Celebrity voice chats appear to be a massive opportunity for monetization on mobile: Airtel has a service called Talk2Me powered by One97 Communications*, for which UTV Interactive is bringing in celebrities for mobile voice chats with subscribers. In December, Airtel had offered customers a chat with Bollywood actors Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, and director and choreographer Farah Khan. This was followed by another chat recently with actress Prachi Desai, and now UTV Interactive is extending this partnership to regional markets - signing up Malayalam actor Jagadish Kumar, and Punjab based singer, composer and lyricist Satinder Sartaaj. What's particularly fascinating about this offering, is that it takes the news-website-feature of celebrity chats (typically ad supported, or not at all), and converts it into a voice-based-customer-pays service on the mobile. For the celebrities, it's an opportunity to pitch their latest offerings and also make some money through arrangements with VAS companies. Given the larger reach that mobile has, and the ease of connecting, the opportunity to scale both usage and revenue, with this service, is immense. There's a Rs. 15 registration charge for the service, and the per-minute pricing varies across telecom operators, Sameer Pitalwalla, Sr. Vice President, UTV Interactive and Business Head Video Products. But one question still remains - given that it is voice chat, how is it moderated? Pitalwalla said that while there is no foolproof method, users are typically queued up on the call, and the celebrity has the option of skipping a question. "It is real-time chat, not a…
