Wednesday, April 15, 2009

AKA: First Philippine Mobile Mini-Site Directory


Last April 7, I catched up with Ariel Roda and got introduced to one of his investee companies - SAKLOLODOTNET. The company is headed by Mike Jabillo (managing director) and Lawrence del Mundo (business development head).

One of their projects, AKA Mobile Directory, aspires to be the first Philippine mobile directory. At a glance, the service allows users to:
  • Sign-up for free if done on the web. Standard peso text rate applies if registration is done via mobile phone.

  • Create a mini-site with keywords that best describe who they are, what they're selling, contact number, e-mail address, etc. Those who are familiar with keywords and search engine optimization can harness this feature.

  • Users can also follow other profiles and receive alerts for any shout-out and mini-site updates. They can also use the same facility to contact the mini-site owner and receive the message through text (without having to know their mobile number).

  • Sellers can also do direct follow-on advertising via trailer ads that gets received through the mobile phone. This is received by mobile phone-based searchers who hit their sites with specific keywords. This can be used to give discount or freebie items to also measure the effectiveness of the medium.
Non-registered users can still search within the site or through the mobile phone using the command syntax AKA FIND produsts, services, skills using keywords. (Example AKA FIND seo sem)

I believe this site has a lot of potential and will be more useful if it will have features like:
  • Be embed on a website to attract followers.
  • Be able to post shout-out ads to other members and take advantage of their following size.