Instant messaging and VoIP company Nimbuzz, in which South African media conglomerate Naspers has a minority stake, has tied up with Cleartrip to enable booking via its service. The new service, Cleartrip Brand Buddy can be added to the regular chat roster. Once a user adds basic travel information, they are taken to a co-branded WAP page to process the bookings. The financial details of the partnership are not clear at this point. While its competitors such as Line and WeChat sell virtual goods such as games, emoji packs or stickers, Nimbuzz is looking to other companies to help generate revenue. Though it is an interesting approach, we need to see how many people will actually go through Nimbuzz app to book a holiday or a flight. It might be helpful for people who still use feature phones, but there is a high probability of smartphone users preferring a separate Cleartrip app for booking tickets. Nimbuzz has been tying up with companies to create co-branded services that will help its users. Earlier it had tied up with Spectranet to launch HelloIP, a cheap VoIP targeted at Indians. There were talks of Nimbuzz going for unified license to launch a similar service, but instead they have opted to power the service for companies such as Spectranet that already have such a license . Last week Nimbuzz also updated its app for Windows 8 mobile phones to add unlimited voice calling feature. Nimbuzz also has a VoIP service called NimbuzzOut that is targeted at the international market, but it does not…
