An essentially Indian venture is using SMS to push the limits of social networking
FaceBook and Twitter are growing steadily in India, adding thousands of new users everyday. Some called it a social networking revolution that will change the way we make friends, sustain old friendships and expand our social spheres. But, as these essentially American phenomena capture the imagination and time of Internet users, micro-blogging is making giant strides in the Indian mobile space with a unique concept called SMS GupShup. In fact, the idea has become so successful since its launch a couple of years ago that it already has around 22 million registered users in India—compare that to the six million Twitter accounts worldwide.

Beerud Sheth, the IIT -MIT graduate who co-founded SMS GupShup with Rakesh Mathur, thinks India is so obsessed with the Internet that it often tends to overlook the realities. “Our ecosystem is different from the US or Europe. Internet penetration here is still limited. On the other hand, mobile phones are everywhere and reach even our rural areas. Everybody has access to SMS,” explains Sheth, CEO of SMS GupShup, the world largest and fastest growing mobile communication platform.
Sheth says social networking tends to lose their relevance in India where most users log in to check status messages once or twice a day. “Social content has a five-minute shelf life. In developed countries, people get real time updates on the mobile phones. It doesn’t work like that in India,” he explains.

But that is exactly how his SMS GupShup works. Every time you post a message to a group, it pops up on the mobile phones of everyone listed. You can also send similar messages to a friend list, all at the cost of a single SMS.
In fact, the group messaging service generates so much content that it now accounts for nearly five per cent of India’s SMS traffic, around 400 million text messages a month.

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