Comments on: Wubud – a mobile socnet on a SIM card

By: sim only deals

sim only deals — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:51:04 +0000

It’s a great idea to take advantage of the spread of sim only deals to introduce a new social network but the market must be coming to saturation point in terms of numbers of social networks. It’s going to need to have something unique to take people away from the like of Facebook.

By: Free SIM Cards

Free SIM Cards — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:50:20 +0000

Due to the SIM Only there has been a sharp decline in pay as you go users. Its just better value for money.

By: Sim Only Deals

Sim Only Deals — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:43:44 +0000

As per the comment above SIM only deals are the best value for money in the current climate and the networks have listened to public demand and have come up with some very interesting SIM Only Contracts. The problem for the customer is, which deal to go for. This is where SIM Only Comparison sites like http://www.sim-only.co.uk come into their own and provide unbiased comparison.

By: SIM Only

SIM Only — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:58:52 +0000

SIM Only deals are definitely more value for money. The only problem is that the market is so competitive now even smaller companies want a piece of the pie. To compare SIM Only deals I used http://www.bestsimonlyoffers.com/ because its very user friendly.

By: Gerald Speers

Gerald Speers — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:06:23 +0000

SIM software is extremely hard to make work for multiple handsets. The ROMS in the handsets are usually not library/standards compliant. It is a tough up-hill battle to make it work.

That said: there exists a extremely large market (India, Africa) for a micro-payment and micro-billing platform to exist.

I am not sure what Paul is putting together but as a person who comes from that industry I expect it is going to be something like that. Well, I hope it is. If I was going to do something new, that is the way I would be moving.

There are companies doing extremly well in India (from a building userbase perspective) on the social (aka twitter like – GupShup) perspective.

There therefore exists a market for this type of social network. It will not exist in the modern markets as long as the current SMS pricing model is adopted by the carriers.

MVNO SIM networks are plentiful. There are a number of companies that have the ability to produce them for the UK. The problem is that their underlying pricing for direct network access is expensive. In some ways an MVNO with one of the incumbents is a better options even though you basically become a marketing arm for them.

I don’t know what Paul et al are up to. I hope its a micro-payment platform. If its just a twitter for SMS I will be dissapointed.

Look forward to seeing what you are up to boys.

- g

By: SIM Deals

SIM Deals — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 03:52:28 +0000

Did you know that there are 4 billion mobile phones in the world? There are only 1 billion Internet users and 1 billion television sets so, as you can see, mobile is a huge force. In fact,in many parts of the world mobile phones are the only screens and mobile is the only way for people to get on the Internet. That’s where mobile social networks come in.

By: Sim Only

Sim Only — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:54:51 +0000

Will be interesting to see if it takes off. Having it already on the sim would make a huge difference.

Will depend on which companies take it up on there sims, if the majourity do then it could mean big things

By: Erwin

Erwin — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:24:42 +0000

Its an new good idea, i am wondering who will be first recognized with this idea. I have some time to wait:) just bought good sim only contract from http://www.simonly.eu first webshop that sells sim only’s on an european level. uk website is http://www.simonly.eu/uk/

By: SIM Only Contract Deals

SIM Only Contract Deals — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 20:24:17 +0000

I don’t really see it taking off. Maybe in a year or two. Lets wait and see.

By: Sim only contracts

Sim only contracts — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 13:11:37 +0000

Great idea, great to see if it takes off or not.

By: alan p

alan p — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:54:48 +0000

Interesting play, it adds distribution risk so I assume there must be as yet unspecified functional benefits over a client/server web-based system?

By: Mike Butcher

Mike Butcher — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:21:09 +0000

Steve Micheals – You are so right. In fact I’m going for a run right now!

By: Steve Micheals

Steve Micheals — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:46:41 +0000

Wow Mike its true video makes you look fatter. Time to get of the party scene and back on your foldup bike.

By: Dan Field

Dan Field — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:45:27 +0000

Good post and video follow up Mike.

Mobile socnets have to be so easy to use, as easy as sending an SMS message and to do that they really do (Today anyway) have to be embedded into the phone software or sim. This does cause many other problems though… not available on all networks, not available on all phones, requires updating etc. These are all similar to the problems we had years ago with desktop software, but were solved by the Internet and web based apps.

Be interesting to see how much integration with phone functions can be achieved through Android… maybe then we will be able to give access to the phones directory, sms and location based functions from a web app.

By: Mike Butcher

Mike Butcher — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:31:38 +0000

Carl – Fair enough – amended the post.

By: Mike Butcher

Mike Butcher — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:27:22 +0000

Great comments, keep’em coming {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/huaYR5Df0k_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”Great comments, keep’em coming ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/mR0QoMzVUQ”}}}

By: Carl

Carl — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:13:01 +0000

Carl Taylor is currently happily employed by Hutchison Whampoa Europe, is not ‘former’ and has no plans to leave ..

By: Matt Bielby

Matt Bielby — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:54:09 +0000

One option might be to be rolled into the firmware upgrades on Nokia’s Social Software play in Ovi – that opens up how many millions of potential handsets? In exchange for handing the Finn’s control!

By: Asif

Asif — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:51:19 +0000

Yes better known as a blogger and scenester for a good reason. There is nothing here.

By: Alfie

Alfie — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:34:51 +0000

I hear WYAN are also coming out with a new SIM so it could be that http://www.cityofmobile.org

By: Frank Wilson

Frank Wilson — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:32:36 +0000

Congrats to Walsh and co. There are a lot of moving parts to fit together to make this service work but good luck. Again a socnet on a sim is a great idea but I am sure if it gets any traction the incumbents will copy it. I guess wubud are hoping to get some critical mass quickly in order to become a potential acquisition (exit).

By: Alfie

Alfie — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:30:46 +0000

I wonder if its going on the new T-mobile SIM thats coming out

By: james

james — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:36:01 +0000

Good to see a different approach to building a mobile social network e.g. baked into the SIM. Question is do I have to sign up to the MVNO to use the soc net? If so, how will it get critical mass? Or is it a interface play (to other soc nets) like trutap.com?