Updated below with inputs from a Balaji Telefilms spokesperson. Production house Balaji Telefilms has launched Kriminal Kaun, an audio based, made-for-mobile interactive detective series called Kriminal Kaun. This is a series of audiosodes, available in Hindi or Tamil, with an new series launched every week, with four episodes per series. The series has been launched with telecom operator Aircel, at Rs. 30 per month, and 10 paise per minute. It's worth noting that the series has been developed in audio: voice based services are believed to constitute a majority of non-SMS based mobile revenue. Update: A Balaji New Media spokesperson told MediaNama that this series is exclusively for Aircel customers, and they are working on other content formats with other operators. On The Content Format Consumers get to hear the story (an introduction and discovery of the crime, I presume) in the first episode, the investigation in the second, they're allowed to guess the "Kriminal" in the third in an interactive episode, and the crime is solved in the fourth. As a consumer, I'm quite unsure of this format: when it comes to a mystery, I prefer that it begin and end with the same episode; it's risky because whether one is willing to wait for the next episode depends entirely on how the content has been crafted and the story delivered - it's not exceptionally good, then one would never go back to it; one could also argue that the longer one has to wait, the more the curiosity,…
