Brian Smith of Comparison Engines has written an - as always detailed and accurate - update on Mobile Commerce covering a few players including us. Brian, thanks a lot for the kind words!
I usually follow Brian's posts because he has a great eye for catching the details and a very sharp, analytic mind to figure out what makes sense and what not. So when he brings up an issue, I listen and think.
Brian warns Frucall on the group messaging functionality, since it's not part of our core competency. And he is right, we do not want to de-focus the team and the product.
However, group messaging (or in general what we call the "social networking" features of Frucall) serve a very specific purpose: They provide alternative ways for our users to get the word out on Frucall. Anybody who has built a consumer service knows that getting heard and acquiring users is the biggest chanllenge they face. It is easy to spend marketing dollors without getting tangible results.
One way of getting the word out is to build self-promoting components into the service. Group messaging is one such feature - when I use it to leave a message for a group of people, in effect I'm letting them know that there's this thing called Frucall. Hopefully some of them will check it out and will use it.
I can't talk about the effectiveness of the approach, it's too early. But I can tell you that user acquisition is not as easy as it seams, and one needs multiple ways to go about it.
So in short, Brian is right and we should not forget about our core competency. However, group messaging is not part of our core services. It's a means towards a bigger goal.
I'd like to hear back what you think. Comments are blocked here, so please feel free to drop me an email at "nasser" -at- "frucall.com".
Posted by nasser at September 10, 2006 09:31 PM