Mobile-blogging Poised To Explode

[Chirag 5]

Mobile-blogging poised to explode

Priyanka Joshi | November 04, 2005

When Merriam-Webster compiled a list of the most searched words of 2004, the word 'blog' (short for weblog) topped the charts.

However, blogging's younger sibling, the mobile-blog, is rapidly becoming one of the most popular online phenomenon worldwide. Mobile-blogging, or moblogging - basically, using camera phones to post pictures and text on a weblog - is captivating thousands of new converts every week from Atlanta to Zagreb.

A few numbers tell you why. More camera phones are sold than digital cameras, with one American research firm predicting global sales to rise from 150 million in 2003 to 650 million by 2008.

Little wonder the user base of popular moblog sites such as Text America (latest available figure: 500,000), Flickr (250,000), Yafro (100,000), Buzznet (20,000) and Mobog (16,000) is growing exponentially. The big daddy of them all, MSN Spaces, has more than 1.5 million users, but not all of them are mobloggers.

So what's the buzz all about? Well, moblogging provides a whole new dimension to the concept of a personal diary by providing the immediacy and intimacy of pictures taken anywhere, at any time. So, if you are inspired at your favourite local watering hole or on a road trip, you won't have to wait until you get back to your desktop to share your visuals with the world.

Not surprisingly, company after company has been coming out with applications and services to tap into what they think is a big blogosphere (and, perhaps, with the aim to also push other services such as MMS). But moblogging services from telcos lack the insight into blogging to actually make them useful tools.

Mobile-blogging tools enable one to post images, videos or text to a web location, but do little to engender the conversations that characterise blogs.

Rashmi Bansal, editor of JAM magazine, is an avid blogger herself and finds mobile-blogging a pretty "hassly job". "I cannot really express my thoughts in a three-line moblog. Additionally, there is no operator or service provider to direct me how to do it quickly," she says.

Bansal has had a tough time posting mobile blogs and has just given up. "I will wait until there comes a service provider who can simplify the process and also will be easy on my pocket."

Most 20-40 year-olds who remain hooked to their camera phones or communicators use their GPRS for a quick look at their inboxes or maybe send a quick message or two. The reason why they have steered clear of moblogging: service providers and telco operators do not provide ease of use.

Estimated figures predict that India will have 55 million online users and another 110 million mobile users by 2007 making it an interactive demographic for the mobile applications market. Taking the cue, a few companies like Coruscant Tec have stepped up to the plate.

Though not ready to take a big leap, Coruscant (a mobile content provider) is ready to release a new application named Moblogs.

The application promises to post blogs, edit posts, view and make comments, host your location to others, share posts with grouped communities, send out trackbacks, and much more. Initially, the application would be offered free of cost to all registered users.

Ajay Adiseshann, managing director of Coruscant, feels that mobile blogging is an emerging market but no one is clear as to how can this market can be tapped. "This is virgin territory. It is up to us to judge how to carve out a revenue model for this side."

The main revenue generator for mobile operators and service providers seems to be online advertisements. "The way blogs have become the new age signposts in marketing, mobile blogs can go the same way. Since mobile penetration is much higher, revenues can only be better," adds Adiseshann.

He earnestly believes that mobile blogging is the way to go but adds that the market in India is very small at the moment. With continuing growth of camera phones and interest in picture mail, moblogs are great places to document and store images. Most major blog sites offer some way to post to your blog with your phone, either via MMS or e-mail.

The only hassle is finding a telecom provider that supports this facility. And that, for Indian mobloggers, is not a pretty picture.

[Utsav 0]

Can you please define and elaborate "BLOG" first?

[Chirag 5]

Can you please define and elaborate "BLOG" first?

45848[/snapback]

Check this to know more.

[linuxguy 0]

at 10p per KB. I dont think so!

[basant_jp 0]

Now, mobile phones invade blogosphere

This will surely be music to bloggers’ ears. Imagine using your mobile to post a blog entry from the lawns of Taj Mahal or a snap from the crescent beaches of Kovalam. Sharing your thoughts and pictures with the world is set to become instantaneous, with telecom operators in India planning to roll out mobile blogging, or moblogging services.

Blogging allows people to share images, videos and their thoughts with a group of friends or with everyone on the net using the world wide web. A mobile weblog refers to content posted to the Internet from a mobile phone or PDA. Reliance Communications (RCL) is set to be the first operator to host a blogging site in India.

“Our subscribers, who have MMS and video capability, will be able to send blog entries using mobile telephones. In case of other phones, only text blogging is possible,” Mahesh Prasad, president — Reliance World, told ET.

RCL has partnered with the Hyderabad-based mobile content provider IMI Mobile for moblogging. RCL will charge Rs 5 per MMS/SMS for posting a blog. Users will have to MMS picture or video to 1234 with the keyword ‘mblog’ and they will be automatically registered on mblog. A return SMS specifies the user’s password and the website URL for her blog.

“Bloggers can have a ‘buddy list’ specified from the phonebook, which can include both Reliance and non-Reliance subscribers so that everytime a blog is posted, they get an SMS alert informing them to check out the specified URL,” he explained.

To view the blog, one has to visit www.relianceinfo.com/mblog and key in their password. “The community of bloggers is growing. We want to ensure that pictures taken on mobiles are not left just in the phone. They can be shared through moblogging,” said Mr Prasad. Over 8m of RCL’s nearly 25m users access Reliance Mobile. “We are optimistic that a large chunk of these customers will use our blogging services,” he added.

Meanwhile, Greg Young, the CTO of Tata Teleservices (TTSL) said, “While we do not provide a hosted blogging site, with an appropriate handset our customers can access the internet and update their blogspots using the superior data capabilities provided by the CDMA technology.”

The same is true of Hutchison Essar, whose subscribers are using the mobile to make blog entries. TTSL, however, remains bullish on moblogging. “We recognise the exponential growth of the blogging community and emerging internet and 3G services. We look forward to bringing to customers innovative services following the completion of the policy on 3G spectrum and our deployment of this new technology,” Mr Young added.

Idea Cellular is offering moblogging through mygamma.com, a mobile networking community. Idea users can log on to this website and upload their pictures and messages and share ringtones. The service can be subscribed to for Rs 10 for a week or Rs 25 for two weeks (with online points). The company receives around 3,000 renewals every month for this service.

As of now, telcos in India are not looking at moblogging as large revenue generators. “It is being offered as a service required by the fast growing bloggers community,” Mr Prasad said.

Source: Economic Times

Check out http://www.relianceinfo.com/mblog/

Edited October 11, 2006 by basant_jp