Cellmate is a J2ME based mobile client (download) that enables users to start the peer to peer conversation on the cell itself.
The idea behind Cellmate is that users would like to have a closed peer to peer conversation, and more private/regular conversations should happen on the cell, rather than the socionet portals or mobile apps with mandatory GPRS connection.
Cellmate enables users to create groups from the existing contacts and send messages, create polls, setup birthday reminders etc.
One may ask – I can always create a group in my mobile phone and converse with the contacts. Why use Cellmate?
Well, Cellmate provides couple of more features on top of the regular features provided by your mobile:
- Most mobile group products support only the plain, “vanilla” messages. Cellmate on the other hand supports much richer range of different types of messages. In addition to the normal, plain message Cellmate also supports sharing checklist with the group, taking a poll within the group, RSVPs, scheduling reminders and group discussions like open forums.
- Chronological history of all the messages and replies exchanged related to the particular message in past.
- Unlike many other mobile group products Cellmate does not force you to sign up for a wireless internet plan for your cell phone. It works on top of SMS – the most ubiquitous mobile data exchange service of all!
I did a quick QnA with Rupesh Shetty, founder of mCliques, the company behind Cellmate:
Qn: What’s your target user base?
Rupesh: We are targetting anybody who would like to create their own private social network. So it can be a college student, a working professional keeping in touch with friends, relatives or at a more corporate level where companies can use this as a medium to reach out to their employees/customers(we dont have the corporate version now but intend to have it in the future). We wanted to target a mass audience by creating a product that is SMS based and easy to use. Just create your own private group, send messages, setup reminders(birthdays,anniversaries), spread a word like reviews on hotels, movies, etc and last but not the least, the most important feature of setting up a poll/survey for everybody to respond to. We found all of these features available on the net but not directly on the cell phone as an application.Not everytime you can be connected to a GPRS site to do all this.
Qn: How diff. is Cellmate from the already available mobile groups product like smsgupshup etc?
If you see sites like smsgupshup or any other social networking sites, they are more server based and ask you to send a message to a short code. We always wanted to create a private network, anybody would definitely prefer to keep his group private and send messages directly on his group member’s cell phone rather than to a website and invite spam/security/privacy concerns. The other features like poll, spread word, reminders, etc are all in the private domain, so the user is assured that his privacy is not compromised.Also this product is a one time license rather than being monthly service based, so once you purchase, it is for life time. It also is restricted to a mobile service provider like Airtel/Vodafone and works across all providers.
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Give Cellmate a spin. Also, I am wondering how difficult would it be to use mobitop api and build pretty much the same thing?
Looks nice. But couple of issues I can see right away.
1) Looks like if I add someone, he/she has to be using the cellmate application as well. How will he get the app. though if he does not have a gprs connection or has no way of sideloading?
2) Since its “True P2P”, if I have 10 people in a group and send a message to all of them, I’ll end up paying for 10 sms’s. On the other hand if I use ActivMobs or SMS Gupshup I’ll pay for only one SMS.
3) As a consumer I am never going to pay for a license. I’ll just move on or download another trial version if its worth it.
This model is dead.
4) I dont agree with their claim that its a true Peer to Peer app. A P2P mobile app does not use the operator network to connect to another mobile. Something like over Bluetooth. Or AdHoc WiFi.
Add to that a very web 1.0′ish website which is loaded with worthless buzzwords. Kinda keeps me away from even trying it out. Come on guys you can do better. Its not 2000 you know.
Rajiv
Great points! I do agree with what’er you have mentioned and also I am really not sure whether operators will approve a s/w like this.
You have hit the nail right there on the head! Will ask Rupesh to reply to this.
@Rajiv : sideloading is possible . Operator have nothing to do with this if they are not providing the hand set .
@Prashant.. what i meant was if someone does not know how to sideload. for a lot of uses, the techniques employed are too complex.
Replying to some of Rupesh’ assertions in the Q&A above.
1. SMS GupShup (http://www.smsgupshup.com) is a SMS-based service, and does not need access to GPRS/Internet to be usable as a messaging platform. Users can create groups, join existing groups by sending SMS-es to 567673434.
2. GupShup is a group and P2P messaging platform. As pointed out by Rajiv earlier, sending messages to a group, via GupShup, needs the sender to pay the cost of only one SMS.
3. Groups created on GupShup can be either private or public, depending on the user’s needs and wishes.
4. All P2P messages sent by users on SMS GupShup are private, and not available on any public domain.
5. SMS GupShup is a free-to-use service, and does not charge the users. The mobile service providers charge the SMS sent to 567673434, as per their existing rates.
Disclosure: I work as a product manager at SMS GupShup. (If that were not already obvious from the comment
)
@Rajiv and Tathagata :
1. Yes all the participants need to have Cellmate installed on their cellphones to communicate with each other. It is very similar to the requirement – say Yahoo! Messenger must be installed on all the PCs who want to chat using YM.
Cellmate can be installed in various ways using GPRS, bluetooth from another phone or first by downloading to your PC and then transferring it using USB etc.
2. You are right. But most heavy users of SMS messaging have some sort of unlimited text messaging for a flat monthly rate plan on their mobile so individual SMS cost shouldn’t be an issue for them. We are targeting such users.
3. We believe many users will not mind paying a reasonable price for an application that they really like and find useful in their everyday activities. In fact, we already have paying customers for our licensed version.
One can certainly keep on downloading trial version and go through setup every time if he/she does not mind the inconvinience and time spent on it. It is really a matter of personal choice
4. It is peer to peer in the sense that it does not use a central intermediary like a website so that it’s user have higher privacy. SMS/WiFi/Bluetooth etc. are mere transports. With bluetooth you have the limitation that all participants must be geographically very near to each other (which kind of defeats the very purpose of application since in such case they can just meet face to face anyway) and with AdHoc WiFi you do not have always on push messaging. Only SMS works reliably, widely (nearly all cellphones can send and receive SMS but very few can connect to WiFi as on today) and deliver push notifications instead of forcing users to poll for incoming messages.
5. To summarize, we could have easily made this and can make it as a FREE application because of the low setup cost but we preferred not to spam the users and give them a more private and secure product.
Thanks for your valuable inputs. I am also copying in Susheel Aroskar, who is the co-founder and product manager for Cellmate to help us in any further queries.
require more detail for understand…………………..