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Hotxt launches to rival Juize and Crickee for cheap ‘texting’

Link: Dragon fires up cheap texts – Sunday Times – Times Online.

DOUG RICHARD, the American software entrepreneur best known from the Dragons’ Den TV programme, is aiming to take a big bite out of the profits mobile-phone companies make from text messaging with the launch tomorrow of Hotxt.

He plans to undercut the main network operators by offering unlimited messages for £1 a week. Many mobile users, particularly younger ones, spend far more than this on their SMS text habits. Text messaging is an important source of profits for mobile-phone companies.

it’s not a new concept — there’s Juize and Crickee that I’ve come across in recent months.  However, Hotxt are the first that I’ve seen hit the mainstream press.

 

I’ll download it and give it a go.

13 COMMENTS

  1. It’s interesting how someone who is on the board of a venture capital company has no problems raising finance (and press coverage) for an idea that’s not new, or even delivered in a new way, and is, as you say, fundamentally the same as a number of other offerings.

    I’m also concerned about his placing of his new company ‘at the forefront of a campaign to reduce data charges’ – something a lot of other content providers have been trying to do more many, many years.

  2. Hi, I’m the person you’re talking about. I’m actually not on the board of a venture capital company. I backed the company with my own money and then did an angel round with other angel investors. You’re entirely correct that the idea is not new. What makes us different, I hope, is that we have successfully got the service off the ground and that it will work. Fingers crossed. As for placing ourselves at the forefront of a campaign to reduce data charges. We think that they need to be rationalized and reduced just like other content providers. We’d be happy to follow someone else’s lead, we just want to see a good outcome.
    Doug

  3. Text costs are already cheap, I get 1000 per month free with Orange. Tried this Hotxt and is just to much hassle. I don’t even know when I have a new message whereas SMS is straightaway.
    The whole sign up thing is just a complicated mess and the download cost nearly £2 so how much do Hotxt make from this?
    I would need to send over 1200 messages a month to save money with Hotxt, not sure I would have anytime left for anything else! No incentive to change I’m afraid.

  4. how can a140kb download cost £2 at orange £4./mb ? How much do you spend to get 1200 free texts? I have kids, they pay £5 top ups and watch it dissapear with every txt. This is the norm, hence operators make 90% margins on sms which account for huge % of profits.

  5. Tried it and that was the cost £1.78 on credit. I only spend £10 per month and Orange give me this as reward for online top up and all my pals on it too. Cannot see it catching on, make it free and maybe worthwhile, sms is what I’m used to so hottxt would need to make me really make it worthwhile but not sure how you make money on this. No pals on hottxt so just easier and better on sms. sorry not for me so cancelled already as too much hassle

  6. Not sure why it cost him so much to download. Im on prepay and it only cost 30p. Installed on my phone and now it works.
    Seems silly to say he didnt have any friends on it since you have to invite them, just like I did when I joined skype. Anyways, that’s all irrelevant. What makes it rock is that its the fastest text messaging in the universe. So even if it is a hassle to get going I can txt bout 4 x faster now.

  7. £1/week for using hotxt?? There is absolutely no justification for paying that much. What they are offering is basically IM over WAP/GPRS! Maybe if they can make it compatible with MSN or ICQ, broadcast news, sports and other information, then worth paying a yearly subscription of like £10/yr for licensing and all!

    They did not invent the concept or even improve on it or added features. Only reason I see for them to charge that much is because they have 10 CEOs and an army of accountants and marketing gurus to pay. They claim they are the skype of sms..a joke right? Skype was FREE, and innovative!

    Hats off to the guys running companies like Juize, Crickee and Tx2me, who are not charging a penny! Fantastic job people. They are players in a virgin sector of a multi million pound market. And they still provide the service for free, even if they probably spent hundreds of hours creating the software and spending much time and money running the server. Maybe they will introduce a small charge later on to cover for operational costs and hopefully make a profit, or just harvesting the company to sell it off afterwards, but at least they are not ripping people off.

