by Paul Joseph
June 28, 2011
Featured
Mobile Value Added Services have generally been about knowing horoscopes or getting jokes or something else which is – lets face it – useless. Sudhanshu Jain and Rajeev Ranjan, who work with Handygo Technologies (a VAS provider) realized that these services never really tried to target the rural sector, specifically farmers. After a few months of research they launched ‘ Behtar Zindagi’ an IVR service which is available in 18 regional languages apart from English and Hindi . Farmers have to call up on a toll free number to sign up as well as access the service. Through Behtar Zindagi , farmers get real time information on crop cultivation practices , weather , fisheries , livestock management , market prices , education , rural finance and health . Under these segments users get detailed information on activities like irrigation , field preparation , harvesting , storage , weed control , fertilizers, crop rotation, livestock breeding and vaccination. SMS and voice calls are used only to deliver alerts, with everything else being done through the IVR system. The service has partnered with six mobile service providers— Airtel , Tata Indicom , Uninor, Idea Cellular , Reliance and Aircel presumably to assist in delivering content. The service does come at a price though. There are plans available for 10, 20 or 30 days priced at Re. 1 per day . For a farmer who probably puts in thousands of rupees a month on his produce, Re. 1 per day doesn’t seem a lot. Farmers definitely agree to this, the service has a subscriber base of nearly a million people. The revenue earned through the service is split between the operator and Handygo with 75% going to the operator. Behtar Zindagi is expected to break even very soon. This is the second rural initiative that has come to our notice in recent times, the first being the use of mobile phones to control irrigation systems . In the past also companies like Infosys , DoCoMo , Nokia and even the Indian Meteorological Department have ventured into the rural VAS sector . Providing content targeted at specific villages has been a common challenge to all these companies, something which Behtar Zindagi hopes to solve through partnerships. Since the pricing has to be cheap, so that it becomes attractive to villagers, earning revenues becomes a bit difficult and the sustainability of such services is uncertain if not backed by cash cows like Nokia and Infosys. We hope that along with e-commerce sites investors also back start-ups that aim to solve problems in the rural sector through technology and innovation. The growth potential of the latter is probably more than e-commerce sites. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts Rural Tech – Irrigation Systems Controlled By Mobile Phones Meteorological Department Goes Mobile For Farmers – Fresh Room For MVAS? Mobile Revolution Takes Off Through Mobile Apps BSNL’s Music Portal Goes Public; Offer’s Unlimited Music For Rs 149/month RCom’s Novel Idea a Smart Move – Don’t Think So
Tagged as:
agriculture,
behtar-zindagi,
mobile,
music,
mvas,
news,
nokia,
operator,
rural tech,
smart,
sms,
social,
technology,
unlimited-music
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by Paul Joseph
June 27, 2011
Featured
Today is WATBlog’s 5th Birthday.. Half a decade of blogging is something.. I was just going through our statistics today morning and realized that we have over 6000 posts and over 13000 comments posted. On the contribution front we have over 90 bloggers who have contributed articles to WATBlog over the last 5 years. We also have over 100 video interviews taken at WATShow which is our video interview portal. All in all over 2 lakh people visit WATBlog each month now and our Social presence has also grown to mirror our reach as facebook and twitter has over 3000 fans and followers each. We are no more ‘just a blog’ as we launched our own event formats in WATSummit and our own award function in WATAwards. We have always had the ambition of connecting Web, Advertising and Technology space in India and its been quite a journey in chasing that ambition. Today WATMedia Pvt Ltd which is the holding company of all WAT properties and brands employees over 60 fulltime staff , has offices in Mumbai and Delhi (Gurgaon) and also has a network of 50+ active bloggers supporting the regular blogging and reporting activity on WATBlog. Here is a timeline of the growth of what was started as a humble blog by a 21 year old to what I would today term as a thought leader in the digital media space.. 27th June 2006: First post goes up on WATBlog August 2006: 1st contributor joins WATBlog December 2006: WATBlog started getting recognized as an influencer with PR agencies calling us for press meets Year 2007: Growth year… We hit 1000 unique visitor a day by end of 2007. WATShow our video interview site is launched and so is WATJob our jobs portal. We also initiate a sister concern social media agency WATConsult Year 2008: Recession hits us and we respond by initiating events WATBlog Panels (Evening Panels) and WATBlog Wednesday (Evening networking sessions) Year 2009: We do 6-7 such events across Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and more.. Second half of the year saw WATConsult rise with the social media Industry catching up.. Year 2010: Golder year with 2 offices in Mumbai.. Social Media at all time high.. WATBlog wins Best Blog of 2009 at E4M Digital awards by beating BIG B blog at Bigadda Year 2011 (so far) : 2 BIG events.. WATSummit trends on twitter WATAwards gets underway.. WATConsult spreads its wings and crosses the 50 people mark.. We expand our office footprint to Gurgaon Delhi.. WATConsult wins best viral marketing award at IDMA 2011. As you can see from above its been quite a journey.. Over 100 people have worked with us and we have created several entrepreneurs too with some of our people running their own companies today.. Innumberable memories are etched in these 5 years.. We may not be the biggest or smartest company out there yet but we certainly were the most hardworking and yet the most fun to be a part of. What we are most proud about is that all of the above was achieved without a single penny from any investor or even any formal advisory board of any sort. We have hardly even used our family money. All people who ever worked for WAT have been below the age of 30 and even today the average age of this organization is 23 years. Its easy to leverage experience and build a business its tough to create things from scratch without having any clue how to go about it. We have messed up many times, looked like fools as well but we never gave up.. We fell and we rose and we fought and Im glad to say we survived. After going through so many emotions and ups and downs over the last 5 years or half a decade I wonder if we are half way there.. Are we close to what we set out to be?? The answer is no.. As an entrepreneur you are never satisfied. The ambition to be better, faster, leaner (costs) and bigger (growth) is an unending and non fulfilling journey. We still feel humbled by seeing our competition and many younger people and their work. We feel compelled to up our game. We feel like shaking our heads after every failed attempt and getting back to trying harder one more time. WAT isn’t about a company.. Its always been about an Industry.. The digital industry that has been voicing for its rightful place in India. Its been about a revolution that over the last 5 years took its own time to evolve.. But things are rapid and changing fast.. I see Ipads, Playbooks and iPhones powering a tomorrow for which we have worked really hard the last 5 years. WAT is the voice and the emotion that is associated with doing great innovative never been done before work in digital in India. Its about a community of so called geeks, online guys, digital folks or techies as some call them who have always been told that their medium is small.. or numbers are low or there is still time.. WAT is about the Dawn of the Digital Age that we will see in the next decade.. We shall be announcing our next WATSummit very soon and we would be talking about this “Dawn of the Digital Age” and how it will revolutionize the way people talk, work, love, share and grow.. Stay Tuned! Thanks to all our readers for fueling our ambitions.. We will make sure as we head to the second half of our journey that in the next 5 years WAT will evolve into the thought leader that it was always aimed at being. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts Indian Social Media Landscape 2011 – Video By Nielsen NimBuzz Spreads Over 50 Million Users Worldwide In Less Than A Year Vodafone Anger The Masses: Social Media Backfiring On Them? Linkedin Crosses 10 Million Members In India TATA Docomo Introduces Route Finder And Smart Pilot As Location Based Service
Tagged as:
digital,
emotion,
features,
industry,
jobs,
landscape,
office,
people,
smart,
statistics,
voice,
wat birthday
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