
Of the 40 million GPRS-capable handsets in India, it is estimated that only about 3 million use it to browse the internet. "This number is going to go up substantially in the coming time," Wadhwan added.
Bhasin said in countries like India, where broadband penetration was very low, the mobile phone was gradually becoming the preferred mode for getting access to information. "The mobile phone has become the de-facto device for getting information from the web," he said, emphasising that iMobizo would provide "only the tastiest bits of the web and deliver personalised mobile applications that consumers can use in three clicks or less with minimal to no data entry."
He said the application were as easy to download as a game or a ringtone. "You can have the application on your GPRS phone by sending TOI to 58888 or Enjoy to 58888," he said, adding that the applications run on GPRS on the GSM networks of Airtel, Vodafone, BSNL, IDEA Cellular, MTNL Mumbai, MTNL Delhi, BPL Mobile and Spice Karnataka.
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