Wubud - a mobile socnet on a SIM card
April 29 Mike Butcher
TechCrunch UK & Ireland has learned that Wubud will be the next venture of UK-based entrepreneur, Paul Walsh, who already runs Segala, a usability and certification agency (though he is possibly better known as a blogger and UK Internet scene networker). Wubud - yet to launch - will be a mobile social network pre-installed as an application on a SIM card belonging to an as yet unnamed MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) as well as distributed for download online.
The Wubud mobile social network will most likely hook into location-based services, and details are sketchy at this point - but anyone watching Walsh’s stream of Twitters can’t have failed to notice the idea has been brewing for a while.
The model is an interesting one, according to what I understand Walsh has been saying to colleagues. The MVNO will have some kind of deal to distribute the SIMs (I’m guessing a large retailer or online player?) and will also take care of billing customers. But as an application on the SIM, Wubud will also have access to the billing system and will be able to charge for services without the customer having to input credit card details. That removes a lot of friction and allows Wubud to introduce paid-for services on top of its social network. The only other players able to do this would be another MVNO or mobile carrier, as a normal mobile social network would need to integrate with a separate payments system like Paypal or SMS billing, which incurs extra charges.
The team for Wubud will include (Update: apparently these are just ‘advisors’): Paul Birch (Co-founder, Bebo), Carl Taylor (Director of Applications & Services, Hutchison Whampoa Europe and a member of the Executive Committee at the GSMA); and Ewan Spence, long-time mobile commentator, writer and blogger.
Along with Walsh’s backing I understand that Birch, who recently hit paydirt when his stake in Bebo was realised with its sale to AOL for $850m, is providing seed investment.
Meanwhile, Walsh’s other business, Segala, which specialises in the arcane world of Internet standards compliance certification for web and mobile services, is developing a browser extension. This will classify the content of web sites in a Semantic Web fashion to enable “trust” based on standards and codes of conduct. Angus Banks (Co-founder of Moreover, bought by Verisign) recently became an advisor to Segala, which is looking to raise a $4 million round.
Comments
April 29th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Good to see a different approach to building a mobile social network e.g. baked into the SIM. Question is do I have to sign up to the MVNO to use the soc net? If so, how will it get critical mass? Or is it a interface play (to other soc nets) like trutap.com?
April 29th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
I wonder if its going on the new T-mobile SIM thats coming out
April 29th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Congrats to Walsh and co. There are a lot of moving parts to fit together to make this service work but good luck. Again a socnet on a sim is a great idea but I am sure if it gets any traction the incumbents will copy it. I guess wubud are hoping to get some critical mass quickly in order to become a potential acquisition (exit).
April 29th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
I hear WYAN are also coming out with a new SIM so it could be that http://www.cityofmobile.org
April 29th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Yes better known as a blogger and scenester for a good reason. There is nothing here.
April 29th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
One option might be to be rolled into the firmware upgrades on Nokia’s Social Software play in Ovi - that opens up how many millions of potential handsets? In exchange for handing the Finn’s control!
April 29th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Carl Taylor is currently happily employed by Hutchison Whampoa Europe, is not ‘former’ and has no plans to leave ..
April 29th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
April 29th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Carl - Fair enough - amended the post.
April 29th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Good post and video follow up Mike.
Mobile socnets have to be so easy to use, as easy as sending an SMS message and to do that they really do (Today anyway) have to be embedded into the phone software or sim. This does cause many other problems though… not available on all networks, not available on all phones, requires updating etc. These are all similar to the problems we had years ago with desktop software, but were solved by the Internet and web based apps.
Be interesting to see how much integration with phone functions can be achieved through Android… maybe then we will be able to give access to the phones directory, sms and location based functions from a web app.
April 29th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Wow Mike its true video makes you look fatter. Time to get of the party scene and back on your foldup bike.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Steve Micheals - You are so right. In fact I’m going for a run right now!
April 29th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Interesting play, it adds distribution risk so I assume there must be as yet unspecified functional benefits over a client/server web-based system?