Free Mobile Service in Germany, Spain and Belgium

by Jordan Yerman | June 25, 2008 at 06:02 am

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Nononowait, this isn't spam. A company called Blyk finances its network through targeted ads. Basically, subscribers get a handful of free minutes and a bunch of free texts if they agree to receive targeted ads. (In the UK, Blyk rents access to the Orange network)

Personally, I'm surprised at its success: sure, it's free, but 43 minutes isn't much in exchange for a constantly-ringing phone that's serving up ads.

Blyk customers get 43 free minutes and 217 text messages in exchange for receiving targeted adverts based on the demographic information they provide on signing up. The virtual operator - it piggybacks on the Orange network in the UK - is aimed at punters aged between 16 and 24, though disappointingly there's no ritual disconnection when you hit 25.

The network was originally exclusive in that customers could only sign up when invited by an existing customer or at a road-show. But as we noted last time we wrote about the company it was offering a "limited time" sign up on its web site and now anyone is free to join up - the exclusivity having served it's promotional purpose.

What surprising about Blyk is that it seems to be working, with more than 100,000 customers signed up and over 900 campaigns run to pay for their usage. The company blog reports a response rate of 29 per cent to MMS-delivered advertising, and a promotion with Penguin books saw seventy per cent of punters responding (pdf).

Currently, potential users need to supply their own phone. Membership was viral, but now there's a little added join button on their signup page. I guess they had to test it for scalablility before a possible glut of new, eager users. I dunno, though: the veneer of "free" isn't enough for me to put up with a bunch of ad-texts. Meanwhile, pay-as-you-go providers must be furious, as Blyk's target market would most likely have their handsets through pay-as-you-go purchases. In the end, though, we'll see whose business model weathers the storm of daily usage: for example, I don't use hotmail because I can't stand all the spam, even though it's free.