The Hindu Business Line : Internet successes go mobile

New Delhi May 22 Services that have become major success on the Internet are now increasingly going mobile. From hunting for jobs to forming online communities, cellular phones are increasingly being used by service providers. For instance Webaroo has announced the launch of SMS GupShup, a free group messaging service in India that allows mobile users to create groups of any size and communicate with them.

Messages sent by the group creator are forwarded by Webaroo, at no charge to all members of the group just like an Orkut or Yahoo does for Internet users. The advantage in the mobile version is that at the cost of sending one SMS you can send the same message to even 100 different people. Using a single SMS message, users can join any group they choose. They will then automatically receive messages posted to the group as an SMS on their phone. Similarly, one can use SMS messages to create ones own groups, invite friends, and post messages to the group. Additionally, users can also run a poll, rating and quiz within their group.

Mobile communities

"SMS GupShup is a fun, new and powerful SMS service for users of any mobile phone. It is an ideal tool for connecting with friends, building new relationships and forming mobile communities. We are seeing rapid user growth, through word of mouth, indicating popularity and usability of the service," said Mr Beerud Sheth, Co-founder & CTO, Webaroo.

In another instance Clickjobs.com, a job portal, has also has announced the launch of its Jobs on Mobile. This facility helps job seekers to get SMS alerts on their mobile about relevant job vacancies in their specific industry. Candidates can view the job descriptions and also apply for these postings using the short code 5050. This is a free SMS based feature that aims to provide job seekers easy accessibility for applying to the jobs even when they are on the move. On applying, the candidate's resume is automatically fetched from the database and e-mailed to the respective employer instantly.

Mr Michael M. Bala, Business Head, ClickJobs said, "Since technology has taken a giant leap, people also want things to be easily and quickly accessible to them and this SMS service aims at making job search more convenient, easy and accessible."