the attention of the big players in the Indian telecom industry.
Aircel, vodafone, tata docomo and Airtel have come up with novel
methods to make access to this social networking site even without
gprs. Previously I had discussed about two apps from which you can
access twitter and facebook, gmail, orkut via sms. These services are
somewhat similar but has little differences too.
Aircel: Aircel might have been the first operator to milk in facebook
in myriad ways such as these listed below. Music, voice updates etc
are on the palate as of now. Customers of Aircel will have to dial
51555 and enter login details i.e your username and password. If your
mobile number is already registered with facebook then you can skip
the username step and continue with password only. What you want to be
displayed as the status message should be recorded within 30 seconds.
What more you can also post voice updates on your beloved friend's
profile too. Aircel users can also listen to their friends' updates,
reply to them, get notifications, find new friends and receive alerts
for events. When your friends update their status you can listen to
them and also receive SMS notifications.
How to do it? To register via SMS Send F to 51555. Then you will
receive a confirmation code on SMS. The confirmation code which is
received should be entered in the mobile account settings of your
facebook account. To register on facebook go to the home page. On
the home page there is an option of "Get Connected". Under "Get
Connected" there is an option of "Connect on the go: Try facebook on
mobile". Fill in details in this section: confirmation code and your
mobile number. Once done one can use facebook on mobile to reply to
wall posts, messages, etc. The charges are pretty cheap around 50p per
sms.
Airtel:
Among these usual and experimented ways Airtel has come up with a
really evolved and different way: the USSD system to access facebook.
USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) is a menu-based system
that enables interfacing with content based services. Instead of a
browser, which requires an internet / Gprs connection), the Ussd menu
acts as browser to pull content to the phone. You might have seen the
airtel live portal in your mobile screen. Its something like that.
Just imagine dialling *121# and selecting the various options.
Accessing facebook to update your status is free of cost but, Rs.
1/day will be applicable for accessing the full feature application
that includes viewing news feeds, commenting on your friends' walls or
liking stories, accepting friend requests, viewing events and pretty
much all else you normally do on facebook.
How to do it? Press *325# on your mobile screen. After sometime you
will get a message as welcome to fonetwish, your request has been
accepted. Please exit. Then you will be prompted to enter in your
login details. Once done the facebook homepage would be pulled into
your screen just like a normal mobile service menu. There are no
charges for updating your status. For the rest like news feed,
notifications, accepting friend requests etc are charged at 1 rupee
per day rental. So its very cheap. Most people would subscribe to data
plans just for accessing facebook. But now you may access facebook on
the simplest handset with Airtel. Its really cool and first time in
the world.
Tata docomo:
The application lets Tata Docomo subscribers share songs that they
have set as their ring back tune with their friends through status
updates and wall posts on their Facebook page. If your happen to be a
Tata docomo subscriber then you have two options one to select the
specific song as your ring back tune which is posted on your friends'
walls or to create a playlist of several songs from several of your
friends. Also you can set the songs for one particular person( lover,
spouse or friend) or many. You have to allow the TATA DOCOMO
Songshare application on Facebook access to your account and put in
your mobile number. They send you a code which has to be entered to
link the app with your account. A similar approach was earlier
launched by Aircel's music connect earlier this January.
Vodafone:
The Service is easy to use. Dial 51010 to record your voice message
and post it as your status update on Facebook. Though Vodafone as it
is in its nature has not bothered to come up with more diversity. One
can only post and listen to voice updates and not anything much more.
The charges for this service are also too high compared to Aircel and
Airtel around 3 rupees per minute.