SMS Recharge : 15k done and counting!

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Bipin

SMS Recharge is one of the biggest hits at mobikwik.com. Today, 30th August, around 1 am IST in the morning, the 15000th recharge was done using SMS. Yes, at 1 am!  The SMS was sent by Lenin Khaidem Singh, a student of PESIT, Bangalore, one of our regular users and he got the recharge within a matter of seconds.

To use SMS Recharge, a user needs to have money in his/her mobikwik balance. Several months ago, when we first launched the SMS Recharge, most folks were skeptical, since no one would think a startup can be trusted with their money, and that too in advance! These 15k transactions ( and growing 50% month over month) are a testimony to the fact that we have crossed the trust barrier.  Every one of these users of SMS Recharge was acquired organically, specifically through Word-of-Mouth, which makes the achievement more gratifying.

So, how exactly does one enroll for this service?

1. Sign up with mobikwik.com and you are ready to go!

2. Send an SMS  RC<space>amount<space>cellnumber

to our long code ( 9711981981).

where amount in INR is amount you want to recharge and cellnumber is the mobile number you want to recharge.

3. If you have sufficient mobikwik balance, your recharge will be done within 5 seconds. If balance is not sufficient, you will get a reply from mobikwik saying so. To add mobikwik balance, login to mobikwik.com, go to My account and click on Add to Mobikwik Balance.

Some customers have asked us “Is it safe?”. Oh yes, your SMS is routed to Mobikwik.com through a secure,hidden, IP-address protected URL. So, even if someone tries to use free SMS services on the internet like way2sms.com, the security of your mobikwik balance is guaranteed.

So , what are you waiting for ? SMS us right away!

Posted in About MobiKwik, MobiKwik.com, Mobile, News, The Market, Tips & Tricks | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

World’s Best Cloud Based Music Services

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Sameer

Perhaps you have a fantastic music phone, with 4GB or so memory. How many songs it could hold ? May be 1000 ? You listen to songs 24×7, and get bored by repeat. You are out of your songs collection. You want to listen to something new and great. Where you can listen ? FM Radio is full of advertisements and crappy songs. Cloud Based Music Service could fulfill your need.

What is that thing ? Is that capable for my phone ? I know you can’t wait to know about it.

Cloud based music service uses technology of Streaming. Huge song database is stored at providers’ servers. Internet is used as streaming medium and your mobile phone as player. Pretty simple, right ? All you need is handset capable of streaming with good EDGE, preferably WiFi or 3G connectivity.

Those providers usually charge you certain fee per month or so. But if you are really music savvy, it’s worth for you. Next, you need to pay certain amount to your cellular operator for data charges. You could buy a data plan. That’s all, you are good to go. You could access thousands of songs and music clips right on your mobile. Even you could upload your music to some sites. Ratings, reviews and polls could help you to listen to great song. Linking to social networks will let your friends know, what you are listening to. Videos are supported by certain providers as well.

Let’s see which are top 6 cloud based music services.

1. Grooveshark

Grooveshark is the service having great userbase. It is basically a community, where user runs the site. You could search tracks from huge database and even add your collection to cloud. It allows you to link your Facebook and Twitter account to spread the world.

http://mobile.grooveshark.com/

2. Rhapsody

Rhapsody is the service owned by Real networks. Search for tracks is possible with Real player itself. iPhone and iPad has this service as default. Service allows you to download MP3 songs as well. Rhapsody charges 10$ per month, and available in US only, as of now.

http://www.rhapsody.com

3. Pandora Radio

Pandora is open source streaming service, popular in Linux users. They charge only 0.99$ per month. Unfortunately, it is limited to certain carriers in US only. iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile and Palm could stream it.

http://www.pandora.com

4. Spotify

Spotify has became popular in short time. It also has large music library with extra features.Spotify is popular for mobiles because it can be streamed on Android, S60, iPhone and others. Again, spotify is not available in India, as of now. It is available in certain UK countries.

http://www.spotify.com

5. Last.fm

With touch of integrated social networking, Last.fm is popular. It has no restriction of country, good for us ! Mobile application is available for iPhone and iPad. Your profile on Last.fm will show the World what you like to listen. You could visit others profile and checkout new tracks.

http://www.last.fm

6. Napster

Napster is next in queue. It is not free, but allows you to download MP3 songs. You need to pay 5$ each month to avail service. With subscription, you can stream unlimited music and download certain no of tracks. Application is available for certain handsets, allowing direct download.

