Voice messaging services aimed at the masses

Amitabh Bachchan, one of Bollywood’s biggest movie stars, writes a blog and is widely followed on social media. The Big B, as he is affectionately called, started blogging in 2008 and has more than 1.5 million followers on Twitter. And while some celebrities opt to let their managers write posts for them, fans can be sure that Bachchan’s posts on at least one media site are his – because they can hear his voice. In July 2010, Bachchan started using Bubbly, a voice-based messaging service, and he now has just over 1 million followers in India. Each one pays 30 rupees a month, or about 60 cents, to hear his sonorous voice. Social voice messaging, or voice microblogging via cellphones, is still in its infancy. Some companies see great potential, but many analysts remain skeptical. So far, the markets where these voice messaging services have gained traction are big adopters of cellphones and text messaging, said Krishna Baidya, an industry manager for Asia-Pacific information and communication technologies at Frost & Sullivan, a market research company. “Voice SMS technology is one-to-one communication and has existed for some time,” Baidya said, referring to short message service. “But voice-blogging, one-to-many, is newer.” He said he thought this could be appealing for celebrities, politicians or spokespeople for well-known organizations “because it’s a good way to connect to your target audience. And for the user, they feel like, ‘They’re just talking at me.”’ Bubble Motion, based in Singapore, introduced Bubbly in India in May 2010. People who use the service can send a text message to followers that contains a link to a short audio message. The audio is played back as a voice call. This year, it expanded Bubbly to Indonesia, the Philippines and Japan and has been adding about 100,000 new users a week, said Thomas Clayton, the company’s chief executive. The company now has about 12 million users in the four countries, but Baidya says he believes Bubbly needs to overcome several obstacles if it wants to become as popular as Twitter. According to an estimate by eMarketer, a digital marketing research firm, Twitter will have 21 million users in the United States alone by the end of the year. “First, it’s not easy to find the person you want to follow,” Baidya said. “In Twitter or Facebook, you can search a person by name and once you find them, you can follow them; but here, to follow someone you need to know their phone number.” The second shortcoming, he said, is that “you might not be able to follow someone you want if they’re on a different mobile operator network than you are.” Finally, it is easy to filter out the things you do not want to look at on Facebook, even if you are following a lot of people. It is not as easy with voice messages. “You could be getting a lot of junk that is not possibly of your interest,” Baidya said. Clayton says he agrees that to be successful, social voice messaging needs to be available to any cellphone user, “as most people do not know what network their friends are on.” That would require Bubbly to reach deals with every telecom operator in each country. In India, Bubble Motion is available on the country’s seven major operators, which allows the company to cover 85 percent of the cellphone subscribers in the country. Because smartphone use is growing rapidly, the company hopes to introduce by the end of the year applications that can be downloaded from the Internet for Apple’s iPhone">iPhone and devices usingGoogle"> Google’s Android system. The applications would make it much easier to reach out to new customers in developed countries, where smartphone penetration is higher. According to recent research by Nielsen, the media analysis firm, fewer than 20 percent of Asia-Pacific cellphone users have smartphones, while smartphone penetration is 38 percent in the United States and 40 percent in Western Europe. Pamela Clark-Dickson, senior analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media, a market research company, said that while services like Bubbly were successful in emerging markets, she was not convinced that there would be similar demand in developed markets. “Voice-SMS platform providers have been trying to sell their platforms to mobile operators in developed markets, but they have not had as much success as they have in emerging markets,” she said. “This is primarily because the mobile operators in developed markets often don’t see a compelling business case for plain old voice-SMS in their markets – particularly as the penetration of smartphones, mobile broadband and the use of the mobile Internet and applications increases among mobile subscribers.” “However, if voice-SMS/voice messaging vendors can develop applications that do provide significantly more utility than voice-SMS, like Yiip or QWiPS, then it’s possible that these applications could do better in developed markets,” she added. “But that’s what is untested at the moment.” Yiip, a new app by the startup Qwip (no relation to Qwips), was introduced in San Francisco in September. Like Twitter, it limits the length of its messages to make them easily digestible – in the case of Yiip, 10 seconds for public messages and 25 seconds for private messages. It also allows users to add photos and sound effects. You can record the message on an iPhone">iPhone and share it with followers. Private groups can be set up to keep messages between friends, and sound clips can be distributed on Twitter and Facebook. Qwip Chief Executive Taylor Bollman said the app had been downloaded 60,000 times. “We don’t yet have any celebrities or journalists,” he said, “but we will be pursuing this aggressively once we’ve incorporated the core functionality we envision for the app.” The app is available for only the iPhone">iPhone, but the company plans to move to Android, the world’s most popular mobile operating system, and other mobile platforms. Qwips, a New York startup, introduced a voice app this month that allows people to add 30-second voice messages to existing social communications like photos, email, SMS, tweets and Facebook posts. The app allows users to “better express” themselves and add “emotion, personality and authenticity to those communications,” said Jeffrey Stier, founder and president of Qwips. Clayton said Bubble Motion planned to expand Bubbly’s features, but he also said he did not believe photos or videos were necessary for social voice messaging. He said he believed that simplicity for the user was extremely important. With many new entrants providing voice-messaging services, the competition is likely to intensify, with a race among vendors to attract users who can then attract other users. “The more users you have, the more people use it,” Clayton said. “People are going to migrate toward a winner-takes-all, whether it’s us or them. We’re just trying to run as fast as we can and get as many users as we can to attract more and more celebrities, and we’ve got a pretty good snowball going right now.”

