Keyword – unless you have been hibernating for the last 3,4,5,6 yrs, you must have seen ads, posters, billboards, tv ads, heard it on the radio too and in most probabilities, used them at some point of time.
Short-code – till september/october last year, they used to be a 4 digit number (8888 being the most common one in my opinion) and now they are all prefixed with '5' so 8888 became 58888 – and they tried to market the change in the most ridiculous manner – even by indiatimes standard!
So a combination of keywords on short code can become an identity for an entity – usually big corporations
To give a few examples, CRI on 58888 for live cricket scores through indiatimes, PAPA on 56767 for HDFC education loans? Amongst many many more.
These keywords on shortcodes became an effective way for enterprises to capture the audience interested in their products – of course also a money-making proposition. Anybody SMSing PAPA and sending it to 56767 is a probable customer for HDFC and HDFC can get back to him/her with certainly better chances of acquisition – to put it in short, it became an effective lead generation product.
But what about you if you want to book a keyword for yourself – indeed you can and it comes with at a cost unreasonable for an individual.
Now comes the revolutionary part – with www.smsmeon.com – anyone with a valid mobile number (india) can have an identity for himself/herself – FREE of cost – yes, FREE.
What's the need?
I have my own analogy for it -
see, it is like what e-mail was till Mr Sabeer Bhatia came up with the disruptive idea of providing it to anyone and everyone with computer access – hotmail! - that it is in doldrums now is a completely different issue altogether.
I mean only big companies (and their employees,who are provided for by their companies) had e-mail addresses or you had to pay for a mail id.
Hotmail came and I could book an e-mail address for myself right there and then – of course I didn't know what to do with it and had my own assumptions on it's working (seriously, not me, but a friend of mine thought that the computer needs to be ON for it to receive the mail else the mail would be lost! – not me, I reassert).
Similarly till now, it was only corporates who could afford to 'buy' keywords – now we have smsmeon, where one can have an identity for free and it is accessible by anyone, anytime.
I am BRIJESH@56070 and it is on me what information I want to be transmitted when anybody SMSes my keyword – think about it – the extrapolation can be anything – I could choose to provide my postal address so that I don't have to say, sms or take the pain of telling each time – I can simply say just SMS BRIJESH CONTACT to 56070 and the person sending the SMS gets the details that I have put in that particular field – this is just one of the possibility – others, endless.
Still not clear?
Here, here's a 'visual aided' analogy description:
keyword == email username , brijesht, brijeshtripathi03...
short code == email provider --- gmail, hotmail, yahoomail...
combine the two and it becomes
email address == Mobile identity
but why would somebody spend or send a premium SMS (costing anywhere from 1 to 3 Rs., depending on the service provider) when they can get the info by simply calling me?!
do you know my mobile number? – ok,in case I have provided it to you, you have it stored in your phone...hmmm..
what if your phone is not available with you OR say, your phone book went 'kaput' OR you are traveling OR you need to send this info to someone else who does not have my number?
If you know that BRIJESH@56070 is me, it isn't all that difficult !
Hey, this is just one impromptu example of the usability of the service – the extensions are as many as you can imagine - and pardon me on the ambitious statement ' quick and crisp explanation'
Truly a disruptive concept – should bring about a revolution in the current industry – but then these are my predictions – let's see how it shapes up.
Am is simply, easily over-impressed ? would definitely like to know your views on it.
