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Just text, and browse Web info for free

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CIOL Bureau
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BANGALORE, INDIA: What if you want to access some crucial information through your mobile, which unfortunately is not Internet-enabled?

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Take, for instance, a situation when you need the info on auto fares in an unfamiliar city very urgently. But your mobile doesn't support Web browsing, nor does it have other apps. Wouldn't that be a problem?

No! Not at all an issue, says txtWeb, an SMS-based mobile browsing platform to access information and services without the need for an actual Web browser.

"It is a pull-based service — unlike a value-added services (VAS) provider — and is free-of-cost, but for the standard SMS charges depending on one's carrier plan," said Srividhya Ramarathnam, business head, txtWeb, which is built by Intuit India, apart from three supporting partners.

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While some other players like SMS GupShup and Shorthand Mobile are already competing in the space in India, the key differentiator for txtWeb is that it is opensource and involves no hidden costs, Ramarathnam told CIOL.

A wide array of applications, including for auto fare, cricket scores, directions and routes, emergency,  Facebook, weather, Wikipedia and word, has been developed so far on this platform.

According to Ramarathnam, any developer can use txtWeb to extend his/her services to active users, who, at present, are said to number 275,000.

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"The platform is built by an open community of developers. Creating a simple site using this platform takes hardly five minutes, and an app with either static or dynamic content would take about 5-6 hours. Morever, as it supports unicode, contents in Indian languages based on Devanagari-based scripts can be made available to users," she added.

As about 90 per cent of mobile users in India don't have access to the Internet, Ramarathnam said that they wanted to make it vertical- and platform-agnostic.

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All that one has to do to avail this service is message the appropriate keyword of their search item to 92433 42000. "The average response time (for a user to get a SMS reply with the needed information/services) in 80-85 per cent of cases is less than 60-65 seconds. We are focusing on increasing it to 95 per cent," said Ramarathnam.

In line with the recent Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) mandate of having alphanumeric identifiers for commercial SMSes, the reply to the search query comes from TD-txtWeb.

The beta version of the platform was released before validation in August 2010, when the first app based on it was launched. After getting user and developer feedback, the current version came about this January.

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The platform, said Ramarathnam, is so simple that 80 per cent of more than 1000 apps available presently were built by college students. "About 250 individuals and organizations have put up their services on txtWeb and more are getting added each day," she added.

In a way to encourage developers and promote the platform, txtWeb has been organizing App2Fame Challenge since last year, when it was held on four campuses — IIT-Mumbai, IIT-Delhi, PESIT-Bangalore and BMSCE, Bangalore.

"In the first edition, over 150 apps were developed in less than three months and about 80 students participated in the contest to develop apps, such as updating Facebook status, enabling cross platform chat, google search, local search and blood bank & emergency services info access," said Ramarathnam.

This year, nearly 3,400 developers worked on more than 800 apps using the platform, she concluded.

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