30
Aug 2003
Kartavya/Sanjeev/Abhi,
CONTENT/CONTENT/CONTENT
Content
is the King
See
enclosed news cuttings. I have sent you several similar cuttings earlier too.
One
thing is clear.
Having
invested thousand of cores of rupee in rolling –out Mobile phone services, the
service providers are desperately looking for some killer content which
subscribers will pay for and which does NOT come under the purview/juris
direction of TRAI/TDSAT/ govt. etc.
As
far as voice talk is concerned it has become a commodity. Not only it is
cheapest in India, worst part is, it is controlled by TRAI/TDSAT etc, for
service-Providers, there is hardly any “profit” to be made in voice –talk.
There is a cut throat competition and then there is the regulator who directs prices.
There is a cut throat competition and then there is the regulator who directs prices.
And
huge bandwidths installed, have pushed up “fixed costs” & consequently the
“Break-even volumes” for each service provider forcing round after round of
price cuts.
Within
a year there will be a huge “shake out/consolidation/ mergers &
Acquisitions and only a few with deep pockets will survive.
In
the meantime all of them those with deep pockets and those without are all
scrambling to get hold of
CONTENT-PROVIDERS
Who
can provide them with such useful content that their subscribers will be
willing to pay for content for which they can charge fancy price without having
to wrong about TRAI.
This
is like drug price control of pharma industry.
O
drug company wants to manufacture drugs whose prices are controlled / dio-tated
by Drug controller (eg: Generic drugs).
They
all want to manufacture only those patented drugs which are NOT covered by DPCO
(Drug price Control Order)
Makes
for obvious business-logic.
Cell
phone service providers are in similar situation right now.
Either
they quickly switch over a major part of their service to “Non-price controlled
services or face closure/take-over
This
is OUR opportunity.
Millions
of jobseekers are desperately looking for info on “Suitable” jobs-in any part
of the country.
Especially
if such content is delivered over a cheep device like a cell-phone as compared
to a Rs. 25000/- PC & internet connection.
Surfing
for job in cybercafé costs Rs, 15/- per hour which could as up to Rs. 200/400
per month (nearly same as monthly bill for a mobile)
We
can deliver job search job alert content to these 15 million cell phone subscribers
(of course first they would need to submit their resumes on RecruitGuru).
But,
if we have to deliver this content over cell-phones we need to tie-up will
service providers.
At
RS. 30/month/subscriber (for delivering SMS job alerts, one per day), this
translates into a revenue to service providers.
13
million x 30 = Rs. 390 million/month
= Rs. 39 crores/month
And
this revenue is not subject to TRAI
I am
sure, we can “Sell” this idea to service providers (-and, in the process, earn
10% i.e Rs. 2/3 crores per month) from this service of “Delivering Job Alerts
as SMS.
I
feel we should take up this project on TOP-PRIORITY (as far as development of
software is concerned) before monster/Naukri gets in.
They are already
delivering Job-alerts as email even today I would be surprised if this idea (of
delivering job alert as SMS) has not occurred to them so far.
Let
us discuss on Monday with Nirmit/SriRam & Raju
