SMS GupShup is a text based social messaging community that allows messaging from one to many users, as well as many to many. GupShup has been compared to Twitter, and has claimed revenues of $150,000 per month. In Part 1 of this two part interview series, Beerud Sheth, CEO of SMS GupShup told MediaNama about the companys revenue streams, their user base and the do not call registry, and more. In Part 2, Sheth talks about carrier relationships, impact of changes in India’s short code norms, API, International expansion plans, whether GupShup would even consider powering Twitter in India, and more: (In case of content based communities) What about the conflict of interest with carriers paid (subscription) services? MyToday has had problems with that... Clearly, carriers have paid for spectrum, and are offering some services. I don't think our intention is to duplicate or replicate what carriers are doing. I think MyToday has more syndicated content than ours, which is long tail user generated content on the free communities. Even on the paid side, if someone wants to launch very quickly or has a small user base, it may be uneconomical for them to launch. Ours is an easier, simpler platform, and is much more long tail content. But as an aggregate, the number of communities related to, say, stock quotes and IPL match scores would eat into carrier subscription revenue... Not quite. Carriers offer Cricket scores, but on our communities, you would have discussions, as opposed to actual scores. Providing…