So next time when you feel sad about your limited music collection, consider a Cloud Based Music Service. With soon arrival of 3G, it might become popular in India as well. Perhaps we’ll get a service featuring Indian tracks !

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PayPal exchange rate for Mobile Recharge

Posted on August 27, 2010 by Bipin

Mobikwik.com is the only website which provides paypal-enabled prepaid mobile recharge for 15+ mobile operators in India. One of the key concerns of paypal users is the fluctuating USD-INR exchange rate since all paypal accounts contain money in USD. So , what is the exchange rate that mobikwik.com provides for mobile recharge?

One of the key advantages mobikwik.com exploits is its ability to do flexi-recharge i.e. you can recharge for any amount for any mobile operator in India. This means you can recharge for any amount in INR , starting from Rs 1 ! No other website provides this level of flexibility.

This is exactly the flexibility which allows us to peg the INR very close to the real exchange rate versus USD prevailing in the market. For example, these days, for Rs 50 mobile recharge, you have to pay USD 1.7 including all the transaction fees and exchange rate adjustment. Corresponding rates for some other amounts are shown below :

INR                                USD*

100                                  2.9

200                                 5.4

500                                 12.9

* includes local taxes, transaction fee and exchange rate adjustment.

Of course , you could choose any amount other than these, including special packs, and see the corresponding USD for yourself at the billing page, before making the payment.

So, paypal users, what are you waiting for?

Posted in About MobiKwik, Customer, MobiKwik.com, Mobile, New Features, News, Startup, The Market | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Push Email : Mailbox Anywhere

Posted on August 25, 2010 by Sameer

The world today runs on Internet. Would you like to send a letter to your colleague, quoting something urgent ? Would you like to send a snail mail for a job application ? Of course not ! We have a piece of magic called Email !

Email works on client-server model. Server, a remote powerful computer holds all data and emails and is responsible for routing the emails properly. Client access them through internet cloud. For example, when you are accessing your Gmail you are actually accessing a client.

Normal email works on the principle of Polling. One needs to be connected to internet all the times, and keep refreshing your inbox. Poll email keeps pinging the server to get new emails. That means request to check new email is sent by client. Every time you access email through browser, you use polling. Post Office Protocol (POP) is another polling email technology, used to configure email clients and mobile phones.

Polling is not convenient for mobile phones. To check for new messages, it must ping server frequently, which ultimately uses internet connection. Internet connection on mobile has comparatively less bandwidth. And it is sort of costly as well. Plus mobile could consume battery faster, if it keeps using data connection all the time. Otherwise you don’t get an email on time.

Rather than client asking for new email, what if the server intimates the client about it ? Push emails works in exact same way. Internet Messaging Protocol (IMAP) is popular Push email protocol. Client doesn’t need to keep pinging server on and on. Upon getting new email, server will intimate client to read it. Then it could fetch the same, upon user command.

This is the perfect thing for mobile. Mobile doesn’t need to waste bandwidth for checking new emails. We have mobile handsets capable of Push Email.

Push Email was popularized by Research In Motion(RIM), the  Canadian company which makes Blackberry handsets. It has since been a big hit with enterprise users who use email a lot. Android, Palm OS and Apple iPhone also offer Push Email. Certain Nokia S60 Handsets and Sony Ericsson handsets does offer partial or full IMAP support. All you need to do is setup an email account. Your mailbox server must be capable for push. Then relax, you will get notification, as soon as an email is received.

Unfortunately, if your mailbox server does not have Push, you might need to use third party mobile/push email providers. Seven, Emoze and Syncronica are few of such providers. Nokia Mail for Exchange is also one of such services.

With Push email, you get powerful electronic mailbox, in your pocket all the times !

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Mobile Jukebox : Music Everywhere

Posted on August 19, 2010 by Sameer

How do you listen to music ? Use Jumbo Vacuum Tube Radio at home ? Use phonogram ? Use Cassette player ? Call your private music band ? Sing yourself, perhaps in bathroom ? Or simply use Music Player in mobile ? Music is a non separable part of our lives. No matter what kind of music one listens, it’s hard to find a person, who doesn’t listen to music.

