GupShup mixes social networking, ads and SMS
Rating: recipe for success?
By Annie Turner
Webaroo is a curious hybrid of being US-based, focused on India. It¹s
charismatic and very successful founder, Rakesh Mathur, has introduced an
SMS service called GupShup (www.smsgupshup.com) to bring social networking
to the mobile.
People using either GupShup’s Web site or short number code on their mobile
phone can start a group based on common interests, from wine tasting to
whining, then invite people to join.
The service is free of charge, except of course paying for the messages
themselves, but GupShup intends to make money by attaching advertising
messages to the ones that group members send to each other, using
keyword-based software and databases to make a good match between recipient
and advertiser.
The service has been on in India for just over a month and has a 10,000
members, but is doubling in size every week.
It¹s a pioneering attempt to combine three strands of everyday life in the
West in a country where many people can¹t use MySpace because they haven¹t
got access to a PC and the fixed Internet. It could spawn a completely
different type of communities, so long as the ads are done well and don¹t
get in the way.
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