In the Bangladesh market AKTEL (www.aktel.com) always came up with various different types of Value Added Services for its subscribers. This time is also not different. Just on the eve of our (Bangladeshi’s) national victory day (on 16th December) AKTEL launched AKTEL MMS Greetings portal. MMS greetings portal is the first time in Bangladesh market. So again AKTEL took the lead to launch a lifestyle service with a new concept.
As like any other content portal, subscribers can now select any greetings card, text out their greetings to their near and dear ones and then send it. The greeting card along with the greeting text will be sent to the B party as an MMS. There are two versions of the portal: WEB and WAP; having the same navigations and features.
WEB: http://mmsgreetings.aktel.com
WAP: http://mmsgreetings.aktel.com/mobile
dotmobi Compliance:
Nice to say that AKTEL MMS Greetings mobile portal is fully dotmobi compliant and scored 5 out of 5 in ready.mobi test. Click to view the ready.mobi score. So credit goes to AKTEL for pioneering dotmobi coding standard in Bangladesh.
Authentication:
WEB: Subscribers registers (filling out a form) from the website. The system generates a 6 digit password and sends this to A party.
WAP: In case of the WAP/mobile version the subscribers mobile number is the authentication. So needs no login.
Navigation:
The navigation is kept versy simple. Because most of the subscribers here don’t know pretty much well about the concept behind MMS.And to keep consistency, both the WEB and the WAP version of the MMS Greetings portal are kept same. The navigation links are as follows:
1. Home: Well homepage is homepage. Subscribers will see the greetings categories (like New Year, Birthday etc…) in this page. They click any category link and in the next page they will see the contents related to that category.
2. Inbox: Even if the B party is getting the greeting as an MMS (sent by A party), but also he/she can later visit his/her Inbox through WEB or WAP and view the greetings again. From Inbox the subscriber can FORWARD the greeting card to any other AKTEL number.
3. Tops: This page lists down the most ordered greeting cards. Also from here the subscriber can select any greeting card and send to his friend.
SearchBox: In the mobile version of the MMS Greetings portal, to make the subscribers’ life a bit easier, two search boxes are placed (one on the top and another at the bottom of the page). Subscribers can search any greeting card with any text (supose LOVE); in the result page it shows all greetings card related to LOVE and then generally subscriber can select and send any greeting. Search box stays in every page of the Mobile portal leaving a provision for the subscriber to ease their task.
User Experience Considerations:
In designing the MMS Greetings portal, user experience points are considered from different angles.
Both the WEB and Mobile version of the MMS greetings portal is prepared considering the best and comfortable user experiences. The first consideration I must quote is having a WEB portal with the similar navigation pen as well as features. So the subscribers having internet access can log in, browse the greetings and send those to their friends.
Secondly, as the concept lying behind is sending the greeting cards, so scheduling is very important. Subscribers are given the opportunity to schedule their greeting. Subscribers can schedule their greeting card to be sent as MMS in any future date. This feature I think will encourage the subscribers to use this service.
Third best user experience I must say is the search box feature. In the WAP or mobile portal, subscribers tries not to stay too much time. In the mobile version of the MMS greeting portal search box is there in every page (one in the header and another in the footer). This gives the subscribers to search for appropriate greetings card and to send them.
Fourthly, the Inbox feature is something which gives the subscriber a comfort. Because no greeting is lost and remains in his/her Inbox. Also any nice greeting that a subscriber received can be directly forwarded to his friend from this Inbox.
Finally, the Tops link. Viewing the hit greetings and selecting any one directly of course reduces the clicks.
MMS Greetings Portal and Operator benefit:
1. A-party need not to carry MMS enabled terminal
In the kernel of the MMS Greetings portal there is an MM7 application running. For P2P MMS AKTEL charges 5 BDT to its subscribers. But for the MMS Greetings the charge is 10 BDT. But when B party receives the MMS, he/she views that it is coming from A party (who is a friend carrying an AKTEL number). The system charges 10 BDT to the A party. So A party (suppose carrying a Nokia 1100; which not WAP enabled nor MMS enabled) can visit the WEB portal and places his/her order. System will charge 10 BDT to A party and B party will receive an MMS greeting from A party (seems like A party sent it from his handset).
2. B-party need not to carry MMS enabled terminal
If B party do not have MMS enabled terminal then system will not be able to send MMS to this terminal. But B party will be notified with a SMS. The SMS will have the greeting text that A party sent to him. Also in this SMS it will be provided the WEB url and B party’s password, so that he can visit the WEB site and see what his friend sent him.
3. Inter-Operator MMS
Recently in Bangladesh subscribers can send MMS only to their on-net friends. They cannot send MMS to other operators. But hopefully sooner or later inter operator MMS will be there. Just imagine the hit of MMS greetings then.
Conclusion:
Making MMS popular among the people is already started in Bangladesh. Both AKTEL and GrameenPhone offered Peer to Peer MMS at only 2 BDT (where the SMS charge is now 2 BDT here). Keeping the same charge for both MMS and SMS increased the MMS subscriber base here in our country. Also this campaign by both the operators created MMS conciousness among the subscribers resulting in increased MMS hits.
And at this moment, launching of AKTEL MMS Greetings portal added an extra value for AKTEL in the MMS race. Hope other operators will also be interested to provide their subscribers these types of services.
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