Twitter's 230 million users may be in for a jolt, as people will soon be able to use the social media network on basic talk-and-text cell phones that do not have an Internet connection, Reuters reported.
Not limited to the service that can send a tweet by text messaging a certain number, users will be able to read feeds and trending topics. U2opia Mobile, a Singapore-based startup, is set to launch the new service in the first quarter of next year.
U2opia already has a similar service in place: Fonetwish, which allows about 11 million users to access Facebook and Google Talk without a data plan. U2opia uses a telecom protocol called Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), which is simply for text and will not supports photos, videos or other graphics.
"USSD as a vehicle for Twitter is almost hand in glove because Twitter has by design a character limit, it's a very text-driven social network," Chief Executive and co-founder Sumesh Menon told Reuters.
He said eight out of ten people in an emerging market, do not have a data connection and the new Twitter service has a very practical use. Because of how news is being reported online and in the moment, Twitter can be of value to areas with no mobile connection to the Internet.
U2opia plans to localize each Twitter feed according to the area, as the service has users in 30 countries and of seven different nationalities. The biggest markets are Africa and South America, which use telecom carriers Telenor, Vodafone and Bharti Airtel Ltd. U2opia will collect about 30 to 40 percent what users pay for their carrier to use Fonetwish.
"So somebody in Paraguay would definitely get content that would be very very localized to that market vis a vis somebody sitting in Mumbai or Bangalore," Menon said. "For a lot of end users in the emerging markets, it's going to be their first Twitter experience."
