EzyPzy (pronounced as “eezy-peezy”) is a web utility for managing information delivery cycle, from contacts management to sending out of text messages and emails to target audience.

Founded by Aaron Gill in 2006, the MSC Malaysia status start-up can easily passed off as yet another business contacts repository service, as offered by players like Plaxo, LinkedIn and Xing. Although its contacts management comes with nice features like highly customizable Contact Form and flexible tagging, it acts more like a complementary function to its web/mobile information delivery.

Information Push and Pull

EzyPzy’s Listings offers information-on-demand (information pull) facility. Here’s how it works. Create a Listing from EzyPzy’s web, Ajaxy interface. Each Listing is assigned an Ezykode.

For example, an Ezykode for a restaurant can be “Daily Specials.” The Ezykode is promoted on the restaurant’s promotional materials and those interested to find out more about the daily promotions can text message “EZY Daily Specials” to 36881. The restaurant owner can choose either to send out text-based (SMS) promotion information or pictures (MMS) to the requester. The mobile number of the requester will be automatically entered into the restaurant’s contacts list on EzyPzy.

This information pull service by EzyPzy can adapt to many settings, be it selling of real estate and automobile and also sending daily updates to conference participants.

EzyPzy Dashboard

Users can also create Campaign, which involves sending emails and/or text messages to predefined contacts/leads (information push).

The EzyPzy Menu

EzyPay charges service ‘subscription’ fee, per-month basis. Fee ranging from RM0 to RM300, depending on the size of contacts repository and number of Listings (see Table below). At any time, a user can easily upgrade (and downgrade) their usage plan.

The Pricing Plan

On top of the ‘subscription’ fee, EzyPzy also charges its customers a standard rate of RM0.15 per SMS and RM0.30 per MMS for text messages sent out from EzyPzy system.

From Features to Solution

According to Founder and CEO Aaron Gill, EzyPzy was originally conceptualized as a tool to assist real estate agents to manage their property listings online and push information to their potential leads via mobile phones. As development progressed, the application organically grew and became an integrated information delivery solution.

EzyPzy continues to grow by adding layer upon layer of features and capabilities, in order to differentiate itself in the marketplace. In coming months, the company will introduce new features and functionalities:

• Embeddable customizable contact form, which can be embedded on any website; contact details entered into the form are automatically stored to EzyPzy contacts repository,
• Automated contact details capture of scanned name cards, and
• Scheduler for its email and SMS Campaign.

Launched in May 21 2008 during the World IT Congress in Kuala Lumpur, EzyPzy has over 150 clients storing over 12,000 contact records. The company is one of the first five recipients of the MSC Malaysia’s Technopreneur Pre-Seed Fund.  EzyPzy has been used in two major events in Malaysia, namely the Monsoon Cup and Miss Malaysia Indian Global Pageant. Besides Malaysia, the company has started offering its service in Singapore.

Information Pull / Push Made Easy by EzyPzy originally appeared on GreyReview on November 27, 2008.

The pioneering mobile SMS-based search provider, Yellotext is collaborating with Carrefour in Malaysia, by making grocery promotional offers by the French hypermarket giant searchable on its search platform.

Now, Carrefour Malaysia’s customers can find out latest offers and promotions, by texting “ASK Carrefour Groceries Promo” to 36869. Grocery promotion information (product details and prices) will be sent directly to the customers’ mobile phones via SMS. Each text message ASK query will be charged RM0.30.

Carrefour Promotions. Search Anytime, Anywhere with Yellotext

For Carrefour, this search service offers added convenience to its shoppers (especially bargain hunters), by making its promotion information searchable via text message. It also provides the hypermarket giant the ability to narrowcast promotion information to targeted audience, as information delivery is only triggered by users’ search query (information on-demand, on-the-go). In this case, it’s about delivering the right information to the right person at the right time!

This search utility adds a new dimension to Carrefour’s marketing arsenal and complementing its existing broadcast medium – newspaper ads, catalogue, poster. Promotion offers for the period November 28 – December 10 2008 at Carrefour Malaysia are already searchable on Yellotext, as of today.

For Yellotext, this collaboration looks set to further catalyze its users’ growth. Currently, the company is exploring opportunities with more companies in other sectors to organically grow its user-base and expand its search directory.

Carrefour Grocery Promotions Now Searchable on Yellotext originally appeared on GreyReview on November 26, 2008.

ASK is a new SMS-based directory search service by Yellotext Sdn Bhd. It enables users to find whereabouts of desired items and also contact details of their favorite shops from its ASK Listing directory, anywhere, anytime.

To use the search service, just type “ASK” followed by a search query e.g. “ASK hair salon curve” or “ASK hair salon” and then send to 36869. The search engine can also ‘understand’ queries in natural language e.g. “ASK looking for a hair salon at gardens.” Response time is typically under a minute (depending on network conditions).

Simple Steps to ASK Yellotext

Some search results are followed by supplementary mobile vouchers called ASK Poster (adopting Google AdWords concept). Poster is designed for merchants to send promotional vouchers to Yellotext’s search users and each Poster is tagged to a set of search keywords.

Someone who searches for a bookstore, for example, is probably more likely to have an intention to buy books. She will find a discount voucher for books useful and relevant (and timely). With ASK Poster, bookstore operator can effectively respond to purchase intention by enticing customers with promotional offers.

Mobile voucher is free to all ASK users. Instead, Yellotext charges merchants based on the number of times their vouchers are delivered to search users. Additionally, merchants pay for listing on the ASK search directory and search users pay RM0.30 for each set of search results.

Txt Msg Rules, Still

SMS usage is still showing strong growth. A recent market report “2008 Global Mobile – Data and Content Markets” by Research and Markets estimated over 2 trillion text messages will be sent worldwide in 2008 and the number is expected to grow further. “Market Trends: Mobile Messaging, Worldwide, 2006 – 2011” by Gartner also expected text messages to surpass 2 trillion in 2008; Asia-Pacific and Japan are the biggest users of mobile messaging with estimated 1.7 trillion messages to be sent in 2008. Gartner also estimated mobile messaging revenue to reach US$60.2 billion in 2008, a 15.7% increase over 2007.

In Malaysia, 56.9 billion text messages were sent in 2007 alone (Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission). That’s about a billion text messages sent each week!

According to Chow Tuck Mun, CEO of Yellotext, ASK service “combines the two widely used applications, search and SMS.” Its ASK Poster is a well thought out approach to SMS marketing. Conventional bulk SMS marketing is spam-oriented whereas Poster is driven by users’ intentions and allows contextualized mobile marketing. Rather than simply throwing spaghetti against the wall and see if it sticks, ASK makes SMS marketing more targeted, intelligent, effective and less intrusive.

ASK search is in early commercialization stage and its directory already has over 3,000 records (and growing) covering eight major shopping malls in the Klang Valley area – Pavilion, Suria KLCC, Berjaya Times Square, Mid Valley, The Gardens, 1Utama, The Curve and Sunway Pyramid. Currently, the ASK service is only available to subscribers of the three main Malaysian mobile carriers – Maxis, DiGi and Celcom.

You ASK, Yellotext Answers originally appeared on GreyReview on November 15, 2008.