This month’s Fortumo user’s service is a great example of how every citizen can take part in country’s politics and government work. It is an innovative and simple way for everyone to say what they think. And all this – with the help of Fortumo’s services! Check out the interview with Meelis Valtna, one of the founders of this great idea!

What is your website baromeeter.ee about?
Exaggeratedly and primitively said baromeeter.ee is “political rate” – for Estonians it says much (rate.ee is a very popular social network in Estonia based on ratings – M.V.). It is a laconic, emotionless website where you can assess Estonian parties’, government’s and parliament’s work.

Whom is it for?
Correct answer would be, of course, for everyone. Actually, baromeeter.ee is an effort to bring young people closer to politics through rating system which is very popular online activity for most of the young people in Estonia. In addition, giving votes and having rankings is playful and offers instant feedback. With this we also hope to give voice for those, who are in distance, doing their everyday stuff and mumble “My voice means nothing. So, it doesn’t matter.”. Well, it does matter and you can see the proof from baromeeter.ee! We also consider very important to recognise less known countryside politicians, who are not reflected that much in everyday news, but who do honest and genuine politics for their parish or town people. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week in an event I promised to write about real life example of a client who is using In-App Payments for Android. Read what one of our affiliate developer Nutiteq has done with In-App payments. In addition you can download Nutiteq Offline Maps from Android Market for free and see in real life how it works and how neat out In-App Payments solution is.

Getting lost in new locations is a daily dose of adventure for the traveler, whereas mobile maps are today’s solution to get back on track without extra stretch. Nutiteq, a developer of mobile mapping applications, can help Android owners’ who get into unfamiliar places with pre-dowloadable offline maps. What’s even better, users can purchase additional maps without any effort, as the system sends SMS automatically. It’s a solutions that leaves you without extra surprises in new locations and on your bill. Nutiteq wants to share their experience and give ideas to other application providers of how they can generate additional direct revenue from their popular applications and let them know about SMS-based in-application billing options. „So their applications will be better and better, instead of dying out,“ said Jaak Laineste from Nutiteq.

What is your service Offline Maps for Android about?

Offline Maps for Android is a mapping application for Android mobiles with one special feature: you can pre-download the maps to the device, so you do not need to use the data connection to download them over mobile network. Some other special features are also in the roadmap and will come with updates. Nutiteq is also planning to cover other phone platforms (e.g. Nokia and SonyEricsson phones).

Whom is it for?

This service is especially useful when you are travelling to other countries, where data roaming fees can be very expensive. Typical data roaming fee in Europe is about 5 EUR/MB, and it is not big art to create couple of megabytes data traffic when you are lost in a strange city.

Where did the idea of offering and starting a service like that come from?

It came from my own own needs: when I am travelling to other countries then I almost always turn off data roaming to avoid big surprises on phone bill later. Sometimes I need maps to find my location and directions, and built-in maps in mobile want to download all maps on-line. So, the solution was to create an application which provides you with maps without mobile data connection.

How is Fortumo involved to your service?

Nutiteq Offline Maps is using Fortumo In-App Payments for Android : users can purchase additional content (map packages). What I really like about the In-App Payments service is that users do not have to send any SMS themself – everything is done automatically, they only have to push OK.  This seamless payment experience has so far rocketed my payment conversions.

Why did you decide to use In-App Mobile Payments?

As a developer and service provider, I needed to have some kind of monetization to cover costs of service creation and maintenance. Google enables theoretically to have paid app in Android Store, but it has two issues. The first is that Google does not support in-application payments for Android applications, and for this application, where most of added value comes by downloading additional map packages, In-App mobile payments is the most logical choice. The other issue is that Google supports only very few countries where developers can publish paid apps, and my country was not among them, so I just cannot publish any paid app in the Android Market. In-App Mobile Payments was kind of natural choice for me. Mobile Payments can be a bit more expensive than typical mobile app store billing infrastructure, but in many cases the default billing is not sufficient or just not available for you – in our case we have both issues.

What has In-App Mobile Payments additionally given you?

