As you probably remember, I was pretty impressed with the work from the folks at MobME, and their bluetooth network for photo sharing in India. I posted this a couple of weeks ago and have since managed to get in touch with Sanjay Vijayakumar, one of the co-founders of MobMe, who was patient enough to answer a few questions about their network and how they are planning to exploit it.

I think what he had to say makes a pretty interesting read, so I'll leave you to it..

GS: Please tell me a bit about your company, who you guys are, what it is you do and your aims for the future.

SV: MobME is India's First Technology Business incubated company which was co-founded by college mates Sanjay Vijayakumar, Vivek Francis and Sony Joy. The Founders Raise half a million dollars in college, dropped out and today run a successful startup which is rated amongst the Wall Street Journal 10 Startups to watch for in India, the youngest company to be listed at Nasscom 100 IT Innovators for 2007 and is being awarded India's Most Innovative Startup for the Year 2008.


GS: Do you plan to expand your Bluetooth network or do you want to give more room for cooperation to the operators? (This means that if you make the BT network large enough then the users won't really use GPRS/3G to send their photos to the server, so you are essentially bypassing network ops).

SV: We plan to expand the BT network to over 2000 locations but at the same time we are partnering with India's Leading Operators. Photo Sharing is a nacent segment in India and all stake holders are trying to get the habbit which in the long run will benefit everyone involved.


GS: Do you think it is risky to receive mobile content from the users in terms that it can be a virus or a malicious software?

SV: We filter the content at source itself and delete formats that do not fall into our criteria.

GS: How much participation do you think you are getting from the public in the cafes?

SV: Very High - Since bluetooth is free. Cafe Coffee Day being frequented by Celebrities also ensure some good traction and activity when they visit. Till date over 10,000 Images shared.


GS: Are you getting new users from there, or is it that existing users use your bluetooth network most?

SV: New Users - This was a pilot and was done with the fact in mind that we would soon be launching the Mobshare Mobile Application. These BT zones will serve as our medium to spread the application to target users free of cost.


GS: Do you have some sort of moderation for the content uploaded by the users? How many persons are needed to moderate the uploaded content currently?

SV: Yes - We have a manual moderation in place. A team of 2 content editors are on the job.


GS: Have you developed your own bluetooth solution or are you in some kind of partnership with a BT manufacturer?

SV: We have our own BT solution that does the software part. For the Hardware we have a partner who provides us customized dongles.


GS: Do you plan to give more services via Bluetooth, let's say, photo browsing via bluetooth without the 3G cost / photo editing mobile phone software, etc?

SV: Yes - the first natural progression we will do is video sharing.


GS: Do you intend to expand to other countries? If yes, what would you ask from a local partner in a european country?

SV: Oh Yes. India is an amazingly low cost destination to build products and try them out but the margins really prop up when you can sell in Dollars and Euros :)
We are very logical people and do business with companies in denmark, spain etc for BT as well as other mobile solutions like Low Cost SMSC, USSD, IVR and Voice Applications.
We would also look at reseller models where these companies can take licenses and just plug and play our solutions with remote support from our side.
We would love to be an outsourcing destination for European Mobile Companies who want to hold on to margins and outsource development work.
Finally - we would a partner who shares a belief that in the long run, its not the fastest or the strongest who succeeds but the one who really thinks he can win!!

I, for one, enjoyed it! MobMe sounds like they are here to stay, so watch out for that name in the months and years to come..