SMS GupShup Indian mobile social networking boasts 20 million users

GoMo News scooped coverage of GupShup calling it Vinadoo Hot here. But a lot has changed since then. The Indian based mobile social networking service launched in April 2007 now boasts 20 million users in 900,000 communities.

How?
Basically, users create communities on SMS GupShup in a category of their choice. These vary form Finance to Sports. When the user joins the community they can interact with like minded people.

What is hot?
According to some quotes from user (see testimonials below) the biggest hit is the daily spiritual quotes.

Testimonials from Family members:

The regular spiritual quotes keep me motivated during the day, all thanks to SGS.

It’s only bcoz of SGS that I have been able to keep a track of my serials.
I love GupShupping; it’s so simple and can send my greetings to all my family members at 1 go.

All thanks to Gupshupping, now I feel I am always close to my family, even when I am away from them.

What we think?
Interesting. At first glance I wouldn’t have expected daily spiritual quotes to be at the head of the reasons users loved GupShup –but this is India. There a lot of people and religion is very important. Not only that fate and destiny play a bigger part of every day life and I expect the daily spiritual quote is like the Indian modern day horoscope?

The testimonials also highlight the benefits of sending mass SMS to family and friends. 20 million users since 2007 is good and because its SMS based I presume that revenue is also being generated from the social network - which can only be positive.