Webaroo launches SMS based blogging…[GupShup]
SMS GupShup is a great attempt to marry the increasing mobile penetration in India, and the rising interest in blogging.
What’s great about GupShup?
GupShup attempts to kill the inhibition surrounding mobile blogging! It’s a very simple to use service. [3-step process actually:: you need to create your blog, invite your friends and start the riot!!]
Typically, mobile blogging hasn’t caught up in a big way and GupShup’s SMS blogging has a huge advantage over the other players for the simple reason that this isn’t a pure blogging service and is more of a fun version of yahoogroups!.
Compare this with Reliance’s mBlog service which is restricted to only Reliance mobile users; and you will realize that Webaroo has a clear differentiator in terms of reach, and positioning.
Most importantly, you are charged only for the post that you send to the operator and Webaroo will take care of forwarding the post to your friends.
In a way, this is pretty much inspired from Twitter, but executed in a broader and a different manner. I am sure this service will see some major adoption in the Indian community.
Webaroo guys have executed GupShup very smartly by adding some generic blogs/services [like astrology, stocknews etc] and that makes the product relevant.
What I didn’t like about the service is the fact that there is no way I can push other contents. Or for that matter, there is no discovery mechanism. So for e.g. you can subscribe only to your friend’s blogs [the ones that you are aware of]- but let’s say I wanna subscribe to pluGGd.in, is there a mechanism in which a user can personalize their stuff?
In short, can I bring other content to my webaroo blogs and subscribe to them?
And by the way, GupShup’s shortcode sucks big time! 67673434? How come they missed 12128989! 
All said and done, this looks more like a trial product and I have a feeling that Webaroo guys have some biggeer plans [for the other markets?]? Comments?
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Related posts:
- SMSGupShup opens up..launches developer platform [SMS based widgets]
- What happens when non-technologists start blogging about technology and hacking?
- Webaroo morphs into SMSGupshup..to move office to India
- Managing Work-Life-Blogging Balance as a Blogger
- Love Blogging? Make some money too [1.5 crores] !!
(Full disclosure: I work at Webaroo).
Thanks for your well-written review.
I’m not sure I fully understand your question, but you can discover blogs by browsing our website, where numerous blogs are featured. To subscribe to a blog, say moviequotes, SMS sub moviequotes to 67673434.
Furthermore, we see SMS GupShup as a pub/sub platform. We will expose APIs so you can publish from other sources such as existing RSS feeds. So, for example, you could connect the pluGGd.in rss feed to a blog on SMS GupShup, so your readers can receive posts via SMS.
Note that its not the best user-experience to view full-length online blog posts on SMS. We expect bloggers that want to reach mobile users will post SMS-length messages, better suited to the mobile phone. Would your readers be interested in receiving pluGGd.in on their mobile phones? If yes, give GupShup a try and let us know what you think.
Hey BigBee!
Thanks for your comments. I have a strong inhibition towards any walled-garden product and that’s what I meant by “no discovery mechanism”.
But I am glad that you guys are planning to expose the APIs, so that I can export my blog rss feeds and have a sort of ‘mybloglog’ friend list [ppl who are interested in my blog feed etc..]..
Will give GupShup a spin and surely share my experience with you.
-Ashish
[...] works as Product Manager in Webaroo and is also the man behind GupShup product (India’s twitter) and other mobile [...]