Before moving to music on mobile, we should know about digital music. Cassette was a popular music media, over years. But with complicated mechanism and less life, there was need of a revolutionary thing. Digital music was the answer. Music file is encoded and decoded to play. MP3 is a popular example of digital encoded music file. It offers loss less playability and quality. So we’ve forgotten cassettes ! Tiny MP3 Players and iPods became popular.

But why one would like to carry two things, one to listen music and another to stay connected ? So we integrated the Music player in mobile. Today, even low budget Multimedia phone offers upto 4GB of expandable memory. 4GB is enough to hold about 1500 MP3 songs.

Music phones, like Sony Ericsson Walkman and Nokia Xpress Music are popular for crispy music quality. With Headphone, you could listen to song anywhere, respecting your and others privacy. FM Radio got into mobile phones, and became popular among budget conscious people.

Before we could listen to music, we need to get it. You could buy a CD or download on PC and transfer to phone. Or directly download on mobile phone, using Data Connection or WiFi. Or subscribe to operator’s service.

Let’s see things, one by one ! In fact, music is property of studio or company releasing it. In United States, people BUY music by paying certain amount per album or so, called Legal Music. Otherwise they buy physical media, as like CD. But most Indians are really not aware about it. I believe, about 80% of us think that songs are free. Songs available for free are called Pirated songs. Piracy is a great threat to music industry since years. It’s as good as robbery, digital one ! It’s always beneficial to buy CD or pay to authenticate site of music.

What about direct download on mobile ? We have handsets having capability of talking with internet cloud. So instead of using a PC in between, we can directly get songs on mobile. Another way to listen samples or free podcast is Streaming. Streaming uses internet as channel to stream content on remote device. Streaming offers live news and radio stations.

Next is subscription service. It is usually offered by a mobile operator like Vodafone. You need to pay certain price per song or month. Then you could download that song. Or call specific number and listen to song.

That’s not all over. Mobile music has brighter future. 3G and WiFi will ensure even richer music experience. Music phones are being popular day by day. Podcasts, live streamings and many more. For brighter future, Music needs our help as well. We must stop spreading piracy and buy music !

Posted in Customer, Mobile, New Features | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

MobiKwik celebrates 1st birthday with a new 2010 look

Posted on August 18, 2010 by Upasana

Hello friends, users & critics of MobiKwik.com

You may have noticed something is different on our website www.MobiKwik.com. If you haven’t already, go check out the site. MobiKwik now sports an all new good looking (thats what we think) website. The new site is fresh, its clean and yeah its light!

A few weeks back we started thinking about redesigning our site with a few goals in mind:

1. The site should make life easy for our new and existing users. Yes we at MobiKwik are focused big time on customer experience, which of course includes user experience and usability. We wanted to ensure that our users had a happy experience while using our website.  This meant cleaning up things, simplifying flows and clearer messaging.

2. The site should be faster to load and use; very critical keeping in mind the user base on non-broadband connections. The number of people on dialup slow-bandwidth connections is of course very high in India and we needed to ensure we made MobiKwik work for them.

3. The site should look cool, contemporary and in keeping with the quality aspirations of MobiKwik and its users. In a pure design sense, we wanted to have aesthetics that were pleasing yet did not sacrifice user experience for the sake of pleasing design.

4. The site should be complaint with W3C web specifications so that its accessible to web users worldwide.

5. The site should be optimized for a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 since 90% of our users have a resolution greater than or equal to 1024 x 768. Our old site design was optimized for 800 x 600.

All of this was of course not very easy, we churned through as many site designs as UI designers. Ultimately, we decided we knew what we wanted best and evolved the design to its current stage. We did a design trial run by making it live on our blog awhile ago, which of course was much easier than restyling each page, frame and pixel of our site.

MobiKwik.com celebrated its 1st birthday on August 14th and to celebrate it we decided to gift all our users with a newly styled look! Thanks to all our users for standing by us as MobiKwik grew from an infant startup in to a young company.

Keep using Mobikwik, and do leave us comments. Tell us what you like and what you don’t like about our new design.

