160by2 service has now more than 3 million registered users! This is a really great milestone achieved in less than 18 months. When we launched 160by2, it seemed so tough to forecast user growth. We have surpassed most of our forecasts!

We expected it to succeed, and that hunger for success drove us hard. But we are really overwhelmed by the feedback and support provided by our 3 million strong user community. This has driven us harder, to launch new features, to improve the back-end and to deliver a better experience.

Today, with action packed 18 months behind us, we are proud of our users who use our services, and we are equally proud of our advertisers who have believed in us, our users, and the power of this advertising media.

The results are out for 2008 Website of the year survey. Our users have voted overwhelmingly to make us the best and the most popular website in India in telecom and isp sector.

As dust settles down on 2008, we look at 2009 with renewed enthusiasm and vigour. We pledge to our users and advertisers that we will strive harder to deliver still more this year.
All of us at 160by2 wish you and your families a peaceful and prosperous 2009.

Deloitte Technology Fast 50 India program conducted by Deloitte Touche Tohamtsu (DTT) recognizes the fastest growing technology companies in India. We are delighted to share this news with all our users that “SMSCountry Networks” (the parent company of 160by2) has been ranked amongst Deloitte Technology Fast 50 in India for the year 2008. Infact, we have been ranked as the 25th fastest growing technology companies in India! The complete list of winners for this year can be downloaded from Deloitte website

To add to it, we are also amongst Top 500 fastest growing technology companies in Asia Pacific. This is another proud moment in our short history, and we believe its our users who have been driving all our success and innovation. Already at 3 million mark, our users are growing by thousands every day.

Thanks to you all.

Great News! 160by2.com has been nominated for this year’s “Website of the Year” award. This award is annually awarded by Metrix Labs; Europe’s largest Online research agency. Previous winners of this award from India include Orkut.com, Youtube.com, eBay.in, Vodafone.in, TimesofIndia.indiatimes.com among others. Your vote can help us reach this league of the winners of the Website of the Year award.

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO

How do you think we fare on website navigation, content, and website design (simplicity of use)? Rate us at http://www.websiteoftheyear.co.in/vote.php?id=85 .Do remember to enter your name and email address – You have something to win too!!

WHAT YOU CAN WIN

Once you enter your details, you need to visit your email account to confirm the address. Doing so makes you eligible to win one of the following prizes!

5x Nintendo Wii Console (Includes Wii Sports)
10x Canon PowerShot

Sounds exciting!? Come, vote for us

Today was an exciting day here at our 160by2 office in Hyderabad..No, we were not launching any new feature. But each of us was intently following the India Australia test match at Mohali. Let me admit foremost that I am a die hard ‘devotee’ of Sachin – the God of Cricket and to me, as it should be to every Sachin fan across the world, it was a momentous occasion when he would be crossing Brian Lara’s record for highest number of runs in Test Cricket.

Just as Sachin glided the ball towards third man to cross the landmark, all of us erupted with claps and cheers. It was indeed a moment to cherish for every supporter of Sachin. And this moment was too great to miss..and not savour. As a small gesture, I distributed Reynolds pens(a brand that Sachin endorses) to all our 160by2 team.

Rock On Sachin and congratulations to all his fans! Let’s celebrate this moment…

If you have logged into 160by2 lately, you would have observed a minor change in the way the site looks. We have just launched a wider interface across the site. While the older design was user friendly,we felt the narrow width of the page was cluttering the links on the site. What used to be simply an online free SMS portal, now also lets you to set birthday reminders, set task alerts, manage your contacts, post ads, browse classifieds, etc. With increasing number of features, the links on our website have also increased.

We reasoned that the best way to address this issue of clutter while not compromising on the user-friendliness of the interface was to maintain the same look and feel but get more space for the links. The start towards this has been the new 160by2 design. The pages shall now appear across the width of your computer screens. This will ensure that the links are more spaced out moving on. We have also realigned the ad blocks on some pages so that the user does not feel that the ads are “on my way”. We have always wanted to be at the forefront on user experience, didn’t we?

