eBuddy’s Mobile IM client hits 10M downloads in 18 months

Written on 5th December 2008                                                                                                              2 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

World’s leading independent IM provider eBuddy celebrated a rather impressive milestone yesterday. CEO and co-founder Jan-Joost “JJ” Rueb told us that eBuddy’s mobile IM client has hit ten million J2ME downloads in just 18 months.

The Dutch company launched the client back in June 2007. In 13 months, IM addicts downloaded the nifty little program five million times. Their 5M-announcement really boosted downloads, the press release notes.

“eBuddy Mobile Messenger is ramping at a rate of more than 1 million downloads per month, and we’re processing over 1.5 billion messages per month on our mobile platform for over 3 million unique monthly users,” says Mr. JJ.

eBuddy foresees a bright future, as research analysts at Informa recently estimated the global market for mobile IM will become an $11 billion (€7.4bn) industry by 2011, and that IM penetration will be nearly 100% by the end of this decade.

Last year’s developments at eBuddy HQ support the company’s hope for a profitable existence. Apart from the impressive milestones, the company also secured a series B round of 6.5 million euro from Prime Technology in February and welcomed former Google Netherlands executive Marc Duijndam to stimulate international growth.

Disclosure: we often drink beers with the eBuddy team

ebuddy, im

2 Comments »

Another way to save money with your iPhone: texting through AIM

Written on 14th July 2008                                                                                                              7 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

An iPhone 3G doesn’t come cheap, in fact, most monthly plans are pretty expensive. Yet bloggers are constantly writing about ways to save some money with the shiny object – such as VoIP calling (and not having to buy an iPod or GPS system). This morning I stumbled on a money-saving plan that concerns the most unfairly priced mobile technology of our time: SMS texting. It’s ridiculous how much we have to pay for transferring such a small amount of data. If we had to download a song from iTunes for SMS data costs, we’d pay €3,770 (based on calculations by Sam from a gthing science project).

So I don’t know about you, but I welcome every possibility to take away some money from this billion dollar SMS business. Here’s one:

• Download and install the free AIM client from the App Store.
• In your IM client, create a new contact whose AIM address is a plus sign and the mobile number of the recipient, such as “+31641510902″.
• Start texting away by looking up the new buddy on your AIM software. He or she will receive a SMS text message, yet the reply will end up in your AIM client.

Just so you know, this also works with an iPod Touch.

aim, im, iphone, ipod touch, shiny object, sms, texting, tips

7 Comments »

Baidu.com plans to launch instant messaging service

Written on 29th February 2008                                                                                                              2 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

China’s most popular search engine Baidu.com said it plans to launch an instant messaging service. The marketing division of Baidu wasn’t really in a creative mood when they made up the name, as it will be ‘Baidu Hi’. Baidu is currently recruiting personnel to take care of the product design, research and testing.

“We are very excited to enter the IM market in China,” said Haoyu Shen, Baidu’s vice president of business operations in a statement. “The Internet is playing an increasingly important role in people’s lives in China, and we are constantly looking for ways to bring more convenience and functionality to our users. With Baidu’s strengths in creating online communities, and with our suite of popular products such as Baidu Knows, Baidu Post Bar and Baidu Space, we are confident that Baidu Hi will become a strong competitor in China’s IM market.”

If I worked at eBuddy or Meebo, I’d be delighted to hear this news. Since this will probably stimulate more Chinese people to start using instant messaging. As soon as the two companies have found a way to integrate this new IM service, the number of users might grow enormously.

Update: The guys from Wakoopa mailed us a scoop. The Baidu im-service will be client-based. Software service Wakoopa tracked four people using a ‘IM tool from Baidu.com, Inc.’ for 8 minutes and 58 seconds.

baidu, china, im

2 Comments »