PLDT Group on track to attain 2011 targets

Telecom firm Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) President Napoleon Nazareno said on Monday the PLDT Group is on track to attain its revised guidance numbers for the year. “Our guidance this year is slightly lower than what was earlier stipulated.  We are on track though as yearend approaches,” said Nazareno.  From a target of P40.5 billion in core net income for 2011, the phone giant may only reach P39 billion as revenues from its legacy businesses of voice and text continue to decline. Although there is a shift for data and broadband services, Nazareno said the transformation process will take some time before a 1-for-1 revenue substitution process can be achieved. “We are still in the transformation stage but broadband seems promising; that’s why we continue to invest in our network for data and broadband services,” he said. The PLDT group posted P42 billion in core net income last year. Service revenues for the group this year is likely to go down by 4 percent from P142.2 billion in 2010. Nazareno, however, sees brighter prospects ahead despite intense competition. He expects 2012 as a “year of growth” as the group undertakes a capital-intensive network upgrade designed to handle new technologies. “For next year, the industry will still continue to experience a tight competition but hopefully with new services that we have started to offer and will offer will pave the way for new growth areas. Overall, it will be a year of growth next year,” he said. The wireless business will still be the group’s biggest revenue component, albeit noticeably lower. “Mobile revenues contribute roughly 55% to 60%. Revenue for next year should be stable, and if not, it should be growing slightly,” said the PLDT official. PLDT is banking on its broadband service to sustain momentum growth.  At end-September this year, the PLDT group’s total broadband and Internet revenues totaled P13.9 billion, up 10 percent year-on-year. The group’s broadband business now account for 13 percent of consolidated service revenues. “Broadband will be higher. Now, it contributes to about between 12 to 15 percent and it may be higher next year,” said Nazareno. The phone firm’s reported net income in the third quarter and first nine months of the year were down by 10% and 4%, respectively. From January to September this year, PLDT’s reported net income stood at P30.6 billion from the P32 billion recorded in the same period last year. Core profit, which excludes currency and derivatives-related items, was also lower at P30.6 billion from P31.4 billion recorded in the same period last year. Third-quarter net profit plunged 10% to P9.3 billion compared with P10.3 billion a year earlier. Core net profit also fell by 6% to P9.6 billion. At end-September, PLDT’s service revenues declined by 3% to P103.2 billion, reflecting the combined effect of a 7% decline in combined cellular and fixed voice revenues and a 4% reduction in cellular and data revenues, including text.

Globe Business offers online leadership assessment quiz

Are you an Abraham Lincoln, a Napoleon Bonaparte, a Cleopatra or a Jose Rizal to your employees? Globe Business recently launched the online test “Globe Business Leader Quiz” to help entrepreneurs identify what kind of leader they are — and give suggestions on how to harness their unique qualities to run their business even better. By just logging on to http://business.globe.com.ph/leader and answering the seven-item quiz, business owners could identify their leadership style. The online test will give an assessment if the respondent is authoritarian, intolerant of incompetence, an intimidating or inspirational leader. “There are no right or wrong answers to Globe Business Leader Quiz. The results merely show what particular qualities a business leader has. There are, of course, pros and cons to these qualities when running a business,” said Manny Aligada, head of corporate and SME segments of Globe Business. “The quiz results then suggest how the business leader should tone down certain qualities and nurture others in order to maximize his leadership abilities. Best of all, it’s a fun and entertaining way to learn,” he said. Aligada added that Globe Business offers a range of customized products and services that may be mixed and matched to suit a specific leadership style. “Globe Business products and services are flexible and comprehensive enough to allow customization — they may be tailored to be the right fit not only to the needs, requirements and budget of a particular business, but also to fit the preferred leadership style of the entrepreneur,” he said. “For example, an entrepreneur who functions best when mobile and conducting business away from the office might feel cranky when boxed inside office premises. He or she may best benefit from running the office through a mobile phone, online video conferencing, chat or e-mail,” he said. “Or an entrepreneur might have tons of charisma that leaves employees spellbound — but he or she might not be used to communication ideas and instructions. So maybe that entrepreneur can start practicing communication skills by using an unlimited voice call subscription or chat,” he added. Before viewing the results of the quiz, a very witty and entertaining video is shown to illustrate in a fun way the various types of leaders and how Globe Business can work for them. Globe Business offers services that are designed to help large enterprises and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) operate more efficiently so business owners would have time to pursue their other passions in life. Globe Business solutions help simplify business operations, manage communication costs, and serve clients efficiently. If entrepreneurs are able to run their business smoothly, then they would enjoy more things in life and be the leader they have always wanted to be. The online quiz also features business solutions that Globe Business offers. Business Plus allows entrepreneurs save up to 50 percent on texts and 30 percent on calls. Companies can also control their communication expenditure with AutoloadMAX Corporate Edition, which helps manage employees’ prepaid cellphone accounts. Sending e-mails and performing daily Internet requirements could be fuss-free as well with Globe Business’ reliable DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) Internet. The Globe Business Leader Quiz also gives respondents the chance to win BlackBerry Bold 9900 or a prepaid phone kit. All they have to do is register and follow the promo mechanics. Visit http://business.globe.com.ph/leader to take the Globe Business Leader Quiz and find out your leadership style. Globe Business, the corporate arm of Globe Telecom, provides wireless and wireline solutions for a diverse set of industries, businesses, and commercial enterprises. It assures SMEs of affordable, reliable and dependable services for all communication needs, both wireless and wireline solutions, to generate the highest possible profit at the lowest possible cost.