"Why you will call Justdial if you get a list of all the ATM's in Mumbai on your Mobile, without SMS, without GPRS in less than 5 keystrokes?" M4Mumbai, launched as a local bus information service for the city of Mumbai, India, has plans to go beyond just bus information and beyond the city. I must confess that I was quite short-sighted in my assessment when I first came across M4Mumbai, limited by the following questions: why only Mumbai, why only bus information, and how will they monetize if they're giving a free application that doesn't use premium SMS or GPRS? But these are still questions that M4Mumbai has to answer. Monetization Answering the last of these questions, M4Mumbai founder Raxit Sheth told MediaNama that they haven't yet decided on how they will monetize, saying that the focus is on scaling drastically. They have recently launched an application on Bharti Airtel's App Central. Prior to this launch, they saw installations of 60-130 per day, and have installations in the five figures in three months since launch. Around 40 percent of the installations, Sheth says, are not from their website, but of users side-loading the application using Bluetooth. He expects the installations to increase post the launch on App Central. They are already on Samsung Fun Club. One option of monetization is that they can offer branded applications to consumers, or charge for it. "We strongly believe Tech solutions should be cheap, cheaper than a Rs. 10-15 local information booklet." If…
