Mauj Takes FHM Mobile

Mauj Mobile, the mobile VAS company from the People Group, has tied up with FHM (For Him Magazine), to make its content available on the mobile. Mauj will distribute content like news, mobile calendars, interviews, animations, wallpapers etc for the mobile, and also eventually create a WAP portal. Mauj already has access to magazine content from other magazines Maxim and Man’s World, and plans to launch mobile magazines - Mobizines. FHM is published in India by Next Gen Publishing.

It’s interesting that the rights to Man’s World on the mobile are now with Mauj - they were earlier with Coruscant Tech, which is now a part of Mukta Arts. Nokia had launched a mobile newspaper with Malayala Manorama last year. Pressmart, which has partnered with many magazines, also has mobile editions.

We’re written to Mauj for details on the pricing of the content (how is news going to be priced?), and in particular, how the revenue is going to be split between multiple players - Mauj, FHM International, MIA International and Next Gen Publishing, apart from, of course, the operators.

Update: Mauj has declined to comment on the revenue share between the four entities - Mauj, FHM International, MIA International and Next Gen Publishing. However, they have mentioned that the Mobile Calendar will be priced at Rs 20 for an issue, and Animations and Wallpapers at at Rs 10 per image. They are going to create a dedicated zone of FHM as a wapsite located on wap.mauj.com, which will have a mix of editorial content along with downloadable content for users to access.

Shaadi & Bharatmatrimony Launch Phone Services

Matrimonial site Shaadi.com has announced the launch of Shaadi.com Sapphire, a phone based service with call center executives who guide callers with the matrimonial search process - whether creating a profile, searching for profiles, connecting or contacting. Members can choose daily updates over phone, or email for relevant matches. The service, available between 10am-7pm is priced at Rs. 14,950 for six months.

What’s interesting is the cross-media approach that Shaadi.com has been taking - apart from online, they’ve got services on DTH, Mobile, Offline (Shaadi Points), Phone (Sapphire). Some of these act significantly to costs - like offline services at Shaadi Points, and phone services like Sapphire, which others are tie-ups that (we assume) are revenue share deals - DTH and Mobile. Let’s see what’s next on the agenda.

Update: Arch rival BharatMatrimony has also launched their own phone based services - called BM Privilege. They positioning appears to be a little different from that of Shaadi - Murugavel Janakiraman, CEO & Founder of the Consim Group is quoted in the release emphasising on the fact that “People want privacy and they also want personalised service.” I guess that means the service will offer some amount of anonymity. Interesting. The pricing is on par, but the payment cycle is shorter than from Shaadi: BM Privilege package offers the service at Rs 8650 for 3 months, but that it is available only till the end of the month.

The matrimonial players can look at the following media for their services:

Job sites have been hosting job fairs across the country; I wonder when we’ll see Shaadi hold a Swayamwar. :P

Bharatmatrimony Launched On Airtel Live

Bharatmatrimony.com has become the second matrimonial portal to in a mobile operator tie-up, after Shaadi.com launched a host of services with Vodafone launched last month. Bharatmatrimony is offering Airtel customers matrimonial subscription services at Rs. 20 per week, which gives them access to an additional contact.

While the type of services are rather limited, this deal appears to be better than the one that Shaadi is offering Vodafone customers:

But does the price difference really matter?
I don’t think it does. Not many mobile subscribers will be using both Vodafone and Airtel, and selection of an operator is not likely to be determined by which matrimonial service they are providing.

This is more of a distribution deal for Shaadi and BM, and primarily a means of acquiring new customers. A few months from now, we’ll check up with both Shaadi and Bharatmatrimony about usage trends - whether they’re acquiring new customers, or is the service being used by online users. Ideally, both services would like to be live across all mobile operators, and not the exclusive mandate of any one.

This is yet another bullet point in the one-upmanship game between Shaadi.com and Bharatmatrimony - both announced DTH launches earlier this year - Shaadi with Dish TV and Bharatmatrimony with Tata Sky.

Related:
- Shaadi.com & Vodafone Ink Revenue Share Deal For Matrimonial On WAP, Voice Portal & SMS
– Manorama Group Launches Matrimonial Site; Other Classifieds To Move To Verticals?
– Matrimonial Sites Ink DTH Deals - Shaadi-DishTV, Bharatmatrimony-Tata Sky

Shaadi.com & Vodafone Ink Revenue Share Deal For Matrimonial On WAP, Voice Portal & SMS

Shaadi.com, the matrimonial portal from People Group has gone mobile with Vodafone, launching the “Shaadi.com on Vodafone” service. The services launched include a presence on the operator on-deck WAP portal Vodafone Live, a voice portal service and SMS service. Shaadi.com on Vodafone is priced as follows:

Rather expensive, don’t you think, at Rs. 6/min for voice, and Rs. 10/profile for profile views? The service has been powered, not unexpectedly, by People Group’s mobile company Mauj. A People Interactive spokesperson told MediaNama that this is essentially a revenue share deal, but declined to comment on the specifics. Nothing on Vodafone Live’s numbers or specifics of revenue shares, so we can’t really gauge the usage potential of this service.

Interestingly, while this is an exclusive tie-up with Vodafone for now, People Interactive said they’re going to do deals with other operators in the future. Also in the works is an independent launch WAP site…it’s likely that operator tie-ups will remain even on an independent WAP site, since the operator will provide the billing.

As of today, we’ve not similar announcements from the other two significant matrimonial players - Bharatmatrimony (Consim Info) and Jeevansathi (Info Edge)

Disclosure: I own an inconsequential number of shares of Info Edge

Related:
– Manorama Group Launches Matrimonial Site; Other Classifieds To Move To Verticals?
– Matrimonial Sites Ink DTH Deals - Shaadi-DishTV, Bharatmatrimony-Tata Sky