    I am myself working on a project right now to send cheap international sms from mobiles. NOT over GPRS or need to download anything or even the need of modifying the mobile (so no competition here),.. but same thing as sending a normal text, completely transparent to the user. Basically a clever ‘least cost routing mechanism for sms’, as I call it!

    What I will be chagrin? 2 to 3 pence/sms, depending on destination!! Compare that to 20 to 26 pence/sms normally. MAX 3p/sms for sending an international text from your mobile as a normal sms, and that is justified by the fact that I don’t have direct agreements with mobile operators for termination yet and have to connect to 3rd parties and no purchasing capacity either!! If I get to expand as I start operating, and eventually prices will be much much cheaper.

    No one else is doing it yet, I conceive the whole mechanism and am the only one doing it that way, AFAIK. If I shared the same philosophies as the people @ hotxt, I would be charging twice or thrice as much, the customer would still get a barging, I wouldn’t have a single competitor at least when I start and I would just cash in all the money. OK I need money, that’s y am doing this, and I also need both that BMW and Land Rover in my garage, but inflating the pricing like this is no excuse. And btw, am doing all this with my own funds, still raising by working part time on minimum wage at primark while doing my post graduate right now.

    My development platform? An old IBM server bought for 35 quid off ebay (needed repair) a year ago, running Linux with dual Pentium 366 MHz!!!, and 2 salvage Compaq P3 clients. That’s the beauty of our job, technology doesn’t need to be expensive, just innovative…lean and mean! That’s one of the main things that made me enter this field. That’s what makes me love this job so much. The basic idea that you can create something just out of codes and signals, from scratch, and that thing can change the way people interact with each other. Something that doesn’t cost much to create doesn’t need to cost much to use. No respect for people who fail to understand that. If you had to invest 1Million pound to come up with a simple thing, then sorry, you’re just being stupid.

    The irony? Committed companies like Juize, Crickee and Tx2me may well be left behind, the world belong to people who got the best marketing budget. I really hope you guys hang on and maybe work together to offer interoperability between yourselves and all. Me I have my CV handy, coz I know I will be crushed as soon as I launch. I turned down investors already, because I can’t play like them. I didn’t even bother about a patent and I know the concept will be picked up and cloned within days as soon as I go live. As long as they improve on it, am not bothered.

    Stupid I am, but I stick to my basic principles….

  8. I see very clearly where you are going:

    1) You are the only one with a unique sms idea
    2) You’ve turned down investors already
    3) You don’t believe in charging for products
    4) You don’t beleive in paying for products
    5) you think hotxt is ripping people off a £1 a week
    6) You think you will be crushed as soon as you launch

    > Committed companies like Juize, Crikee and Tx2me…

    And Hotxt isn’t committed?

    To be honest, Hotxt has shown its committment to both the idea and the market place by doing what it has done – by launching publicly, by making noise, by developing a product and backend that supports volume and operability.

    You may well be developing your own sms solution, but your biggest mistake is thinking that you are the only on who has had the idea.

    There is clearly an advantage in using hotxt – why do you think they are ripping people off?? I spend upwards of £50 per month on voice/texts, and its going to save me money.

    My colleagues are much the same and happily a group of about 10-15 of use are using it already…

    I suspect you need to shift courses to a post-grad degree in reality.

  9. Thank you for all the great comments about our service. But remember, juize is much more than just free text – we now offer free access to your MSN Instant Messenger Account (where Operators are charging for it), plus, news, games downloads, ring tones etc. juize is also very easy to download and install and you can send it to your friends for free. juize is completely commited to this market.

  10. At the end of the day, there is no free lunch. Free SMS? Yeah right, you will be flooded with porno stuff and spam.

    Way to go for Hotxt.

    RJ

  11. hi Ray, nice to see that you are working on a cheap sms solution. very good indeed. do u have a website that i could visit. i would like to start using sms for 3p internationally.
    thanks Ray

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