By sinha on 3, August, 2009 | Channel: Indian Startups

Goolel – Mobile Social Networking, Chat Rooms and Push Email Service

These days, it’s really tough to figure out why does one need one more social networking tool, but that doesn’t deter entrepreneurs to try out new ways to build sticky apps.

Goolel is a Gurgaon based startup that is trying to build a meta social network (and more) on your mobile phone.

Once you download the app, you can configure all your IMs, push mail services (Gmail/Yahoo and Hotmail) as well as use Goolel’s India focused chat rooms.

Goolel has also built a browser of it’s own, which it claims to optimize web pages by a significant percentage and startup’s advisory board includes veterans from BSNL, UTStarcomm and Unisys.

While all this may sound fancy, I am not sure whether people are ready to try out new social networks or whether Goolel should instead position itself as a meta push mail/IM service (the space is anyways crowded with Fring/RockeTalk etc).

The only uptake that I see is startups’ relationship with operators/telecom companies (advisory board speaks of that) – will help them in closing deals with operators.

What’s your opinion on Goolel (i.e. on their core offering?) ?

Also see: Push Email Services

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    • comment(s) on Goolel – Mobile Social Networking, Chat Rooms and Push Email Service

    6 Responses to Goolel – Mobile Social Networking, Chat Rooms and Push Email Service

    1. Prashant says:
      August 3, 2009 at 4:25 PM

      I agree that its not a New idea and though i haven’t tested the product firsthand still i would say (about the concept) that As a rule your startup can make it big with out a NEW idea if you can

      1) make it cheaper than the existing alternative. ie turn something which is considered to be a luxury in to commodity.
      2) make a solution easier than the existing alternatives

      Now Soc Nw. as such been commodotized by likes of Ning but something like Goolel has a fair chance to succeed in concept because PUSH email is still a novelty restricted to Blackberry /S60 user. Providing a good user Experience of push email on JAVA /J2Me handset is a challenge . if someone can crack that there is a huge market. there is a huge market for this

      same is true for IM traffic . I know a lot of people visit 160by2.com for sending free sms ..and main activity on Mob social network like frngo,rocketalk and Mig33 is of IM exchange . so getting that right is a must . once you get these two only thing left is of getting right distribution . I am sure that advisory board will come handy there .
      hope it work well for them

      Reply
    2. Bob says:
      August 4, 2009 at 4:01 PM

      Goolel seems the real competitor of Google Voice, it covers almost all the features of GV except the VoIP calls. Goolel should go for WiFi calling options like Truphone or Vopium, this will make it perfect App.

      Reply
      • Edd says:
        August 4, 2009 at 4:29 PM

        I like your idea, but I think it will be quite difficult for Goolel to beat market leaders like Skype, Vopium or truphone

        Reply
        • Erica says:
          August 16, 2009 at 9:02 PM

          Actually, Goolel is a lot more than just IM aggregation. It has great UI and combines “Social” features (Poll, Pokes, Photo-share, Notifications, Real-time friends updates etc. alongwith “Messaging” (Push Email, all IMs, RSS, Browser – superb for reading blogs/ news.

          Reply
    3. viral says:
      August 12, 2009 at 9:12 AM

      I am from gujarat. after installation it is telling that you are not indian. pl reply on email for solution

      Reply