Same Founder, New Ideas! Veteran UK Text Messaging Company Fonedata Relaunches in the U.S.A.

    WILMINGTON, DE, May 27, 2010 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Luttrell doesn't talk about 'premium SMS'; he prefers to use the term 'recipient pays', which he feels more clearly describes these types of messaging services where the recipient agrees to pay a specified amount to receive text message content.

"Recipient-pays services can be highly profitable," he says. "Just look at the likes of Predicto with their mobile games and subscriptions. Many businesses would like to offer these types of services, but simply do not know how to develop them and how to manage them. Both of these functions can be outsourced to experts like Fonedata, who are knowledgeable about the myriad rules and requirements imposed by the mobile carriers and the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA)."

Since selling the UK business of Fonedata, Luttrell has continued to work within the mobile telecoms sector, founding companies such as Link77 (who created the infamous 'NataChata' chatbot for adult text messaging), and Mobile Crazy TV, a text-to-TV channel on the European satellite TV network.

"For the past 2 years, I have been providing these types of services to US companies on a subcontracted basis," he states. "Customers who are using my services are increasing rapidly, so establishing Fonedata in the US seems to be the next logical step."

The new company not only offers subcontract wireless development and operations of recipient-pays services, it also operates off-the-shelf, revenue-generating, subscription text services which can be white-labeled and promoted by affiliates or third party websites.

"Typically, it can cost many thousands of dollars to register a short code, develop the application software, and receive certification for the service from the mobile networks," Luttrell says. "With Fonedata white-label services, the affiliate can create their own recipient-pays service in just a few minutes, with no set-up or operating fees."

White-label services are offered on a revenue-share basis, and affiliates are able to choose an end-user price-point between $2.99 and $9.99 per month. The affiliate only has to market the service - Fonedata manages all other functions, including customer support and monthly affiliate payments.

Fonedata may be based in the U.S., but their service offering is global. "Right now, we are managing mobile services on 4 different continents," Luttrell says. "Our customer usage outside of the U.S.A. ranges from integrating text messaging into medical trials in Africa, through to using text messaging to learn English in Thailand."

Luttrell is keen to emphasize that recipient-pays text messaging is not just about games or horoscope subscriptions.

"It's an ideal solution where a group messaging service is required, such as schools sending alerts to parents, or job-hire opportunities for those seeking employment," he says. "Existing group alert services charge the cost of sending the text message onto the sender, and this can become expensive, such as a school sending out a text message to 1,000 parents. It's a much fairer system where this cost is shared out and each parent pays to receive the text message. It's not expensive, a daily school alert message using our secure Group Alerts service would cost parents $2.99 each month, that's less than 10 cents a day."

As part of their relaunch strategy, Fonedata is providing a bonus service - an inbound text messaging facility on their U.S. short code which forwards to an email address or server application. Dubbed 'Fonecrazy', and capable of supporting high volume inbound messaging, this service can be used wherever cell-phone numbers and inbound text message details need to be collected, such as voting, market response and group memberships.

A Fonecrazy group is configured on the product website at www.fonecrazy.com. The group provider registers a 'keyword' (which must be used at the start of each text message), enters the forwarding email address or server URL, and that's it. There are no set-up or operating charges, and inbound text messages are charged to the sender's phone account at standard rates. The service forwards the cell phone number, message details, time of message receipt and the name of the mobile carrier.

"Fonecrazy is just a freebie service, but it is a useful service," says Luttrell. "I have several more important, exciting products and services that are already developed and tested. I'll be launching these out in the coming weeks."

Judging by the number of mobile products that Luttrell developed during the first incarnation of Fonedata, this new U.S. venture should be worth keeping an eye on.

Fonedata - a Delaware llc, are experts in sub-contracted design, development, test & management of premium and non-premium SMS and MMS messaging solutions. For further information, please contact us at (800)-514-5723, visit www.fonedata.com or send an email to [email protected].

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