Nina Seidel, Sunday, April 20, 2008

Sarik Weber, our VP Marketing and Founder of cellity, met Om Malik of GigaOM in the US. He brought him up to speed on our company, but he also mentioned that we had launched a Facebook application that allows you to send free SMS messages to anyone worldwide. Om Malik signed up for the app but also looked at the competitive landscape and found that there are around three dozen (free) SMS-related apps, but they have little or no usage. Even the best ones get about 500 users a day, though most have fewer than 50 daily users. (Related story: 5 Ways to SMS for free.) The state of these SMS apps is no different from many social voice applications (voice widgets). The only difference being that the VoIP widgets have high incidence of installs but comparatively low daily usage.

These two examples made him question the viability of Facebook as a communications hub. Oms columnist Daniel Berninger has eloquently made an argument for a social directory that uses Facebook and other social networks to break away from the current paradigm of numeric phone numbers. He is part of a group that believes social networks could be used to authenticate our “communication” relationships. Om Malik does not necessarily disagree with Daniel, but the usage metrics of SMS and voice apps makes him wonder if Facebookers really want to do anything more than throw Vampire Bites, Scrabble and pretend to have a lot of friends.

The next Mobile Monday Madrid on April 21, 2008 will dive into the wonders of Mobile Messaging 2.0. Rudy de Waele, the organiser of MobileMonday Madrid invited Jan-Joost Kraal, VP of Mobile of eBuddy , Tim von Toerne, founder and VP Product of Hamburg-based Cellity and last but not least Enrico Noseda, Skype’s Director of Business Development Telecoms. We’re delighted to have the possibiliy to present the upcoming cellity Communicator feature “free mobile email” at this important event.

About MobileMonday
MobileMonday is a community of mobile professionals organised around local networking events in almost 40 cities around the world. This open community promotes the mobile industry and fosters cooperation and networking among industry people and their companies by providing opportunities for personal and virtual contacts.

MobileMonday Madrid is organised by Rudy De Waele and Carles Ferreiro from dotopen, Marcos Eguillor and Barcelona Media.

Location / Venue:
MobileMonday Madrid will be held at the in the Aula Magna at the Instituto de Empresa in María de Molina 11, 28006 Madrid. You can check directions how to get there at IE website or download a map.

Location and Directions at Google Maps.

From April 1 – 3 we demonstrated our new cellity Communicator at CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas at booth 802 in Central Hall for the first time on the American market. The Communicator`s features include for example free text-messaging, low-priced international calls, easy conference calls or a save backup service. Very soon the successful mobile software will be extended with mobile email. You can be excited already. The high volume of international calls in the US and the importance of Email communication make the cellity Communicator a natural fit for this North American market. The US is the world`s leading market for mobile telephony services. According to the CTIA Wireless Association, the US market has over 243 million cellphone calling plans in force, over 2.5 times the number in Germany. We are pleased that for once the cellity Communicator can change the direction of traffic on a one-way street and launch a product from Germany in the US.