India's leading Free Online SMS service 160by2.com Launches New Features For Their Users

June 30, 2008 - PRLog -- SMS Country Networks last week launched a redesigned home page of their Free SMS portal, 160by2.com. The move is in accordance to the company’s focus on expanding the user base by educating their visitors about the different channels through which they could send free SMSes. 160by2.com, part of SMS Country Networks, which also owns SMSCountry.com (a leading bulk SMS service), had also recently crossed the 1 million users landmark.

The website which ranks as the 76th most popular in India according to Alexa also ranks as the seventh most popular WAP site in India according to a recent survey by Opera. According to Mr. Satya Yerramsetti, the CEO of SMS Country Networks, “The popularity of the website indicates a growing trend of mobile and internet converging across the globe, especially in India. This also provides us an opportunity to serve our users through a free service that is a culmination of the mobile and internet”. 160by2.com lets its users to send free SMSes anywhere in India. The service generates revenue from advertisers who market their products to a contextually and geographically targeted audience. The concept has been a hit among the advertisers of 160by2 which now boasts of a clientele that includes Cadbury, Coca Cola, Jet Airways, Kingfisher, Kotak, Moneyline, Start TV and Zee network among others.

According to Mr. Satya, “The redesigned homepage of 160by2.com is cleaner and focuses on letting our users know of the channels, apart from the website, from where they could avail the free SMS service of 160by2”. The new features launched in the past few months include a WAP alternative of 160by2.com, an Email to SMS feature, a mobile application and also a widget that bloggers and website owners may incorporate on their sites to let their readers send free SMS through the 160by2.com gateway.

These new features have helped the company with a prolific growth rate in the past few months. The widget has also become popular with a vast number of blogs using the application on their blogs. Another feature to have taken off really well is the Email to SMS feature which lets the users send SMS to their friends from their email. According to Mr. Satya, “The Email to SMS feature was specifically conceptualized for the office goers who have access to their office mailboxes, but are denied internet at work. We saw a gap here which could be filled with an Email to SMS feature. As anticipated, this feature has been received really well from our users and we have received tremendous positive feedback”.
The site has been focusing on providing more value to its users. Among other things, the website also offers birthday and anniversary alerts, and reminders on SMS.  One of the most popular features on the website is contacts back up feature, wherein users can back up their mobile phone contacts online.  The users can download and upload contacts in simple excel format.  In the unfortunate event of user losing the phone, she can always retrieve her contacts from 160by2.

The service is planning a slew of features that shall be launched in next three months. The objective of the team is to develop 160by2 as the leading internet-mobile convergence service in India, where digital media merges in true sense. 160by2 has more than 1.4 million registered users who access 160by2.com on internet and mobile to use its services. Apart from being leading websites and WAP site in India, 160by2 users send more than 20 million SMS in a month.  Even though the gateway to 160by2 services is through internet, it cleverly sidesteps the problem of low internet penetration in India by providing it services on mobile internet and reaching out to a larger audience through its SMS services.

This leads to a unique integrated advertising media that brands can use to target consumers on internet, WAP and SMS. With its reach of more than 5 million unique mobile phones in India, 160by2 offers highly targeted and interactive means of advertising to its clients.  With large majority of users being in age group of 16-34, 160by2 is an ideal medium for brands trying to reach out to the youth who is an opinion leader. 160by2 allows its advertisers to devise campaigns with multiple modes of interaction – on internet, wap and SMS. The call to action to the target audience may be a click to know more (internet/mobile), click to call (mobile), click to SMS (mobile) or click to download (internet/mobile).  The advertisers have been using 160by2 medium for targeting consumers by age group, location or gender. 160by2 also allows contextual advertising by placing ads within SMS based on the content of the SMS.

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160by2.com, the leading Indian Online Free SMS service has recently launched a slew of new features that is solely aimed at providing more value to their users and also increasing their user base. The site crossed the 1 million user landmark recently.