Perspectives

This is set in the United States:

In the 80s, the technology to reach people wasn’t so advanced. But the desire to get people to buy stuff they don’t need wasn’t any less. Someone invented direct mail marketing. Which is, to send posts about stuff on sale to people who never evinced any interest in buying it. Initially, the response was astounding. So, everyone did it until it started piling up. Today, the US direct mail marketing’s ROI is touted to be at 1.9%. But, marketers won’t give up (Actually, they are). They have a budget and it needs to be spent.

Back to India, 2010:

SMS! Never before in the history of this country was it possible to have a two way (remote) conversation with half of it’s citizens. No other medium of technological communication is so Simple & as wide spread. I don’t know what folks waiting for the 3G roll out & for the supposed ubiquity of smart phones think, but to me, this is already magical. Solutions on SMS show up in my mind every time I think about real world(India) problems. The applications are not just myriad but will actually work. SMS is indeed the lowest common technology denominator for India. But Alas, it is being poached just like those Tigers.

You probably already know about Bulk SMS. Forget it for a moment to become the “Average Ajay“. If you were to get an SMS from a number & you tried calling it, wouldn’t you be petrified to know that “This number does not exist”!? Try calling the Google SMS Channel number (+91-9870807070) or say, “TDSnapdeal” (that would be a 5 digit short code. You can never call anyone there). Weird, “Average Ajay” would think. Twice. Thrice. He will not bother. He has learned to ignore.

It seems TRAI was set up to protect consumer’s interest. They must be behind the brilliance of “TDLOR“, A message from “LOR” via Tata Teleservices, Delhi. Excellent & Thank you. Now I don’t want it. What do I do? Can I call someone & Shout?

Even as I write this, I have 22 unread messages & I don’t plan to read them. Bulk SMS marketers…You will have to take the credit. You will continue to look at SMS as a way to broadcast. To you, along with (and cheaper than) Radio, News paper & TV, SMS is a channel to create pain in people without having to shoulder the responsibility, thanks to TDLOR.

Very soon, you will take the ROI of this industry to 1.9% too (If it already isin’t). You are probably paying 2 Paise per SMS now. It will get cheaper, maybe 2 Paise for 100 SMSes. But, You will soon run out of people.

“SMS”, the species, is dying. Thanks to you & All the best.

This is one long pending post. Zook is a new sms and/or wap based local search service that a good friend of mine and others released a month back or so. Sameer calls it “Mobile answer engine”. Pretty funky huh?
There are quite a few reviews about zook all over the web now, and Zook’s blog is here. But why keep reading when you can actually try it ? Point your mobile browser to http://zook.in or send in a query like “Zook ringtone” to 3030 in bangalore. (not sure if it works in other citites).

The USP of this product, ofcourse is the way it helps you narrow down on what you are looking for by way of asking a few unintrusive questions. Pretty neat, I should say. My point of contention there is that, zook kinda assumes that most queries have multi meanings. For instance, Zook excels if your query is leading, like “thai”. But, most users come from a Google background where they help the search engine find what they want rather than confuse it. If I am really looking for a restaurant, I would explicitly say “thai restaurant, koramangala, bangalore”. And for a query like that, Google or any other local search works just as well or sometimes better than Zook.

But, zook could work like a charm for the long tail of (confusing) queries. I guess that is the intent , but I dont think they have that rich data yet. For instance, I know of a very famous coffee shop recommended by “Lonely planet” in colaba, mumbai. Google does a decent job. Zook returns nothing.

I use the wap zook along with seraja for events, which is pretty good. Also, I dont think value added SMS is a viable option given the current state of things. Maybe, more on that later. On the whole, it is a very good start and Sameer is a think tank. Full of ideas all the time. I am sure they will crack it as we go along. He just gave a podcast on podtech with kamla Bhatt. He gives a few interesting data points there. Listen to it here. Or I have also embeded it in this blog post.