Mobixell utilized the first day of MWC to unveil its new RSS gateway solution, whereby RSS feeds can be delivered to subscribers via SMS/MMS, eliminating the need for users to download a client to keep up on the latest news their interested in.
The solution was designed to offer an alternative to existing client-based mobile RSS feed readers and enables operators to generate additional revenue and retain a prominent position in the so-called “value-chain.” The solution allows RSS feeds to be delivered to all multimedia-enabled handsets without users having to install and configure anything. The RSS Gateway tracks the feeds of selected websites — be it news, sports, weather, stock quotes or podcasts — and sends registered subscribers the newly available content as an alert service via SMS or MMS.
The URL to the target website is embedded in the notification message, prompting the subscriber to launch a browsing session to get the whole story. The idea is to give operators a way to add a range of Web 2.0 services to their offerings, while driving additional revenue and promote customer loyalty along the way.
Being aimed squarely at carriers, the RSS Gateway solution is yet another attempt to help carriers get in on the explosion of mobile services that are prime to be taken advantage of. While it’s a unique solution, I don’t foresee the advantage for consumers in the end. It adds benefit for carriers in adding a solution for furthered engagement of subscribers, but consumers are already bombarded with ways to access mobile content on their devices. Also, receiving news alerts from an RSS feed via SMS could get annoying overtime. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how this one plays out.
