Going, going, gone…on Gumiyo!
What next? Mobiles that can program satellites? From the looks of it, the web 2.0 war is soon going to shift battlegrounds, from sleek computers to even sleeker flip-tops and slide phones! And showing the way, are companies like Gumiyo, who have taken all the features of an online classified site on to the omni-present mobiles.
Gumiyo enables your phone to not only search online, but publish classified ads as well. It's unbelievably simple, anyone with a mobile that can send or receive SMS or MMS, that has a web browser and a camera can do it. By creating an image or video of the item, attaching a multimedia message with a short description and sending it to post@gumiyo.com. Gumiyo will organize and process the ad and allow you to review / edit before publishing. The ad will be broadcast on leading websites like Google, Froogle, Lycos, Oodle, Vast and others. A seller is not forced to reveal private contact information. You can import names from you address book and invite friends to view and visit your listing. In the meantime, buyers on the lookout will connect to the seller via text message or email.
As praized.com puts it
When you post your item, you are presented with a one click experience to notify your friends, and they are presented with a one click experience to notify their friends and so on. Thus, creating the propagation effect of viral marketing regardless of the social network affiliation of each member.
On the browsing/buying side Gumiyo lets you see items on My AOL, My MSN, My yahoo, Google Homepage, or any other RSS Reader. Even if you're looking for that hard-to-find item, a Gumiyo alert will let you know at once, if it comes online. Once the seller is found, you'll be hooked up right away via SMS, emails or even a direct mobile phone call.
The word from mobilecrunch is
Gumiyo.com is working on the most popular classified ads site on the Internet . Using its oh-so-Web 2.0 classified site to buy or sell items, a seller or buyer can be hooked up via telephone by using "disposable" phone numbers. If you find something you like, you enter your phone number and a verification code and hit "Send!". Your number is auto-magically paired with a Gumiyo number and this number is sent to the seller. When he or she calls it, it basically forwards to yours. It even works with text messaging, a neat feature.
For the now, the service is free and accessible from mobiles and web browsers by going on to the website http://www.gumiyo.com. Gumiyo requires no installation and is compatible with most mobile phones. Gumiyo sells products, merchandise, vehicles and housing but no firearms, porno, drugs etc. and are targeted a t both businesses and consumers. While free for non-commercial users, commercial users can pay an additional fee for marketing and for extending their postings.
The really good news, a single Gumiyo ad can generate up to 100-150 additional web pages and citations across the Internet. Apart from the hassle free buying process, here's a great excuse to upgrade those phones!
Competition exists all around, but mainly in the online space from vFlyer.com and the ubiquitous craigslist.com. But neither (as of now), has the mobile edge that Gumiyo has so cleverly cornered.
Gumiyo is privately owned, but as with all of us, is on the lookout for funding. It's quartered in California and was started by Shuki Lehavi.
Catching up with Gumiyo – our chat with them
What specific skills will Gumiyo be looking for in the future when recruiting tech professionals?
Gumiyo is constantly seeking avid technologists who are excited about changing the lives of users around the globe. We look for passionate candidates who care about the product and are not afraid to explore new technologies and apply them to the mobile space. As a parallel web/mobile shop, we are looking for experience in enterprise web applications, along with specific technologies in the mobile arena.
In what ways is Gumiyo better than eBay or Craigslist?
Gumiyo is a different solution than the existing sites and in our view, paves the way for mobile commerce to really emerge.
Our focus is on the connection between the buyer and the seller. In other words, Gumiyo is for selling and buying items where some form of direct, secure communication between parties to a transaction is necessary. Gumiyo is a fully mobile service with complete parity to the Web version of Gumiyo. It might look different in the two environments, but the core user flows and functionality are the same. There aren't many (if any) classifieds sites that can say that.
What are some of the strangest things that have been listed on Gumiyo?
Someone listed an island. I think there was an Irish castle there, too.
What is the advantage of online bidding via mobile phones?
Actually, Gumiyo is not an auction site so I have no idea. In truth, we extend the online marketplace to mobile phones. We also like to say that we are an "ecommerce community with a mobile delivery system." We're not trying to put a shopping cart on a phone nor are we trying to cram an Amazon experience onto the mobile phone. For us, we want to natively incorporate mobile devices into the e-commerce experience in a way that makes the most sense. The mobile phone is an "always on, always-with-you" connectivity channel. For us, it means:
- Delivering qualified buyers to sellers wherever they are
- Delivering relevant listings to buyers wherever they are that can be viewed and acted upon
- Freeing buyers from combing through irrelevant online ads in numerous locations
- Taking full advantage of camera phones and SMS/MMS to post ads from anywhere and propogate them throughout the Internet and to connect buyers and sellers in real-time
- Using PayPal Mobile to securely transact without carrying cash or the hassle of money orders
- Taking advantage of mobile-based social networking to help get your items sold
How important will marketing via mobile communications be in the next few years?
There's so much forward momentum in the mobile marketing world that it's inevitable it will be huge. The cellphone is the fastest growing segment of personal computing, with 222 million subscribers in the U.S. alone. That's more than 2/3 of the population! In 2006, mobile subscribers world-wide have grown at a 15% rate, and global mobile revenues have seen a similar 18% rise, exceeding $667 billion. That's just too big for it not to be important. I don't remember where I got the statistic (or it's context), but I read that in China there are 7 mobile phones per computer in households that have such items. If it can be done on a phone in a way that makes sense, then it will be done. As people start doing more and more computing on their phones, as they view more media, and as they have more mobile online destinations, then there will more opportunities to market to those users.
However, one distinction I see with mobile marketing versus web or traditional marketing, is that mobile marketing is more permission-dependent. In other words, the mobile end-user is in charge of the content because he has to pay for it. Maybe this will change in the future when unlimited mobile browsing and messaging will be the norm like today's Internet.
To this point, we are a mobile platform for consumers and businesses to market their for-sale items and classified ads to a mobile audience. The buyer is in charge of the messages and alerts he receives, and he only gets the ones that matter to him. The seller gets a risk-free way to publish his listings without incurring cost before he gets any value (unlike most classifieds). The buyer and seller are each independently in-charge of the content and messages that come to their phones while they still mutually benefit from the inherent connectivity and ubiquity.
Gung-ho on Gumiyo
It's just the beginning. Web marketing will become the 'traditional' way whereas mobile marketing will be the new mantra! The only issue is the number jumping on to the bandwagon. Frankly, it is just a matter of time before the online biggies go mobile as well. So for Gumiyo and the like, it's a question of being ahead and protecting turf more than anything else.