E-PROCESSING

More and more topics at adult Webmaster forums are about ‘SMS’ or ‘mobile SMS billing’. While SMS becomes more and more popular in Europe, the USA and Canada, this phenomenon is still relatively unknown.E-PROCESSING

More and more topics at adult Webmaster forums are about ‘SMS’ or ‘mobile SMS billing’. While SMS becomes more and more popular in Europe, the USA and Canada, this phenomenon is still relatively unknown. But, when you use SMS and all its aspects, it could be a very interesting and money-making feature for your adult business.

This article is an introduction to SMS, the benefits of accepting SMS billing, and tries to answer the questions:

• What’s in it for you?
• Could premium SMS make money for your adult website?
• What could you sell with SMS billing?

What’s SMS or texting?

The Short Message Service (SMS) is the ability to send and receive text messages to and from mobile telephones. Each short message is up to 160 characters in length when Latin alphabets are used. Though basically used for communication, it’s not only alphanumeric characters that get sent to mobile phones. It’s also possible to get and send new sounds (ring tones) and pictures (logos). Since the introduction of SMS in 1995 there has been a meteoric rise in its usage. Especially in the last three years, the number of SMS messages sent is enormous. SMS usage in the UK alone has risen from just under 400 million in March 2000 to more than 1.6 billion in July 2002. Figures from the GSM Association show that they expect a staggering one billion SMS messages sent per day worldwide at the end of this year.

What’s SMS billing?

SMS is ideal for delivering brief alerts, but it can also be used to carry out payments. This SMS billing (or so-called ‘reverse billed SMS’ or ‘premium SMS’) is a payment facility where end-users simply text to a specific short code number. When the message is delivered a charge is made to the end-user’s mobile phone bill. It’s a fast, convenient method of payment and is becoming increasingly popular for micro-payments, i.e. payment of small charges.

Why do end-users want to pay with SMS billing, as an alternative to credit card and dialer billing?

• For SMS billing, the end-user is not required to open an account or enter any personal details. It’s completely anonymous.
• SMS billing is accessible on-demand and requires no downloading of software.
• SMS billing is fast. Within 45 seconds a transaction is completed.

Why is SMS billing interesting for you?

Right now you, as a content provider, are able to allow an enormous group of European prospects to pay for your content. As an extra payment option, you will serve a large group of prospects who have no credit card or who do not want to use a credit card on the Internet. You will also serve prospects that do not want to use or install a dialer. Figures shows when you do not use a SMS billing solution you will lose European-based visitors who wanted to pay for your content.

What can you do with SMS billing?

A wide range of services is suitable for SMS billing:

• Event based, like ‘pay-per-product’ – Mobile payment of an initial download of your site, like MP3s, ZIP files with content, mobile ring tones, etc.
• Time based, like ‘pay-per-view’ – Mobile payment of, for example, one hour access to your streaming media or live show, or one day access to your members’ area, etc.
• Subscription based – Users may enter your members’ area of your website at the previous ‘event based’ pricing model. However, they are only required to enter when they signed up (for example) a 14-day subscription-pricing model. This will entail access to your members’ area for a reverse billed message a day for 14 days.

How do you get SMS billing?

Several parties offer SMS billing facilities. However, before you start with a SMS billing provider, you should ask yourself at least the following questions:

• What countries and their respective telecom operators are covered by my SMS billing provider?
• What are my revenues for every generated SMS payment message?
• Do I get extra revenues when I generate a substantial amount of SMS payment messages?
• When and how do I get paid?
• Do I get online and instant selling and revenue reports?

SA-WebPartner’s SMS Access will give you the right answers to these questions.

SMS Access

SMS Access is able to process SMS payments of mobile users out of the UK, The Netherlands and Spain (Germany, Portugal, Italy and Belgium will follow within a few weeks). SMS Access allows you to choose out of a wide range of payment options and how much to charge. A simple three-step process walks your visitors through the payment process.

Benefits of SMS Access:

• High conversion ratios: No forms to fill out, no downloading of software, no dialers and no credit card or bank account details transferred over the web.
• You choose how much you charge your visitors.
• You choose what visitors get for their money, from one hour access to four day access.
• You choose what content you want to charge for: Full website access, buy an MP3, etc.
• SMS access works independently of your fixed line connection and is therefore broadband and cable compatible.
• SMS access is compatible with all operating systems.
• SMS access accepts content providers from all over the world.

What’s the status of SMS in the USA?

The USA and Canada are still lagging the rest of the world in the popularity of SMS messaging. In the UK, more messages are sent in just two hours than in a whole month in the USA. Much of the problem has been the lack of interconnection between the telecom networks, although that has now been resolved for most of them. Figures shows that numbers of SMS messages sent are rising every month.

About premium SMS in the USA and Canada… at the moment there’s no telecom operator who’s providing SMS reverse billing lines. Therefore, SMS billing for US and Canadian mobile phone subscribers isn’t available yet. Before the end of 2002 almost every Western European country will be connected with reverse billed SMS lines.

In my next article I will address the question: “Will SMS billing cannibalize my credit card and dialer sales?”

Alex (Alexander Reus) is General manager of SA-WebPartner, The Mobile Commerce Network, located in The Netherlands. SA-WebPartner provides SMS business solutions like SMS payment processing, mobile content and customer made SMS services and infrastructures. You can reach Alex at alex@sa-webpartner.com and ICQ 122342855 or www.sa-webpartner.com.