Marketers targetting only teenagers or Web surfers may be missing other opportunities !
We added a new function to myGamma today. It's called C-Mail (for cell mail), and it lets members send & receive e-mails to and from their WAP phones. All members will now have a mygamma.com email address; one that they retain even when they change their phone numbers.
Yes, this is just another free email service; but, chances are, this is the first email account for a mobile internet user. You see, most who access the internet via the mobile almost never, or rarely, use a PC to surf. ( Mobile marketers take note, mobiles aren't just a teenage thing! Mobile internet users and Internet users aren't neccessarily the same people.)
Then there are those who just simply can't get to a PC.
Diviya, a diet consultant from Kolkata, India, was recuperating from hip surgery when she found myGamma through friends. Immobility can be a tough prison to break from, but Diviya found escape through her gamma buddies. She’d spend about 10 hours each day online and soon became their agony aunt, dispensing advice on marriage, children and food. One of her pearls of wisdom is Fruit Mondays, “just fruits & no cooked food on Mondays. Helps to purge the system of carbohydrates”, she advised.
Like Diviya, 95% of mygamma users access the service via mobile phones; it is their primary, perhaps even their only, access to the Internet. The new email addition means that users like Diviya can now exchange photos and videos as attachments to their emails.
This is a big step - our members can now enjoy the mobility and simplicity of webmail on their phones too. C-mails do not require a special email client, set-ups or scynchronisation as with Blackberry or Treo.
myGamma members include tea merchants from Assam, stuntmen from Hydrabadi film studios, real estate agents, butchers, etc. And the pattern is repeated across many different countries. In Thailand they are farmers from Ayuthya and Kanchanaburi. In the metropolitan areas, they are food shop owners, market stall holders, waiters and waitresses.
Active users like Daviya generate some 2mil pageviews per day whether through their blogs, chat , member votes or the various activities on myGamma.
More on our Members
More on C-mail
