Wireless Utopia

This event of MoMo was definitely one of the more interesting ones. Our speaker was Naveen R from Tonse Telecom and the topic, WiFi Market in India, generated some interesting comments. Nobody it seems was convinced of the potential of the WiFi in India. The numbers (around $1B) were unimpressive and the growth nothing compared to mobile phones. Unfortunately the mobile aspect completely overshadowed the discussion. IMHO there's too much focus on mobiles in India. But thats a separate post.

Demo's were the real show stealer this time around. In MoMo Bangalore's own characteristic way, it was chaotic. The audience gave a hard time to Akshat and Rajan. Akshat demoed the Active Mobs product which is a group messaging solution built on SMS. Rajan showed us Motvik's WWIGO (Wireless Webcam Wherever I Go) product which turns your camera phone into a live webcam. Understandably both of them were a bit upset about rough treatment.

But I kind of liked the way it all turned out in the end. Real world users are pretty much like this. Real users hate to learn a new things. Real users tend to oppose change. Real users have to be marketed to, won over, wooed. If anything, it was a preview of things to come and unbiased first hand opinion of their targeted customer base. This was as close they can get to their real world users. And to be fair, quite a few people were impressed.

The one common aspect among them is that their focus is to first build the community first. These are free services which do not generate any revenue right now. In fact the SMS volume of Inactiv costs them Rs. 200 a day. Its the mantra of Web 2.0 being applied to Mobile VAS; community first, monetization later. And both of them are looking at advertising as a possible revenue stream. Which does not again have many fans in India. But monetization is really an afterthought here. Which I think is the right way to go with these kind of services.

What is needed right now is strategization. They have to pick their next step very carefully and figure out a way to move forward. As Sramana points out, they need experienced hands to guide them. Hopefully they'll find some. Entrepreneurship needs courage. Kudos to them for doing it. Here's wishing them good luck and success. We really need more such examples.