Talk out for SabSeBolo is here

Talk out, for SabSeBolo is here

Sabeer Bhatia's new venture at audio conferencing, SabSeBolo.com looking to woo dating, marriage and social networking sites

Friday, January 18, 2008

Email This

Print This

Comments

RSS

Gone are the days of cumbersome audio conferencing, for a free technology sans equipment has made its way into the Indian market.

The brainchild behind this is none other than Sabeer Bhatia , co-founder of Hotmail.com, who along with Yogesh Patel has come out with SabSeBolo.com.

Bhatia's new initiative promises to be a simple and effective medium for audio conferencing.

Those interested need to log on to SabSeBolo.com, enter their email IDs and passwords. In return they would be get a permanent conference ID and PIN.

Conferencing can be initiated by dialing +91 22 3980 4444. To go into the conference, the user needs to enter ID and PIN. The PIN can be changed anytime.

Bhatia explains more about his new venture in an interview to Prasad Ramasubramanian of CyberMedia News. Excerpts:

What was the genesis of this new initiative?

He (Yogesh Patel) is the brain and the genius behind this. We were having a hard time arranging for a conference call between two of our offices, Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore. I asked him why can't we do it over the net and Yogesh said it would be very complicated -- to get expensive equipment or signup with Tata or Airtel, plus it would take days for it to get operational. That's when we thought why don't we launch a service in the audio conferencing domain for people over here, which is free? Yogesh came up with a research, the findings and went ahead, and put people out here.

What was the main mission through this site?

The real idea is to bring the power of audio conferencing to the hundreds and millions of small and medium sized businesses in India who have to pay lots of money to get this done. With this, everyone can just connect to audio conferencing.

What is the uniqueness of this service?

The uniqueness of this product is that anybody can do it and it's free. When we stared with Hotmail around 10 years ago, it was paid and we made it free and what we see is free email model used today. That's what we aim even in audio conferencing. We are the first free audio conferencing in the whole country. You don't have to go and make a reservation to make an audio conferencing, schedule a time and tell people that you must call me only during the designated time. You get a unique number, which is yours, and you can use it anytime you want. We have an API (Application Programming Interface) platform that is open, which means that not only do we do audio conferencing but we also integrate it with other websites so that they can use our audio conferencing platform to do other things.

How you are going about this entire exercise?

We are talking to dating sites and marriage sites in India where they can do an anonymous two-way audio conference. For example, if somebody is interested in someone but doesn't want to exchange their contact details, they can get connected via our service and can actually have a conversation without exchanging telephone numbers and this application can be developed on our platform.

How would this initiative benefit the corporates and the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in India?

This is a great service for SMEs who can use audio conferencing to communicate with their suppliers, partners and customers without investing in expensive infrastructure. This puts them on an even platform with their much larger competitors. Business partners can plan strategies and no equipments required to use this facility and it's all based on digital technology.

What other applications are you looking at?

See, we are also exploring its use in social networking and not limiting to just in dating sites. In the social networking scenario, this service can put to use in a chat room where 5-6 people can get together and start a conversation on any topic, say you are fan of cricket — you can get in touch with like-minded individuals and share your views on the say the Indian team's performance in Australia. It's giving the ability for people to socially networking on an audio platform.

So how can SabSeBolo make money?

Every time you get connected to the service, you get to hear a five second audio advertisement. However, for our customers who do not want this to be heard, you can do away with it for a nominal charge of Rs. 1000 a month and they get a private number. We are introducing facilities where you not only dial-in but also dial-out to people and patch them in, but this service would not free.

How has the response been, considering the fact that you haven't promoted this service much?

Oh, it has been great. We are witnessing a lot of corporates in India signing up. We are still planning on the advertising front but knowing the viral nature of this business, we are sure that we are on the right track.

Do you have plans to take this venture abroad too?

Yes, absolutely. But for the time being, we are concentrating on the Indian markets.

© CyberMedia News

Email This

Print This

Comments

RSS

Interact, Collaborate & Share

With Lotus Quickr your everyday business content can be easily shared, enabling operational efficiency. Download the Lotus Quickr demo to learn how.

know more..

	SAP Technology optimises Business
	Try visual studio 2008. It’s Free
	Complexicity or Simplicity - Choose

	Motorola : Good Mobile Messaging
	Smart Enterprises = Smart CIOs
	TAM : Freedom from password management

	Mahindra Connect benefits from SharePoint Server 2007
	Solving the "lost data" problem
	Wipro meets its future demands through E-Cube

	HP Business Availability Center
	Transforming Business
	Aligning IT and Business