Updated: Buongiorno To Bring Mobile IM Bing To India
By Nikhil Pahwa - Mon 04 Feb 2008 11:05 PM PST
Italian mobile entertainment company Buongiorno (BIT: BNG) plans to launch its mobile Instant Messenger service Bing in several countries, including India, reports Mobile Marketing Magazine (via Tech2). They’d done a trial in Australia and South Africa, where around 380,000 users signed up, and 5 million messages were sent. By ‘launching’ it in India, they probably mean promoting it here - I was able to download and install it via this site (an SMS with a WAP link was sent to my number). It works with ICQ, MSN, AIM, Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) and GTalk. You might say ‘Bing, Fring, same thing’, but that isn’t the case. Bing doesn’t have Skype and voice chat unlike Fring. However, there’s supposed to be an SMS chat feature which allows messaging while the other user is offline, that might work. I couldn’t figure out how to activate it. There was also an option to import all my phone book contacts into Bing, and send the Bing download details to them - so a viral (or spam) effect. There’s been much hype around Mobile IMs in India - Airtel was supposed to have launched one. Anyone tried that?
Update: We contacted Buongiorno for an official confirmation, and the release they have sent across mentions that they are “looking to expand across new geographies including Australia, New Zealand, India and Indonesia.” There appears to be no official timeline for an India launch, and Bing will be presented at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later this month
Posted in: Companies, Buongiorno, Mobile
