With a small advertising banner attached at the end of every text message, EVERY8D Co (互動資通) is providing local mobile phone users a free short message service (SMS) and multimedia messaging service (MMS) platform via its Web site.
“Cellphone users can text anyone in the world for free using our services. Meanwhile, our partnerships with companies such as Rakuten Taiwan Inc (台灣樂天), Yahoo-Kimo Inc (雅虎奇摩), FunTown (台灣戲谷) and Samsung Electronics Co, allow them to advertise their products and services and reach a wider audience,” EVERY8D founder and general manager Alex Kuo (郭承翔) told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday.
EVERY8D is enhancing voice communication rather than replacing it, and you can think of us as a text-based Skype, Kuo said.
EVERY8D’s Web site is in Mandarin Chinese, but this does not prevent global Internet users from using it for texting, Kuo said.
DEFIES LOGIC
At first sight, EVERY8D’s business model defies logic, Kuo said. However, its main revenue driver is the company’s corporate clients, who communicate with their customers and manage relationships through EVERY8D’s joint venture with Microsoft Corp, Kuo said.
Since 2003, EVERY8D has worked with engineers at Microsoft Taiwan to develop drivers embedded in Excel and Outlook for companies to send up to 600,000 texts per hour to communicate with their customers.
The three main advantages for corporations are instantaneous and pre-scheduled communications, the ability to reach a wide audience and value-added services that only detailed texts can provide, such as addresses, telephone numbers, or Web site addresses, Kuo said.
To date, the Sindian-based information communication company owns more than 10 related patents and is working on developing relationships with local as well as global telecommunication operators.
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