Tech Shout!

BPL Mobile seems to be on a roll in India. After introducing the Mobile TV service, the Mobile Tracker solution, and of course the innovative Mini Validity offer, the network provider has now announced to launch an icon-based WAP site wap.mizone.bplmobile.com, for its subscribers. For this initiative, the company has joined hands with multinational digital entertainment firm Buongiorno. Under this move, BPL Mobile wants to essentially create properties on the WAP site for companies to advertise on, since it feels that by this method brands can target their ads in a better way.

Speaking further about this Sunzay Passari, VP-VAS and Devices, BPL Mobile, said, “Currently, the WAP sites in India are not very user-friendly, using WML as the language, wherein the user is dependent on the content available for him in the list. With the XHTML BPL WAP site, customers will now have an improved interface for navigation and download, and would be able to discover content easily.”

Milind Pathak, Co-CEO and Country Manager, Buongiorno India, continued, “The objective of all players in the VAS ecosystem is to provide rich quality experience to mobile subscribers, and the use of XHTML service is another step in this direction.”

Passari further added that the company is seeking to create properties on this portal which will help them earn some profits. Interestingly, the ads can be customized according to the profile of the user, which according to Passari is “the future of advertising for products and services.”

Touching on the topic of the scope and success levels of mobile advertising in India, Passari stated that the country has over 30 million mobile phone subscribers with Internet-enabled devices. He said, “I believe a lot of people in India are experiencing Internet for the first time through their mobile phones. I foresee a bright future for the medium in this country. For our mobile TV service, which was launched a couple of months back; we might even look at moving towards ad-supported channels. In future, we might even see niche targeted mobile video advertisements personalized for individual consumers.”

The new WAP site by BPL Mobile includes an application through which if the handset offers support to a video streaming player, the WAP site would show Mobile TV. In addition, it has content adaptation and renders different content to different users based on the capability of the handset. Further on, With XHTML, operators can create and implement visually appealing handset-compatible services that will meet the needs of the future and will also guarantee a smooth evolution path for existing services.