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Ibibo Integrates Telco Billing For Micro-transactions In “Great Indian Parking Wars”

Naspers owned social networking site Ibibo has launched the "Great Indian Parking wars" (TGIPW) game on Aircel, and intends to expand the offering to other such games as well. TGIPW is similar to FarmVille, Mafia Wars,Vampires, Cafe World and FishVille from Zynga. Previously, Ibibo had launched Ibibo Farms, remarkably similar to another similar product called Happy Farm (app). In case of TGIPW, which can be played both via Internet and Mobile Internet, you own a street and vehicles, and have to park your vehicle on other friends', sometimes damage others' vehicles, as well as collect (virtual) money from others for parking in your no-parking zone. These games usually rely on advertising and micro-transactions for monetization: they're highly addictive, as users try to out-do their friends. Update: Rob, in the comments, points us towards "the original Parking Wars game" on Facebook. It's interesting to note that ibibo has integrated telecom operator billing for TGIPW: I was billed Rs. 3 by Bharti Airtel for downloading 5 iCoins on THIPW, which can I use for buying new cars or accessories on TGIPW. Ibibo CEO Ashish Kashyap confirmed that the company also has billing relationships with Aircel; we're awaiting more details on other operator relationships. This is the first instance that I've come across, where billing for micro-transactions have been allowed by telecom operators. This way, the telecom operator monetizes both the usage (data charges) and transactions, while ibibo probably gets a revenue share. iCoins are priced at Rs. 3 for 5 iCoins, Rs 7 for 12 iCoins, Rs. 15…

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Founder @ MediaNama. TED Fellow. Asia21 Fellow @ Asia Society. Co-founder SaveTheInternet.in and Internet Freedom Foundation. Advisory board @ CyberBRICS

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