Investors turn to mobile directory market

More investors are putting their money in mobile applications, hoping the massive uptake of mobile telephony will help sustain the new business models.

Mocality is a new mobile-based application that serves up an array of services to small businesses in what promises to be a game-changing innovation in the nascent mobile directory market.

The firm, part of the multi-media Naspers Group that owns the MultiChoice franchise, is offering an application that allows businesses to have standard and mobile websites through which they are reached by customers or suppliers.

In addition, the businesses that sign up get free 400 text messages that they can use to send promotional information to their clients or place orders with their suppliers.

Mocality CEO, Mr Stefan Magdalinski, said the firm’s priority is to create a “compelling product” before it can start charging.

“One of the biggest problems you face when you try to build a business directory, unlike other kinds of web applications, is that until you have a critical mass you don’t have a compelling product for consumers,” Mr Magdalinski said.

“If somebody searches for a salon in South ‘B’ estate and finds none, then the directory is not only unhelpful but erroneous because we know there are quite a number of salons in that estate.”

Mr Magdalinski added that Mocality’s target group is small businesses whose budget restrains them from more expensive marketing and brand promotion tools.

Mocality has signed up over 20,000 businesses in Nairobi against a potential of 100,000, which the firm hopes to enlist by August.

“What differentiates us from other mobile directories is our sheer flexibility and value-added services,” Mr Magdalinski said.

He explained that a business owner is in charge of his or her firm’s listing on Mocality’s web servers.

One can modify the content as often as they like to reflect changes in their telephone contacts and physical addresses.

In addition, a business can list its products or services and prices charged and send promotional messages to prospective clients. All these are done using a mobile phone.

Major innovation

But the major innovation in the Mocality suite is the fact that it enables mobile phone users to search a business using Google Maps, placing the target business in a specific physical context and giving directions.