SMS technology is going to stay and thrive: Shantanu Deshmukh, product evangelist at txtWeb

Launched in February this year, textWeb, a platform where mobile users can discover and consume internet and txtWeb-only content just by SMSing keywords to a national number, today boasts of  600,000 current users. Made by the people for the people, textWeb has tapped into the growing SMS technology and the "internet- less" mobile users who want to access internet but without signing up for a data plan.  Bringing in a host of handy SMS based services like wikipedia content, local market prices, best restaurants and even a SMS based service to update your Facebook page and more txtWeb brings limitless opportunities to mobile users for free.

Q. What prompted the set up of txtWeb?

A. There were 2 motivating factors behind the set up of txtWeb.
We realized that in a growing economy like ours, the penetration of cell phones is very high. However majority of the people owned simple phones which had two features- SMS and voice. We felt that there should be a way by which any kind of information could be consumed over SMS. And thus began txtWeb.

b.  We also realized  that for a end user  to get information over SMS when required it  was something that was not exploited in India completely. There were solutions but the whole segment was very fragmented and there was a need for a one stop shop solution which the population at large could use to get any kind of information.
Both these factors contributed greatly towards development of the txtWeb platform.
 
Q. What has been the response of the service since its launch in February?

A. The response has been very positive. We have seen an exponential growth in the usage of the service soon after our launch in February. There is a continuous increase in app usage. A open democratic platform like txtWeb has been accepted well by users as well as companies wanting to have a SMS presence. We have more than 600,000 users on  the platform currently which is a very encouraging number considering the fact that its just been a few months since we launched the platform.
 
Q. What does text web bring to both consumers and developers?

A. txtWeb is perhaps the most easiest of platforms for Developers to quickly deploy their app and go live. They can make use of easy, open APIs, rapidly test their app and go live in no time. Because of SMS being the centerpiece of the platform, the app can be accessible by millions of mobile phone users who do not have internet or data plan on their mobile phone. With that comes recognition as well. And for the same reasons, users can access virtually all the information and services on their phone via a simple SMS. Nothing to download, it is free, no premium charges (they just pay SMS charges as per their traffic plan), get the information when they want it i.e. no spam, and it is short and crisp information that they receive.
 
Q. What are some of the popular txt web apps at present?

A.There are more than 500+ apps on txtWeb. Here are some popular ones:
@stocktip
Get trend analysis and quotes on stocks
@autofare
Get the approximate auto fare between any two places in a city
@wikipedia
Get search results directly from the Wikipedia pages
@goog
Get search results directly from Google page
 @omegle
Chat with random strangers
@face
Update your Facebook status from your mobile
@imdb
Get directly into IMDb pages for movie plots, ratings, reviews, etc
@STD
Get the STD code of any place
@CAT
Get the meaning of 5 diff. words at a time from a repository of 4500 words
@twt
Get the tweets of a user
@jokes
Get a different joke every time
@cric
Get a summary of all live cricket matches
@news
Get news from around the world
 @lyrics
Get the lyrics of English songs and sing along
@passport
Get your passport application status
 
 
Q. The applicability of this service holds true for phones with limited access to internet. With the introduction of more budget smart phones do you see txtWeb becoming obsolete?

A. txtWeb apps are SMS enabled. And we believe that SMS technology is going to stay here. Smart phone apps have their own place and they will continue to thrive. But that does not mean that SMS technology will become obsolete. In fact more and more studies show that “texting” is perhaps the highest used functionality even among the smart phone users.

That could also be the reason why these days one is witnessing many SMS enabled innovations or information delivery happening.
 
Q. Tell us about the App2Fame competition. Is this the first of its kind SMS based application competition?

A. Yes, App2Fame is surely the first of its kind developer challenge as the platform itself is unique. SMS enabled apps are certainly unique in the usual app development opportunities offered by leading mobile operating systems. This contest is an attempt to showcase to developers our robust and at the same time easy-to adopt platform.

We had held  similar contest last year wherein we focused on just 2 / 3 colleges and we got very good response. Hence, this year we have taken this contest to a national level, made it open to all and have added very attractive prizes.

We intend to provide a big opportunity to developers via this contest to popularize their apps via txtWeb (because of its sheer reach to millions of potential app users) and gain wide recognition. We have added special prizes to student developers and apps from start-ups as well. Winning start-ups get an opportunity to present their business plan to an expert panel including VCs. Last date for app submission is 30-June-2011. Details at app2fame.com
 
 Q. What kind of submissions have you received so far- any particular SMS apps that caught your eye?

A. Developers are busy building, testing and improving their apps. We are expecting more cool apps to get submitted. Among the submitted ones till a few days here are some good apps:
 
@sync
Helps to sync text between your mobile and computer.

@galerts
Get alerts from Google on topic of your choice

@pushmail
Accessing emails using simple feature handsets

@cnnnews
Updates from CNN

Q. How do you see txtweb evolving in the future? Anything in the pipeline for this year?

A. We have a lots of ideas to improve the platform further. The platform architecture  is designed in such a way that we can easily incorporate other features like voice etc. We are also designing plug ins which would help txtWeb publishers to get information from the web very easily. These are just some of the many ideas we have planned to implement in the near future.