If you can send megabytes size emails for free, why should you pay for the mere 160 character long SMS, questions 160by2.com. Good question, right? 160by2.com allows you to send SMS to any mobile in India for free. But then your SMS needs to be really short. They allow only 80 characters in the SMS and in the remaining 80 characters contextual ads will appear. Way2sms.com is another such site offering similar service.
It’ll be interesting to see how close the ads relate to the message in the future.
Happy Birthday to you.
Enjoy your birthday with delicious Dominos pizzas. Call 22431777 to order.I’m in a meeting. ‘ll be late today.
Give yourself a break. Play exciting new games @ Zapak.comGood morning, mom.
Start your day with Nescafe sunrise.
Will the ads get blend well with the messages as above? In fact I tested sending few messages from 160by2.com to have a look at these contextual ads. For my Happy Birthday and congratulations message Cadbury’s ad appeared in the ad text.
Congratulations!
Kuch Meetha Ho Jaye – Cadbury
Al right SMS is free, but you need to logon to their site to send those free SMSes. You can’t directly send it thru your mobile phones, yet. Imagine connecting to the net, early morning everyday just to send that Good morning message. Will it be worth? At least till they provide the facility to directly send the SMS from mobile phone, they can provide a feature to create the SMS and schedule them to send at a later time. This way you can go to bed early and still send the Happy Birthday message to your friend at midnight 12.
Mobile advertising is not new to India. Sites like mGinger, sms2india pay users to receive ads on their mobile. But I believe this contextual ad model by 160by2 will be more effective to the advertisers. Since the ad is embedded with the personal message, users won’t simply delete the SMS without even reading it, as in the case of ad only message. Also there are chances of retaining the message and rereading it and if the message is good, users may forward it to their friends group too, so the advertisers will get more for their bucks here.
So why wait? Keep your message short and make the advertisers pay for your SMS.
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Hi Siva
Thats a cool post. I am from SMS Country, the company behind 160by2.com.
We have taken onboard your suggestion of facility to schedule messages and will launch it as soon as our development team has some time to breath! 🙂
Thanks, sanyog
Sanyog, Thanks for taking the suggestion onboard.
HI Siva,
FYI
“Way2sms.com is another such site offering similar service.“
Way2SMS is the first Portal to offer Free SMS anywhere in India Which was live from Jan 2007, Way2SMS is far ahead of any other SMS related portals. Way2SMS is the first, Offering email Kind of Environment for SMSing…….Which we won’t find in any other portal.
Suresh, Thanks for the info on way2sms.
good post man