It provides some revenue, of course, and also we can now see how in-application payment system works in practise. This marketing knowledge is also valuable asset. Also we hope to get some traction, as in-application mobile payment solutions are quite new thing and there are very small number of applications using it. I suspect that many application providers just have to provide their apps for free, as Google does not provide suitable solution for them, and they are not aware of the in-app mobile payments options. Maybe I could help them to give one idea how they can generate some additional direct revenue from their popular applications, so the applications will be better and better, instead of dying out.

Remember the super-duper cool facebook application we revealed in the previous Fortumo User Tells a Story? With no further ado, here we invite Che-Ming Lin, the developer of this application and also the creator of souse.cc, to share his successful business model.

What is your SMS service about?

This Facebook SMS Live Feed application allows people to update their real-time status to Facebook wherever they are, with or without internet access.

Whom is this service for?

This SMS service is open to every Facebook members, whether they are in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Asia or Europe – as long as they’re in the countries where Fortumo operates, they can use it freely and wildly. Better yet, Facebook SMS Live Feed benefits those without immediate or 24-7 internet access — a mobile phone at hand makes your sharing most impromtu and real-time : )

Where did the idea of developing Facebook SMS Live Feed application come from?

A: This application is designed for people who have a spontaneous urge to share with their friends while being outdoors, like waiting for bus or queueing. For example, for a brief sentence such as “won ten grand lottery, hurrrraaayyyy!”, would you phone every of the friends that you want to share with, or simply send a SMS to update your facebook status and get everyone’s attention?

Nowadays micro-bloggings like Twitter and Plurk have been crazily popular , and Facebook status update is part of the kind. I think the intention of having microblogs is brilliant — people get to share their thoughts or daily happenings without having to post long articles. Yet I also hope this kind of sharing should not be confined to the cyber world. That’s what motivated me to develop Facebook SMS Live Feed application – to enable everyone to share and update status without the limitation of location and internet.

Why did you decide to integrate Fortumo’s SMS service to your web business?

As I mentioned in our previous interview, Fortumo’s SMS platform is the easiest and most user-friendly payment channel I’ve experimented so far. Plus its multi-country functionality, I can run my Facebook application in 36+ countries without any budget.

In this Fortumo’s User Tells A Story, we would like to introduce AllPlayer.org, which provides the Free Multimedia Player for wide range of media formats. AllPlayer is currently one of the most popular multimedia players, No. 1 in Poland, with over 5 million users. AllPlayer.org shows us an interesting example how to embed Fortumo’s SMS-services into an application. Check out this short interview, where authors of AllPlayer.org share their experience.

How have you applied SMS-services in your application?

Because of costly server maintenance, a need to employ graphic and programmer to support allplayer.org as well as due to users’ requests, we have decided to introduce micro-payments. In general, our users needed to solve problems with video files, which they couldn’t open, so we started providing them with such a service for small fees.

Where has the idea of using SMS-services come from?

For payments of about 1 USD it is very convenient. Not everybody uses PayPal, credit cards in internet or bank transfers for such small amounts.

Why have you decided to use SMS-services in your application?

Because of easy consumer service. The whole process is automatic. Answer can be sent in text form to user’s mobile phone.

What has SMS-service additionally given you?

Not every problem with video files can be solved automatically. Often, the problem lies on the user’s side and in his software. In such a case, intervention of an engineer is necessary. Thanks to SMS-services, the problem can be approached individually, and the person who is employed in our company earns deserved salary for his work.

Have you wondered what great other ideas there are to provide SMS-services? Fortumo user tells a story section has made another interview with great, yet simple idea of providing SMS-services. Meet transportinestonia.com! It’s useful, easy and quick solution for anyone who needs help with transportation service. Check it out!

Read the rest of this entry »

This time in section Fortumo user tells a story we would like to introduce you a neat web and SMS-service developed by Lapadoo. translate.lapadoo.com is a web based translation service that brings translation to your cellphone. No need to have any separated application or even Internet access, the whole translation is done via SMS.

“The service is intended for all those who need translation help while being abroad without access to a computer or dictionary. All you need is to know the phrase you want to translate and your cell phone. “

Where did the idea of offering and starting a service like that come from?

