Berggi Q&A

If you follow technology news or hang out on mobile tech blogs, you may have noticed today that a small start-up called Berggi (a Hubbub client) came out of stealth, vowing to bring mobile messaging to the masses (Eric Auchard at Reuters broke the story). At some point soon, there will be a blog on the Berggi site, which is under construction. For now, I will use this post to field questions about the company. Already, there are several:

--what's the service:

Berggi provides consumers with a simple, intuitive mobile messaging service -- email, text, IM -- that they can use over regular, commodity cell phones. Founded and led by some of Europe's top mobile messaging technologists -- Jorge Mata and Raul Lorenzo -- and serial entrepreneur Babur Ozen, the service and business plan were both designed in a way to overcome the barriers to mass-market adoption.

--what are those barriers?

In our opinion, there are at least three:

First, mobile messaging for the mass market needs to work over any phone, any service. That's the vision. The reality today is that Berggi operates on most commodity phones, over most services, with the exception of Verizon and Nextel in the U.S.

Second, the service has to be dead simple -- simple, clean and efficient. No bells and whistles.

Third -- and this is perhaps the biggest -- the service must be an easy purchase. There will be two ways for consumers to get Berggi. On Thanksgiving Day, they can go to www.berggi.com and get the service directly. An even easier way will come soon, when more consumer brands begin bundling and selling the service to their own customers. This white-label strategy shows a lot of promise for Berggi. In its first such deal, Berggi registered close to 100,000 users.

--if I buy the service directly, how much will it cost?

$9.99/month, and it will appear on your monthly phone bill.

--do I need to purchase a data plan from my carrier?

No -- you just need a data-activated phone (not a problem for most consumers)

Any other questions, please feel free to: (a) ask them here, (b) call me at 650-279-8415, or (c) email me at giovanni at hubbubpr dot com. I'll be on my Berggi.

Comments

[Taylor]

The people over at http://www.mobilecrunch.com/ seem to have a difference of opinion. But if you read through the comments it is clear that Mobile Crunch is only one opinion. Hope it works out for you guys.

[Giovanni Rodriguez]

Thanks, Taylor. I was part of that discussion yesterday. I do not agree with Oliver's approach to writing this story -- nor do I agree with his conclusions -- but I think he has started a legitmate debate about the future of mobile applications. I happen to represent two companies that base *part* of their business model on simple downloads, and both are off to a very fine start. There are a number of ways to get on the cell phone. And if consumers decide that they truly like and need a application, you can be sure that the incumbents will find a way to provide it.

[Eyalu]

Its agood website but dont how to use it when itry to download it tells me berggi already exists how do igo aboutit?