Pooosh has the potential to revolutionize the mobile content industry. It gives users access to their own content, on their own terms, when they want it.
Microsoft partner Pooosh [www.Pooosh.net] offers a proven, carrier-grade, cloud-based approach for delivering highly-targeted content to specific audiences.
The Pooosh SOA Architecture allows content services to be mashed up in any way and combined with highly cost-effective mobile telephony services. Pooosh can be provisioned entirely from the cloud into any country worldwide and operates independent of phone hardware and operating systems.
Pooosh is delivered entirely as SaaS and hence, can be provisioned and rebranded without any of the traditional CAPEX liabilities. Pooosh is a unique software service that offers a sustainable and profitable revenue model by disintermediating the current mobile services supply chain. Consequently, Pooosh has the potential to revolutionize the mobile content industry.
“Many mobile phone manufacturers, network operators and service providers are still trying to lock consumers into walled gardens of proprietary content, even though there’s abundant evidence that this doesn’t work in the long run,” explains Pooosh CEO Don Tredoux. “Users want access to their own content, on their own terms, when they want it.”
Pooosh has been successfully launched in South Africa as a free download and works on any Windows Mobile or Java-enabled phone. Pooosh delivers a very sticky mobile destination for consumers’ accessing popular, local content services.
Services range from communications [text messaging; IM; chat; voice messaging and email] to social networking services [Facebook; Twitter et al]. Pooosh SOA Architecture is fully extensible allowing new services to be added at any time and depending on the needs of the target audience.
Also available are half-price SMS and low-cost telephony services to in-country landlines and to all international destinations. Pooosh allows partners/distributors the ability to advertise to their audience via video, picture, voice and text.
“Our technology allows us to strip out irrelevant or bandwidth-hogging content so access is fast, whether through GPRS, 3G or WiFi networks,” says Tredoux. “On a conventional phone browser Facebook, for example, is often slow, expensive and frustrating.”
Because Pooosh offers speed and convenience at low cost, it is proving unusually sticky. “We are seeing incredibly high usage figures compared to any other mobile application we know of,” says Tredoux.
“Since we added our Facebook service, 70% of all those who have downloaded Pooosh are using it daily, for email and other services as well for Facebook. Of those who have Facebook registrations, a massive 90% are using Pooosh daily. Users are keeping it open on their phones and toggling between Pooosh and their home screen.”
With Pooosh becoming “the place users hang out on their phone,” as Tredoux says, it is also becoming an attractive advertising medium. “Because we know exactly which services each user is accessing, it’s relatively easy to build up detailed profiles for targeted advertising. Ads can be delivered as text, images, video or even voice to users who opt to receive them in exchange for discount vouchers to spend against any other services the user chooses.”
Pooosh has developed a fully integrated billing and voucher platform that allows distribution partners to decide what they bill for and how their airtime is distributed. The platform can be commercialized in any way the distributor decides and whatever rates are applicable in the target market. Even without advertising, the sale of Pooosh vouchers provides a mutually-profitable revenue stream for operators, distributors and retailers.
“Around the world, mobile music and content downloads via premium messages are controlled by mobile networks, who take on average 60% of the revenue,” says Tredoux. “Retailers and distributors have had to put up with this kind of predatory pricing because there hasn’t been an alternative - until now.”
With users able to download content within Pooosh using whatever connectivity is available including WiFi, it becomes possible to bypass phone networks entirely. “We’re able to sell users premium telephony, music and content services at a discount of 50-60% on the prices they get from traditional operators,” says Tredoux. “It’s an industry-shaping change to the way content is distributed.”
Tredoux plans to license Pooosh to Partners globally for customized distribution on a country/area basis, offering local language support and access to whatever content services are most popular.
The application has been designed for maximum flexibility and customization by each in country partner/distributor, he adds. “Each country has its own distinctive pattern of demand for mobile services,” he says. “Distributors have complete freedom to choose which services to offer and under which brand, as well as which services to offer free and which to monetize. Pooosh is a software service that can be deployed entirely through the cloud to anywhere in the world, regardless of the particular mobile infrastructure currently in place.”
The South African market, where mobile phones are the only means of access to the Internet for most of the population, Pooosh has signed voucher distribution deals with major retailers. “Pooosh airtime is a lot cheaper than anything available from the existing network operators, and can be used flexibly for messaging, chat or downloads,” says Tredoux. “We’ve found a way to monetize mobile applications at the same time as offering real savings to users and profitable revenue sharing with all our Partners.”
Pooosh is now actively looking for potential distribution Partners from around the world. One of the unique advantages existing distributors have experienced in South Africa is the multiple revenue streams that can be quickly created and implemented to meet the evolving needs of target audience. From networks to content providers this software solution provides a fast route to market and immediate revenue generation versus comparably modest implementation costs.
* For more information on the Pooosh Partner Programme please visit www.Pooosh.net and click on the Partner Programme tab.
Contacts:
Issued on behalf of Pooosh by:
HWB Communications
(Pty) Ltd
Evelyn Holtzhausen, 021 462 0416 or 082 658 6007
evelyn@hwb.co.za