Like many other good ideas, the mobile translation service was born while drinking beer with my buddies. One of my friends was telling me about a comical failure he had due to not understanding the local language. While listening to his story, it suddenly occurred to me – I should make a  service that allows people to translate sentences from one language to another despite the location and situation.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today Fortumo’s User Tells A Story is going to present you with another successful case study from BMA. BMA Grupp OÜ is a developing online community and entertainment services mainly for mobile and web users, and Online Yatzy Game is one of BMA Grupp’s projects over the years. Courtesy to Andrei Maksimik, the product manager of BMA Grupp, who has kindly shared his user experience with us.

How have you applied SMS-services on your website?

Online Yatzy Game is a small side-project created for people who have some free time during the day, a desire to compete with others and win prizes for achieving highest scores. We needed to charge users for every attempt to reach the ranking list and we needed it to be available for everyone with a mobile phone.

Where did the idea of using SMS-services come from?

The idea started from simple online mini-games. It was obvious that games with performance chart were more popular than those without any possibility to compete the score with others. So we decided to try with a game that is popular, addictive, somewhat skill-based and with a possibility to reward the top players.

Why did you decide to use SMS-services in your web business?

Making the online game to become a business leads us to Fortumo and their flexible micropayment system. The simplest way for the customers would be to send an SMS, which was easy to create with Fortumo’s dynamic SMS-service.

What has SMS-service additionally given you?

Paying for the game was as simple as it could be. By sending SMS to a short code, user received unique password. Entering this password on website activates the game. It has been a positive experience to make an idea into money in the simplest manner.

Recently we presented a script for MU Server Webshop (given to us by LiskO from EscapeMu). It allows all owners of MU online servers with Web Shops installed, to offer a convenient system for adding credits in their users accounts, through SMS. So, now your server can benefit from the long list of countries that we operate in. You can see which are they at Fortumo.com.

Following is a short interview with Rosen – the owner of Emerald Mu – one of the top international MU online servers.

How have you applied SMS-services?

Long time ago I decided to launch a MU Online game server. It developed well in time and I decided that I can earn money from it. I needed the services of Fortumo.bg because the Bulgarian users were only a small part of my visitors. The players can now send an SMS and in return they receive game credits. These credits are used in game for shopping.

Where did the idea of using SMS-services come from?

The previous payment methods were not convenient enough for the players. Transferring money through wired transfers or paypal transactions were available, but they were not automatic. A lot of players asked for SMS- services in their countries and that’s why, when I found Fortumo, they were very pleased.

Why did you decide to use SMS- services in your web business?

Among all MU Online servers in this game’s virtual world, most offer many types of payment methods, but not SMS. I decided that in order to attract more players I need something different. The automatic SMS- service is a great convenience for the players and the administrators.

Findit.fi is a free local classified website and is used by the local citizens and companies in Finland who want to sell or buy goods, products and services.

“Our goal is to create a clean and easy-to-use marketplace that allows visitors to browse and post listings in areas such as Motors, Electronics, Housing, Pets, Hobby, Business and Services. Findit.fi emphasizes the local aspect and thus have a search widget that allows users to customize their search results to a specific address or ZIP code, and then select within a certain distance from that location. The items are also visible on a map for easy navigation.”

Where did the idea of offering and starting a website like that come from?

The idea behind the Findit.fi site is that we wanted to build a similar site like Craiglist here in Finland, because Internet is very suitable for online advertisements. Findit.fi is currently one of the most rapid growing sites in Finland and many people has recognized that classifieds advertisements on Internet work very well for selling and buying of used products and vintage clothes.

How have you applied SMS-services on your website?

Private persons can publish their advertisements for free, but for companies we charge a minimal fee per advertisement and Fortumo’s SMS-service is used for that purpose, in another words for micro payments.

Where did the idea of using SMS-services come from?

The idea of using SMS-service came in a very early stage and it was obvious that micro-payment is very easy to-do by sending an SMS.

Why did you decide to use SMS-services in your web business?
The users have liked the idea of paying through SMS instead of using online bank services. Today we use Fortumo’s SMS- service for both Finland and Sweden, because we have users from both countries.

What has SMS-service additionally given you?
The SMS-service has opened the doors in order to be able to charge a minimal fee for additional services, and we will probably extend the services where SMS is being used for micro-payments.

By the way, findit.fi is currently seeking for partners in other countries (especially where Fortumo is operating in). They have plans for expanding the findit.fi concept into other EU countries. So if you’re interested in becoming a partner, email to info@findit.fi.