Self help guide for per second billing: Which Tariff plan to prefer?

And here comes per second billing.... Yes, price war has once again & yet at least 2~3 serious player yet to enter in Indian Market. Is this price war sustainable? I have big 'YES' for it.
1) By nature we are talkative people
2) Still every month we are adding about 1.5 cr (15 mil) new subscribers
3) And some more reasons, I will post in the next blog when time permits.. watch this space
Sustainable Tariff options:
a) per second billing with slightly higher effective per min rates :- for those who are frequent caller for small duration like sales guy always on move and reporting every hr to managers & people like stock brokers, tele-marketers { may be those who pitch for insurance sales as tendency you will put down your phone any time after 2 seconds.... :-) }
b) per min billing for attractive pricing :- for those who are professionals need to be refered less frequently & for short durations like company's CEO, MD calling to Sales head or others, Doctors/ CAs calling their clients
c) charges per call where typically calls are considered for 180 sec or 600 seconds :- real aggressive plans for those chatter boxes at home your daughters, wife/ beloved hubby or for yourself to talk with your girl friend/boy friend
d) And last option Make Your Own Plan :- TATA DOCOMO has started offering this for those elite class who are suppose to be literate enough to know their benefits. Other wise for rest all common man like us above three options are enough to choose from
There is absolutely no need to complicate Tariff plan offerings beyond this.
Though it is my personal openion, Reliance has tried achieving this. How well it gets communicated is yet to see.. Last two months aquisition is at least not in its favour..But there could be various reason to it. But TATA DOCOMO is clear winner, forcing even to Vodafone and Airtel to see the back. (as per TRAI reports)
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What about SMSs ?
A) For professional/ Geek chatters :- Pay per Character (Some operator call it Diet SMS.. for whom is it diet really?)
B) For Managers ordering through SMS or habitual detailers : better to opt for aggressive SMS charges per SMS
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Any other things:
A) Think of having some kind of onnet top-up if your regular calling group is on the same network
B) If your real export-import quality person fitting into P3 category or having business need, look around for best bargain ILD rates..
I am sure you will get it if commit ILD ARPU of say INR 1,000/- or above

Challenges for operator is how well they can communicate their simple offerings...
And challenges for customer is how well they recognize their cell-phone usage habbit...
Do write back to me for any comments or clarification, happy talking till then...

Survival of VAS eco-system

Current recessionary phase gives us a pause, to relax and re-visit VAS strategy? Will all VAS services continue to exist as paid model and continue to grow at same rate? Will 'going rural' motto of cellular company allows VAS to sustain similar % penetration ? Does trend suggest something more conducive required to increase acceptability of VAS services further..

I believe it is required.. future growth of VAS services will be embedded with Ad-revenue support model.. Google and Yahoo! of the world will make VAS as side load/free load/ subsidize.. Or there may be slot for new giant to emerge in the world of mobile search. It may be possible that on the mobile ads may not be rendered based on pure search.. As mobile being highly personal think, with the help of Telco, more relevant ads can be rendered based on the customer profile mapping.. Telcos owning the customer will become more and more profitable for the mobile operators..Welcome to the world of 'Permission Marketing'

Race has just begun...

Search based & content based advertising

Let me clarify in the end everything is content. but for all practical purpose let us segregate SEARCH from CONTENT. SEARCH is something-some action taken when exact location of content is not known to the user. (This statement can be extended to the physical world as well with some refinement). So we can presume in 75% to even 90% times CONTENT requirement is initiated through SEARCH result. Now question comes where to put your brand advertising?
1) On the SEARCH page itself (chances more eye-ball catch)
2) On the page along side content (searched result) (chances lesser eye-ball catch compare to putting with SEARCH result
what is your call on it?

Advertising with Search or Content ? - Funda1

Since long time I didn't get time to write. I had plan for quite some time to write series of blog around Content, search and online Advertise. Small pointer like blogs and then discus with people-friends interested in the same topic. So let us start from today..

Advertising to be done with Search or Content?
A) It is based the Objective of Advertising & Branding.
B) It also needs to consider aspects of life cycle management of the product/services
(like incubation stage, or growth stage, maturity or declining phase of product)
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There are yet many things to add to it as I get time will update it.. Surely before 31st Dec-2008 :-)
Till that time put your comments/pointer/thoughts- for how to enhance this article