Vinu’s Online Cloud

Well on the same lines as the previous post - check out this sms blogging and subcription thingie :-). I love this: http://twttr.com

Check Vijay’s Twttr and mine …

I have been wondering seriously about the possibility of using sms or texting (as some people call it) to browse the web or internet! Now what could be the benefit? How could just 160 characters prove that useful or valuable?

I strongly feel that its just that we haven’t given it a strong thought or used this way of info / communication channel to its maximum possible extent. So, I went ahead and thought of ways I would use it I was able to browse the internet or basically have access to webservices (after all thats what sms shortcodes do!) through sms.

• Surf a website
• Dictionary
• Thesaurus
• Wikipedia
• Email - mostly send
• News + basically any RSS
• Blog
• More sms based apps - like finding dates, restaurants and offers.

So, basically Iits like a ‘yubnub’ for the mobile phone even when you actually don’t have internet site. Just that the output is delivered back is constricted and giving commands is restricted to 160 characters :-). Output can actually more but there are cost restraints.

I went ahead and wrote a small php app and used the company’s shortcode 676787 (India specific) for some basic activities. Have used the keyword WEB i.e this is the syntax or protocol - sms to 676787: WEB <function> <text>. All of them are pull based and as of now the cost structure is you pay Rs 3 expensive I agree. But here is the list of smses syntax:

• web mail vinu@mytoday.com How are you doing. I have left home see you in 30 min
• web dic anarchy
• web syn magazine
• web wiki India or web encyl mac
• web news bbc or web rss <feed url> i.e web rss http://vinu.wordpress.com/rss

Yes, i have not yet implemented the actual surfing and have to do the xmlrpc of blog … Plan to do so soon. But this is what I have to say - if people just had a ’sms’ usuable or friendly website this idea would be really practical! I think the www world should have a sms tag in the html protocol or a xml protocol.

Now when i emailed that inside my company one of my colleague sent the following reply:

IMHO this is a ridiculous idea. Be practical , Is a common man really itching enough that he would want to access a 2kb wikipaedia page and spend Rs3 for it. Accessing anything from GPRS is far-far better , but still much lesser than satisfying. Esp when you are accessing broadband in the office for 8-10hrs a day

I myself was very excited about mobile mail , and mobile GPRS internet. But now after a few days , the most frequent application I use on the phone is mobile chess

These , ofcourse are my ideas YMMV

I completely understand is point. So, the question is under the current economic structure what are the sms web apps people are ready to pay? Personally I feel for sms based ‘education / information’ services government should make them free. Common adding multi language support and translation on the lines of dictionary and synonyms and encylopedia … is only for the greater good. we should not be making a business out of it!

But of course it makes business most of the times also … if you were reading my blog - sometime back I said I help my DVD shop guy to start a blog and he is entering the latest movies that come there. He thinks its more like website … which is good enough. But I use the RSS and subscribe to the blog. That makes it cool for me. But now with sms - I have taken it to the next step - access about the latest movies he has for people who are not net savvy, who don’t have computers, who solely depend on the cell phone to use it!!

Just sms to 676787:

web news dvd

this reads the titles from the rss feed of his blog - studiodvd.wordpress.com
The output i.e the sms I get back is:

dvd: 1:SHAGGY DOG 2:INSIDE MAN 3: V FOR VENDATTA 4: ASK THE DUST 5: THE BENCHWARMERS 6: entourage season 2 7:EDISON FORCE 8: FINAL DESTINATION 3

Now, you do you think this is live and thriving business model eh?

These kinds of information, I am sure a common man will be willing to pay money for the sms {Rs 3 in the Indian context}! A religious pious person would be willing to pay to know when his local temple is having a special offering to the Almighty. A jazz enthusiast will use it to see what are the latest cds coming in Planet M.

This is in a way - web surfing. What do you say ? Any thoughts to add?