2. Have You..?
Hello Sir. Your name has
been selected in a lucky
draw. You win a four day
package for couple in
Kerala…
Book your flat in Noida at
never before rates. Last
few units left…
3. Problem
• Sharp decline in cost of SMS/Call.
• Commercially viable to advertise on mobile.
• In form of both SMS and calls.
• Gross infringement of customer’s privacy.
• Worst form of botheration.
4. Solution(by TRAI)
• All telemarketers should register with TRAI.
• Customers can register for DND.
• If they get spam, they can file a complaint by..
• .. note down details – date, time, content, etc,
• .. create a SMS with a very complex format,
• .. send to 1909.
• On repeated complaints, telemarketer is
disconnected.
5. Problem with solution
• Too much effort for users.
• Too complex format.
• Different formats.
User gives up!!
15. Some reviews
• “Exceptional application I'm willing to pay for this app. The creator has
done a huge contribution to society by creating this application.” – Raj
Shekharan
• “Excellent App. 5 Stars. Would give more if I had! Excellent app, very
well thought and easy to use. I have been using for last 3 months and
find it so good. Not only helps reporting spam easy, also makes
deleting junk SMS so easy.” – Shailesh Mishra
• “Awesome very handy app. I got many confirmations from Airtel that
unregistered numbers sending SMS and making calls have been
disconnected.” – Chetan B
• “Excellent! I give 5/5 for such a great thought. Every Indian android
user has to have this app.” – Pratap Singh
16. Effect(..so far)
• >4600 installs from Play Store. And counting.
• 4.79/5.00 user rating.
• Hundreds of reports filed every day.
• Users reporting frequent disconnections of
reported spammers.
17. Appeal
• A spammer is fined for each offence and
disconnected after 6th offence.
• Which means, more people report, more chances
of spammer going out of business.
• Need many more to reach critical mass.
• Have the potential to eradicate mobile spam from
India. For good.
18. A Bit Of Background
• Single person.
• No prior knowledge of Java/Android.
• Working part time.
Hello everyone. I’m here to talk about a common nuisance we have all faced, we continue facing everyday. And how I have tried in my own little way to address it.
I’m going to give you two situations. By show of hands, tell me how many of you have faced it, first hand, in your daily life.One. A phone rings up and before you can say something, a girl with sweet voice is trying to force a ponzi scheme down your throat.Two. Bang in middle of night, your phone rings with SMS tone. You reach out to it in hurry, fearing worst, and finding an SMS saying something like this.
The problem started with mobile revolution in India.Within a few years, calls/sms were dirt cheap. So cheap that sending unsolictedsms made sense commercially. But such is personal nature of a phone, a spam on phone is worst form of privacy infringement. Spam on email you can ignore but phone demands immediate aattention.
And after a long while TRAI finally stepped in. But it was an idea rift with problems. Let me explain how.
To actually note down time, date, content, originating number. And to create an SMS out of it using a specific format. It seemd TRAI was making it impossible to report. To add to that all operators implemented their own versions of the standard format.All these three factors led to one thing. – users simply gave up.
It was while composing one of these painfully complex SMS that a thought stuck my mind. This can be automated. And the result was..<drumroll>
It is free and will always remain so.There are no ads so as to improve user experience.To report, user simple has to tap an SMS or call from the list.The app is intelligent enough to reads users network information to cetain his operator and circle and incorporsateoperatpr specific deviations.Those you have registered to DND can do doorectly from app using a super-simple sinterface.You can even checkk status of previously repoted spam complaint.
This is the screen you are presented with when you start app. SMS or calls older than 3 days are already filtered out as they cant be repoted as told by TRAI. So are SMS fro your contacts.
Just tap on any entry which you know was spam.
This confirmation box prevents you from reporting wrong SMS as spam. It also allows you to make any manual changes to ooutgoingmessagess, if equired.
This view simply opens TRAI website, where you can enter complaint number issued by you operator and know current status of oyur spam complaint.
You can select contegories from which you want no spam. And leave the rest. This makes it easier to regster even without knowing proper format.
I call it feel good screen. When you see you have put 15 spammers out of business, you feel good.
Here is a sample of some reviews I have got from my users. This data is taken verbatim from google play store.
With 0 advertising budget and effort I was able to get 4600 downloads in one year. What is even more encouraging is the fact that I have mainted about 5.8 ratingout of 5, for more that 350 ratings submitted.Out of these users, even if half use it regularily and receive 2 spam per message and off that just 10% report regularily. We are talking about 400 spammers going out off business everyday. I think that is huge.
But for this to work, I need more users. What happens when a spammer is disconnected. He applies for a new numbr. So that by the time spammer get a new number, he is already reported a few times and discinnected. After a while spammer won’t be able to keep up. And we would havve rid India of mobile spam.
I was about to call this slide “About me” but it sounded to pretentious. Anyway, I am still going to indulge in some self-flattery. I am single person working on it. When I started I had to idea about Jave or Android. I learnt as I went ahead. I work part time and try to incorporate each issue that my users report.
