Thursday, December 20, 2007

Star Announces Mobile Platform — Plus

Star Mobile Entertainment has announced the launch of its new mobile platform, Plus, to offer a variety of services on all GPRS-enabled mobile phones. Plus will offer television show clips from the Star TV network, TV guide, information services such as city-wise directories, search and Yellow Pages, mobile banking, mobile shopping, sports and movies, on the go. The mobile platform is slated for a commercial release in February.

Television entertainment content will be offered in the form of 'mobisodes' which are re-edited mobile phone versions of TV shows from Star Plus, Star One, and Star Gold, along with content on sports, movies and music. The information services Plus are offered by HDFC bank, MakeMyTrip.com and TravelGuru.com, Infomedia Group and Universal Music.

In addition, consumers will be offered previews of ringtones, wallpapers and games before downloading them. They may also want to be part of the Plus Community will soon allow its members to participate in mobile blogging and other user generated content on Plus. The Plus community currently offers 'Midnight Chat' on Channel [V] and shopping services.

Viren Popli, senior vice president of Star Mobile Entertainment said, "Plus empowers mobile consumers to do more with their mobile phones. The GPRS mobile phone user can now access a wide choice of video content and services such as yellow pages, buyer guides, banking, travel and shopping, among other things. Plus has an easy to navigate menu that takes you where you want to go, quickly and easily. Plus truly brings to life, the anything-anywhere-anytime capability of mobiles." Popli said the objective of Plus is to drive mobile usage in areas other than voice and text.

The application will be free to download on any GPRS enabled mobile phone while users will be required to pay a monthly free for unlimited access to Plus services. However, users will be charged separately for data downloads, such as wallpapers, ringtones etc. Popli said that though they haven't tied up with any mobile operator yet, they are aiming to charge their customers approximately Rs. 2 a day, which is Rs 60 a month as subscription fee. He did not divulge any detail about prices of downloads.

However, Popli mentioned that Plus will offer more options to its customers, after it ties up with multiple mobile operators. He said Plus will also look to offer TV content from other channels in future. Moreover, he said they are already working on the Hindi version of Plus and will introduce other Indian regional languages soon.

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