Posted in About MobiKwik, Customer, MobiKwik.com, New Features, News, Startup, The Market | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Independence Day Furore At MobiKwik

Posted on August 17, 2010 by Nikhil

I have a candid confession to make, Indian Consumers are a Unpredictable Lot.

On 14th eve (hours from our Independence Day), we were really hoping that our Sunday would pass ‘unmindful’ of the hectic life at MobiKwik office. That Sunday would be a ‘break’ devoid of the chaos. That Sunday, in fact, was a total surprise.

25 minutes into the Independence day and our support team received a call from a frantic consumer who wanted to confirm his reward in ‘Double Dhamaka’ campaign. Notwithstanding, the very same consumer also paid us an Early-Call visit to inquire about the winners of the competition. And so our ‘Double Dhamaka’ campaign bombed our sunday with calls from consumers inquiring persistently about the winners of the competition.

23 Hours and 25 minutes later into the Independence day and our support team had responded to 329 consumer requests through email and phone. Notwithstanding, some of the consumers even inquired the validity of the participation at 1 am on 16th August.

‘Double Dhamaka’ campaign saw many participations and 50 winners. A Round of cheers to ‘Anupam, Prashant, Pragya, Amit, Tanisha, Umer, Ravi, Ehsaan, Keerti, Baljot, Swami, Anand, Shekhar, Sukumar, Vasant, Anita, Rosey, Madhvee, Vipin, Rishi, Soumya, Sarabjit, Madhushree, Indoo, Tripurna, Khuresh, Shiv, Arijeeta, Nayak ……..

Our ‘Double Dhamaka’ will be back very soon, watch this space for further announcements.

Posted in About MobiKwik, Contests, Customer, Internet, MobiKwik.com, Mobile, News, Team, The Market | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

How to enable data access on your Indian mobile?

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Sameer

Data plans are fantastic ways to stay connected to internet while on move. You could infact save money with a data plan. But before you use it, you need to install operator’s settings and activate one of the several plans. Getting settings and activating a plan is as easy as 123 !

But what is this settings thingy ? For any type of data plan, whether GPRS/EDGE or 3G, your phone needs to know how to connect operator’s server. Settings define paths for server connection. Access Point(AP) is another name for settings, used commonly. That’s why if you haven’t defined an Access Point, you get error as like No Gateway ! This could happen even if you’ve set wrong Access Point.

Next thing is to activate one of the several data plans, offered by operator. Without data plans, you pay more cost on internet. You could choose one depending on your usage and budget !

Let’s get things one by one !

We can get Access Point or Settings by two ways, either automatic or manual. When you insert the SIM into handset for first time, operator will automatically send settings, if handset has data capability. Or you could send SMS Shortcode to operator and get settings.

The problem with automatic method is, not all the phones are supported. Operators have settings for common brands and models. If you have newer phone, or a different brand, operator could not send you settings. Even for new Android and certain HTC, Blackberry, Windows Mobile phones, settings are unavailable. In such case, you need to define settings manually.

For automatic or SMS settings, you just need to send a shortcode. You will receive settings in reply which you just need to Save.

For manual once, navigate to Settings/Tools of Phone > Connectivity > Internet Settings and define new Access Point. Then, it asks for various parameters, enter those from following list, depending on operator. You might need to refer Phone’s Manual to find where you can opt for manual settings.

So, here are the instructions for both, SMS and Manual settings, for leading operators. Please note, for manual settings, you can neglect fields that are not asked by mobile -

1. Vodafone :

SMS VL to 52586

Profile Name: Vodafone (Or anything you’d like)
Homepage URL: live.vodafone.in
Bearer- GPRS
IP Address- 10.10.1.100
Username and Password: Blank
APN(Acess Point Name): portalnmms
Port No- 9401
Security- Open/Non-Secure/Normal
Proxy- Enabled/Yes

2. Airtel

SMS MO to 52567

Profile Name: Mobile Office (Or anything you’d like)
Homepage URL: live.airtelworld.com
Bearer- GPRS
IP Address- 202.56.231.117
Username and Password: Blank
APN(Acess Point Name): airtelgprs.com
Port No- 8080
Security- Open/Non-Secure/Nomal
Proxy- Enabled/Yes

