Update
It’s official: we’ve just received a press release from SMS Gupshup confirming what we had reported last week: the company has tied up with Facebook for SMS updates. It appears that the long code we’ve mentioned below (92FACEBOOK) is the one being powered by Gupshup for Facebook in India.
Original Story (July 21st, 2009, 14:07pm)
Facebook is being more social in terms of partnerships in India, than competitor Orkut.
MediaNama has learned from reliable sources that Facebook is expading its mobile base in India by taking a carrier-agnostic route by partnering with text messaging based community SMS Gupshup, a company funded by Helion Ventures and Charles River Ventures. When contacted, SMS Gupshup CEO Beerud Sheth declined to comment on the development.
This deal helps Facebook increase its accessibility to SMS users, by taking a telecom-operator agnostic route, while an increase in status updates via SMS would help both companies generate revenues. It not that Facebook is ignoring the carriers, though – in April this year, Facebook had tied up with Tata Indicom, and also has a partnership with Aircel.
We haven’t been able to gather more details on the SMS GupShup partnership, except that it involves most of the features of Facebook Mobile. One key element will be the pricing of the SMS: it’s likely that though updates will be free, like in case of messages from SMS GupShup, status updates will be a premium SMS, charged at Rs. 3. We haven’t been able to confirm this, though. In case of Tata Indicom, each SMS to the shortcode 51555, cost Re 1.
As of today, according to Facebook Mobile, the social networking site has a tie-up with Tata Indicom, and for other carriers, uses the number 9232232665 (92FACEBOOK).
There’s a distinct differences in strategy being adopted by competing social networking websites Facebook and Orkut in India: while Orkut appears to be virtually going at it alone, and perhaps complacent in its dominence of social networking in India, Facebook has been aggressively exploring partnerships with media companies and telecom operators, and mounting a serious challenge to Orkut. Details of Facebooks partnerships in India.
Related:
– Updated: Facebook Usage In India Grows As Orkut Misses A Trick
– Google & Facebook Battle Over ‘Connect’ Distribution; Indic Language Support
– Updated: Facebook Goes Mobile In India With Tata Indicom
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7 Comments until now.
This is probably the case because Facebook's developer tools and platform is more open than Orkut. It is easy to integrate without having to speak or negotiate with any human. Gupshup integration is probably a feature built using the regular API's, and not a classic bizdev deal.
interesting development as smsgupshup according to their CEO Beerud is earning $150000 in revenues a month. This tie up would bring in more users as well as real estate to show case their ads
Orkut remained a product, Facebook was developed to be a platform :)
Hard to believe it earns that much. I always thought that they are making looses. Sms Market in India is growing
While it could be an opportunity for SMSGupshup, it could equally be challenging to monetize. SMS ad inserts have not worked and have not given returns to advertisers. But I am afraid that it would get the SMS marketing to go down further in terms of rates and results
ok
Nikhil: there's something people are missing here even though it's a piece of trivia.
Assuming that more smartphones are being sold in India and that their users are GPRS-enabled and go onto Facebook, they'd have to use a QWERTY keypad, right?
Now, try punching in 92FACEBOOK (as mentioned by you above) and see what number comes up.
Sadly, this is also what Facebook's mobile app states – evidently they haven't been smart enough to factor in QWERTY-based smartphones :-)