One another reason why the redesign was effected and which shall be of interest to the programmers among you is that we have now integrated the style sheets across the website so the design across the website is standardized. This is in line with the best programming practices that we at 160by2 have been following. The new design shall also help the site load faster on your browser. You will never need to wait that extra second to send free SMS here on!!

It is now two months since we launched MyAds, a free way for our users to post ads to the 160by2 community. We are exhilirated by the ride so far. On an average 300 ads get posted every single day by our users, which is in itself a reason to thank you all once again.

160by2 has always believed in providing utmost value to our users. We are now stretching this value even further for you. This week, our WAP development team launched the WAP version of Classifieds.

With this, 160by2 users with GPRS connection on their mobile phones can now browse through houses, cellphones on sale, MBA coaching centers in their locality all from the comfort of their mobile phones. One feature on WAP that is sure to make life easier for our users is the Call option againt the ads. Found something of your choice and want to contact the ad poster? Just click on the call option to proceed to calling the ad poster. Can Classifieds get easier than this!!

Here are a few snapshots of the new launch.

We are back with yet another BIG contest. This time, it is from Zee Studio. The contest starts from 14th September and shall run till 12th October and here is the BIG PRIZE: Win a FREE trip to the magical land of Disney© in Hongkong! So what will get you there? Simple..Watch the Zee Studio movies that are aired at 10:30 PM and look out for the codes that shall be flashed in this time. SMS this code to 57575. The more codes you SMS, the better you stand to win! Now, does this sound cool enough?

Exclusive Zee Studio’s DVD/VCD offer on 160by2 (click to visit Contest link) – The cooler part is that you stand assured to win something for even spreading the word about this contest. After you send a Free SMS from 160by2.com, you shall be displayed a window from where you can spread the word about this contest to your friends. Spread it to 25 of your friends, and you win for yourself Free Movie VCDs/DVDs. So, go ahead watch the coolest movies @ 10:30 PM on Zee Studio.

On the auspicious day of Ganesh Chaturti in the holy Islamic month of Ramadan and when the Jains amongst us were celebrating Sawantsari, 160by2.com crossed yet another amazing landmark. We now have more than 2 million registered users amongst us! This has been quite a journey of just over a year. It took us 11 months to reach the 1 million mark. And the 2 million mark was reached in less than 4 months following that!

So what is it that has made this journey so exhilarating? In one word, it is YOU, our users. One year back, we were kicked by the idea of serving free SMS to our users and till date, it is the idea of providing something valuable that has kept us going. This has been the inspiration behind us working on more and better features like MyAds and Classifieds.

Hence, now is the time for us to stop by and thank each of our users who have made all of this happen. Now is also the time we would like to thank each of our advertisers who discovered the potential in the innovative concept of this powerful medium of personal messaging. Thank You All!!!

Lastly, I would like to extend a personal welcome to our two millionth user – Onkar Khanolkar!

Cheers from the 160by2 Team!!

We all have been getting a lot of mails supporting us for the new feature that we had launched-My Ads.You all have been a great support in not only trying out the new feature but also in spreading the word. We would like to thank you all for not only the immense support that you all have been giving us, but adapting to all the new features that we have been coming up with.

My Ads was one way we thought that our users should also get the feel of being an advertiser and promote their business and service, now with this being adapted by you all so well, we have come up with yet another flavor to this!! And yeah once again its all FREE!

So, here we go : Our next launch – 160by2 Classifieds!

Classifieds is a logical extension of MyAds. Whereas MyAds only let you use the 5000 rupees worth of ad budget to send SMS to the 160by2 SMS recipients in the geography you select, the Classifieds are an internet version of the same ads which will be open to all 160by2 visitors.

How does that help you?

The benefits are multifold. Firstly, your ad is not seen just by the select thousands of people who happen to receive the ad along with the 160by2 SMS. It can now be seen by ALL the 160by2 visitors. This can possibly lead to more conversions for you as the ad-poster. Moreover since these classifieds can also be listed on the search engines, it gives you additional exposure for your ad. A person in US searching for ‘Work from Home jobs’ could possibly be visiting your website. That does sound exciting, right!!!? And it is doubly exciting when all these are free!

