By launching our partnership with PlatinumTel, we have introduced the next evolution of Embee Mobile, as well as a powerful new way for conventional companies to monetize social media. The PlatinumTel Mobile Wallet powered by Embee Mobile is our first direct relationship with a mobile operator, and provides PlatinumTel users new ways to fund their phone and manage their mobile account.
More big picture, we believe this enterprise represents one of the first efforts to not just market real goods and services to Facebook Fans, but to in fact sell and deliver them via social media.
Until now, Embee Mobile has delivered value by helping prepaid subscribers subsidize their mobile service. Working directly with operators like PlatinumTel, it’s easy to see how mobile operators could use the channel to subsidize other products – including handsets, ringtones and applications. Increase disposable income, and you increase a user’s willingness to buy those extra products and services. We are already putting this to the test by offering PlatinumTel data cards, and anticipate adding new products in the coming months.
Some convenient new features as part of the integration with PlatinumTel are Import and Account Sync. Typically adding prepaid minutes required a trip to the store to buy a top-up card, then manually entering a lengthy PIN on their prepaid phone. Import and Account Sync make getting a PIN easier by syncing the Platinumtel subscriber’s mobile phone account with the Mobile Wallet for real-time account management. Now when users redeem their Embee Minutes on the PlatinumTel Mobile Wallet, the PlatinumTel PIN is automatically entered and the minutes are available instantly. And as PlatinumTel users talk and text, they can see on the Mobile Wallet how much money they have remaining on their phone, all in real-time.
This model is an evolution in expanding commerce that we’ve seen before and will write about soon. But as one customer best put it, “It’s great getting paid for doing what I do online.” Namely, hanging out on Facebook. And it’s for that reason that we think powering prepaid customers with the PlatinumTel Mobile Wallet offers great value to both prepaid subscribers and the operators they choose.
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