Mumbai: Mobile service providers, it appears, are betting big on the mobile networking and community space in India and are not limiting their services to only smart and high-end mobile handsets.
Reliance Communications recently introduced its mobile blogging service for its subscribers to facilitate the transmission of images and videos by posting their content on the Internet through their mobile phones.
While in India, such services might be in the nascent stage, in other countries, like the UK, value-added service or VAS, providers have already launched mobile dating solutions and services that can be accessed from any WAP-enabled mobile phone.
Not surprisingly, mobile experts suggest that the age of the mobile community is upon India and with the ubiquity of WAP enabled handsets, would mean that mobile blogging could soon surpass web blogging and forums as means of social networking.
"The community of bloggers in India is growing and we want to ensure that pictures taken on mobiles are just not left in the phones. Mobile phones are very convenient and outnumber PC or Internet users in India and lends nicely to community networking," says Reliance Communications Application Solutions and Content Group President Mahesh Prasad.
Indian content provider, Nazara Technologies, whose mobile content is offered by all major operators including Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications, believes that there will be a natural progression into mobile social and community networking in India.
CEO at Nazara, Nitish Mittersain says, "Sharing content on mobiles and community networking is the obvious extension which will take place soon. There will be an evolution into that soon."
The buzz in the space can be felt by the fact that Nazara is close to raising $7 million in the second round of funding. "We believe that venture capitalists want to tap this sector due to its sheer size. There are about 120 million mobile subscribers in India and this number will only grow, and people are ready to pay for content, so it works well," says Mittersain.
At present, music and ringtone downloads are big in India due to their convenience, but soon content sharing and social networking will also be available on modest handsets.
"While we see that at present ringtone and music downloads etc are big in India, it is only so because downloading games and other activities requires hi-end mobiles and GPRS connections. Groups like Reliance have kick-started the mobile blogging phase and we see other companies experimenting too. By 2007, we will see more players in this space," adds Mittersain.
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