160by2 Classifieds is still in its early days, and there are possibly loads of ways by which you can make use of this service. So what next. Go ahead and create your own ad using 160by2 MyAds Now!

It has been an eventful ten days since we launched MyAds. The response from the users have been phenomenal. In such a short span of ten days, we are already sending out more than 2,00,000 SMS messages tagged with MyAds advertisements everyday.

As much as MyAds has been a hit among our users, there have been many of you who have written to us with doubts about the service. While we have indeed been replying personally to each of these mails, we also thought it fit to compile some sort of an FAQ that could be posted on the blog so that it answers the queries that most of you might have. So here we go:

CREATING AN AD:

Do I have to pay money to create an ad?
No. MyAds is Free! We provide each of our users Rs.5000 worth of advertising budget. You can make use of this advertising budget to post an ad about anything you want – jobs,cellphones, bikes,house, loans.

How much money does it cost per SMS?
Currently, we charge Re.1 for every SMS that goes tagged with your ad. That means, your ads shall be seen by 5000 users with the available ad budget.

What do you mean by ‘Location of ad’?
By selecting locations,you can ensure that you do not waste your advertising budget in sending your ads to people who might not be interested. Why advertise in Mumbai if you are selling a house in Delhi!

To minimize the wastage of advertisements shown to people outside your targeting region, we have set a maximum of 3 locations that can be targeted for any ad.

What is ‘ad budget’?
We have promised you 5000 rupees worth of advertising for free. But it is upto the advertiser to decide how he/she decides to spread the money across multiple ads. You can spend the money depending on which ad is more important and hence requires higher exposure.

I have exhausted my Rs.5000. How do I get more money?
Whenever your account balance becomes low, you shall be asked to request for budget refill on the MyAds page. Once you request for a refill, our administrators shall review your account for previous ad quality and if your ad-history meets editorial standards, you shall be provided additional budget to post more Free Ads!

AD MANAGEMENT:

Why was my ad rejected?
Your ad can be rejected for one of the following reasons:

1. You have not provided a contact phone number, email id or website in your ad text
2. Ad text is not appropriate
3. Ad text does not hold sufficient clarity
4. Ad text is adult in content
5. Ad text does not accord to our editorial guidelines
6. Ad category is not relevant to the ad text

Can I edit my ad once submitted?
Yes, you always can. Login to 160by2.com and click MyAds page (http://160by2.com/myads.aspx). You shall be displayed a list of all ads you have created. Click on the Edit Ad link relevant to the ad that you need to modify to proceed. Kindly remember that any changes to the ad text or category shall make the ad necessary for further approval before it is shown to our users again.

How do I stop showing my ads?
In case you need to stop showing your ads while it is still running, you can do so by logging into 160by2.com and clicking MyAds page. Every active ad has a link at the bottom that reads ‘Click here to Pause the campaign’. Click this link once to stop the campaign. You can always resume it by clicking the link(which reads ‘Click here to activate the campaign’) again!

How can I check the status of my ad?
You can view the status of the ad campaign from the MyAds page. Ads you post require an approval from our administrators before they go live. Till the approval is done,the status is ‘Pending Approval’. Once approved, you shall receive an SMS to confirm the same. However, should your ad be rejected, we shall be sending you an email explaining the reasons for rejection. You can always edit the ad and submit for further approval.

ADS RECIPIENTS:

Who will receive my ad?
Your ad shall be sent to users only in the geographical region selected by you at the time of ad creation

Where does my Ad appear?
Your ads shall appear along with SMS messages sent by 160by2 users to people in the geographical region selected by you. Your ad shall look something like this:

People call me thinking I sent them an SMS. Why does that happen?
It can happen that users might mistake you as the sender of the SMS. In such a scenario, kindly explain to them the concept of 160by2.com. The actual sender’s number is displayed at the beginning of the SMS. To minimize such an occurrence, kindly follow the Ad templates posted under each ad category.