Twitter ties up with U2opia to offer mobile service sans internet

Twitter Inc in a tie-up with a Singapore-based startup will make its 140-character messaging service available to users in emerging markets who have entry-level mobile phones with no internet access.

U2opia Mobile, which has a similar tie-up with Facebook Inc, would launch its Twitter service in the first quarter of next year, according to chief executive and co-founder Sumesh Menon

He said, users would need to dial a simple code to get a feed of the popular trending topics on Twitter, he said.

Over 11 million people use U2opia's Fonetwish service, which allows users to access Facebook and Google Talk on mobile without a data connection.

Twitter, with around 230 million users, held a successful initial public offer of shares last month that saw the company being valued at $25 billion.

The company uses a telecom protocol called USSD, or Unstructured Supplementary Service Data, which does not allow viewing of pictures, videos or other graphics.

According to Menon, USSD as a vehicle for Twitter was almost hand in glove because Twitter had by design a character limit, and it was a very text-driven social network.

Eight out of 10 people in emerging markets were still not accessing data on their phone, he added.

U2opia, with a presence across 30 countries in seven international languages, would localise the Twitter feed, according to the location of the user.

He said somebody in Paraguay would, therefore, definitely get content that was very much localised to that market vis-a-vis somebody sitting in Mumbai or Bangalore.

The company, with Africa and South America as its biggest markets, partners with telecom carriers such as Telenor, Vodafone and Bharti Airtel Ltd and usually gets 30 to 40 per cent of what users paid its telecom partners to access Fonetwish.

According to Menon, for a lot of end users in the emerging markets, it was going to be their first Twitter experience.