Looking for a fun medium to stay interconnected with favorite amigos and closed ones? Or just want to keep an eye on who wants to join the friend circle? If so, here’s something interesting. Nimbuzz has launched its new push notification feature ‘Nimbuzz Ping’ that enables feature phone users to appear online to their friends even when the application is closed.
The newly introduced functionality will now allow users to receive a free SMS alert when someone in their Nimbuzz community wants to enter the circle. Designed to enhance the user experience, the push notification for feature phones is initially made available to over 88 million subscribers across the Singtel Group network, with a dozen mobile operators throughout the Middle East and Asia Pacific adopting the service in the coming months.
“Smartphones may get the attention. However, feature phones account for the majority of worldwide phone sales, especially in developing markets where Nimbuzz is taking the lead. According to Gartner Research, the feature phone market sold 264 million new ‘dumb phones’ in Q3 2010 compared to 62 million smartphones, such as the iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, sold during the same period of time. Ping allows operators to increase data sales and drive up loyalty with an innovative VAS offering that bring smartphone functionality to feature phone customers,” elaborated Evert Jaap Lugt, CEO, Nimbuzz.
To notify, Ping is free for users to enable inside Nimbuzz and harmonizes well with Nimbuzz’s ‘always-on’ product nature. Interestingly, when one of users’ contacts wants to reach them, the new feature renders a free SMS message to their mobile device’s homescreen, prompting the user to log in to Nimbuzz and start a data session to communicate.
The feature-rich Ping empowers more than four billion feature phones with smartphone functionality and puts across push notifications to nearly 400 million Symbian mobile devices, currently lacking this feature.