3. Aircel

SMS WAP to 121

Profile Name: Aircel GPRS (Or anything you’d like)
Homepage URL: Any
Bearer- GPRS
IP Address- 192.168.35.201
Username and Password: Blank
APN(Acess Point Name): aircelgprs or aircelwap
Port No- 8081
Security- Open/Non-Secure/Nomal
Proxy- Enabled/Yes

4. Idea

SMS SET to 54671

Profile Name: Idea Fresh (Or anything you’d like)
Homepage URL: wap.ideafresh.com
Bearer- GPRS
IP Address- 10.4.42.45
Username and Password: Blank
APN(Acess Point Name): imis
Port No- 8080
Security- Open/Non-Secure/Nomal
Proxy- Enabled/Yes

5. Tata Docomo

SMS INTERNET to 52270

Profile Name: Docomo Internet (Or anything you’d like)
Homepage URL: Any
Bearer- GPRS
IP Address- 10.124.94.7
Username and Password: Blank
APN(Acess Point Name): DOCOMOINTERNET
Port No- 8080
Security- Open/Non-Secure/Nomal
Proxy- Enabled/Yes

That’s all about settings. If you are having any problem to set up phone, feel free to contact operator any time.

Now you should enable one of the data plan, fulfilling your needs. Following is the list of data plans, available from leading operators-

1. Vodafone : Monthly Pack 2GB @ 95 INR, Daily 30MB @ 4INR

2. Airtel: Monthly Pack 2GB @ 98INR

3. Aircel: Pocket Internet @ 98INR/Month or 14INR/3 Days

4. Idea: GPRS Pack 2GB @ 98INR/Month or 200MB @ 15INR/3 Days

5. MTS: Unlimited Internet @ 999INR/Month

6. Tata Docomo:GPRS Pack 6GB @ 98INR/Month or 500MB @ 15INR/3 Days

To activate any of these packs, you need to recharge with pack cost.

For daily packs, you need to call Customer Care no, and activate it.

Go ahead, stay connected 24×7, anywhere with proper settings and a data plan.

Posted in Internet, Mobile, Mobile Applications, Tips & Tricks | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Google Maps for Mobile : Never ever get lost again !

Posted on August 13, 2010 by Sameer

This is the story of one of the most-loved products from the Google stable. Google Maps is an application for mobile to make mobile navigation easy. So how does Google Maps work? But first, a little bit of history.

Before Google Maps came to the picture, GPS or Global Positioning System was the predominant technology for mobile navigation. GPS system consists of 32 satellites rotating around the Earth. Each transmits encoded co-ordinate information. A GPS receiver installed in mobile handset must get signal from at least 3 satellites to estimate position. But GPS receiver doesn’t come in every phone. Such phones are usually expensive. Plus you need to have no obstacles above handset to get signal. For direction and routing purpose, you must have Data connection as well. GPS receiver drains battery faster as well.

So Google came up with easy solution for everyone. Google map doesn’t need a GPS receiver in mobile phone. Rather it uses Cells for positioning your device. Cell is basically an area served by a particular base station. Google has spotted each tower into their server’s database. Application sends unique ID of tower to server over a data connection and estimates your location.

If your mobile device is equipped with GPS receiver, Google Maps can combine both technologies for positioning. With powerful search, you could find whatever you are looking for around you. Routing with Google Maps is efficient and practicable. You can add your places and routing info, being open source project.

What about charges ? Google doesn’t charge a penny for this service. You just need to pay for data. EDGE or 3G data connection is recommended for fast routing and positioning. And what about accuracy ? Although tracking with Google Maps is not  as accurate as GPS, being cell based, it’s fairly okay. It shows a circle of certain radius quoted on screen for My Location. That is the area in which you might need directions.

Planning a weekend tour ? No need of paper maps. Just install Google Maps on phone and tell it where you want to go.

Leaving home at 11th hour for a flight ? Let Google Maps route efficient and closest way to airport.

New features under Beta also include traffic updates for certain cities. It will warn you about traffic jams or heavy traffics. Lots of users, including me have found Google Maps to be finely accurate and handy. Recently when I got in Bangalore for a course, and got lost late night, Google Maps helped me to find nearest bus stop !

Google Maps is certainly the best application for mobile navigation, even for a mobile without GPS handset. Let’s never ever get lost again !

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