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August 3, 2007

Mundu Has A Great iPhone Chat Application. Why Will They Charge For It?

Nick Gonzalez

74 comments »

mundulogo.pngOne of the bigger letdowns of the iPhone is a lack of instant messaging support. Last month we took a look at FlickIM one of the first iPhone-specific chat applications (but only for AIM). Older web chat startups Meebo and eBuddy also have their own applications. eBuddy’s is iPhone customized. Meebo doesn’t hide the fact that they will launch one soon.

Today, Mundu, an Indian web chat provider threw their hat into the ring with Mundu for the iPhone. Like other web chat clients, it connects the big guys: ICQ, AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and Google.

The application consists of three different pages: log in, contacts, and chat. Clicking on a contact opens up a new conversation tab in your chat pane. It worked well enough, with a reasonable response time and legible text. It’s better than eBuddy (load time issues) and FlickIM (AIM only).

mundu.pngSo why in the world will they eventually charge $11 for it?

There are way better ways to monetize software. Offer a free version and drop an advertisement into the conversation every once in a while, for example. But if Mundu wants to get a lot of users fast before Apple adds their own apps, they can’t be screwing around with charging customers. The marginal production cost of software is zero. That’s what the price should be.

Here’s a look at the other guys:

  • Meebo - They don’t have a optimized application, however, Meebo’s web application works. Unfortunately chatting on it is like using the site through a key hole. You have to constantly zoom in and out to pick your contacts or chat in a specific window. It also crashed my browser from time to time.
  • FlickIM - If you just want to get on AIM, I strongly suggest FlickIM. It’s a no frills chat app that lets you get online and easily start chatting. It also maintains your user session even if you exit the browser. The only drawback is that they use a drop down menu to select a chat contacts instead of an easy to scan list that takes advantage of the iPhone’s scrolling.
  • eBuddy - They have the fanciest iPhone chat application with a lot of the full application functions. On eBuddy you can chat with your contacts, send smilies, change and change your text color. Unfortunately it only connects to MSN, Yahoo, and AIM.
  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Friday, August 3rd, 2007 at 5:49 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. Amit Chowdhry

    August 3rd, 2007 at 6:04 pm

    Seriously and if you convert that to Rupees, they make like 500 Rupees per user. You know what you can buy with that in India? Like 50 meals.

  2. Allen Stern

    August 3rd, 2007 at 6:04 pm

    Nick, I don’t have an iPhone, maybe you can help me understand how a user pays for the app? I don’t see any info on their site. Is it after you login via the iPhone it asks for payment via paypal? You would think they would put that pricing in their FAQ as well.

    Man I need an iPhone!

  3. Nick Gonzalez

    August 3rd, 2007 at 6:09 pm

    Mundu on the iphone is “currently free”. They charge $11 for their other mobile clients.

  4. qty

    August 3rd, 2007 at 6:33 pm

    lkjl;jj;lk

  5. qty

    August 3rd, 2007 at 6:34 pm

    uoliuou

  6. qty

    August 3rd, 2007 at 6:36 pm

    dfasdfafadf

  7. Dominic

    August 3rd, 2007 at 6:55 pm

    Memories seem to be very short here. FREE is one thing, bu depending on ads to sustain a Web 2.0 company isn’t realistic. Ain’t no free lunch ! Can you say Meltdown 2.0 ? Providing a service always cost; in one way or another.

  8. Sean

    August 3rd, 2007 at 7:05 pm

    God forbid someone tries to make a living by actually charging money. I mean geez, they should be shot.

  9. Jono

    August 3rd, 2007 at 7:29 pm

    Perhaps they could charge for it if they used the new hacker SDK to make a true iPhone app. Otherwise market realities are going to mean they make no money from having a paid for web-based client.

  10. Ouebslave

    August 3rd, 2007 at 8:09 pm

    You live too much in the word of BS Web 2.0 crap. Software has a cost, maintaining it has a cost, supporting users has a cost and bandwidth has a cost. Tired of the “support it with Ads” crap thing too. Who wants more ads? How many ads have you clicked on today? CRAP CRAP CRAP.

  11. EH

    August 3rd, 2007 at 8:12 pm

    if they charge for it but it’s easily cracked then people will have to talk to each other about it in order for it to work unannoyingly or for free. charging can be a social force multiplier if done effectively.

  12. Roberto Verli

    August 3rd, 2007 at 8:17 pm

    I have a iPhone, greatest thing ever!
    Don’t you guys know JiiveTalk??? It’s the best chat app for iPhone… it works perfectly like a app! Check it out and put it on the list!

  13. Amit Chowdhry

    August 3rd, 2007 at 8:19 pm

    Anyone know if Twitter will show up on the iPhone–especially seeing as how they just got some funding.

  14. Don Wilson

    August 3rd, 2007 at 8:46 pm

    How dare them try to make money off of a service they provide.

  15. Some dood

    August 3rd, 2007 at 8:56 pm

    It’s funny how you slam a company for *not* charging. My how we’ve come full circle…

  16. Sunny Kalara

    August 3rd, 2007 at 8:57 pm

    Nick (and other TechCrunch folks):

    You need to get off from this this binge of “free software.”

    _Just put an ad_ has become such an overused mantra; I wouldn’t care much except that the advise is not even effective and may even be counter productive. Don’t make all the start ups go down this slope of free software.

    The battle of free vs. paid for content was fought between NYTimes and WSJ; and who won? The correct overall answer is “both”; but the narrow business answer is that NYTimes admitted that “everything free has limitations”, by starting NYTimes Select paid service.

    I have no relationship with this Mundu; but you are making it sound that putting an ad during an IM conversation and monetizing it is as simple as putting a snippet of code and then laughing all the way to the bank. It is not. They know their user base, they know the numbers; give them some respect.

    Don’t EXPECT all the software for free; so many of the people who say that _just put an ad_ are the same people who run Adblock on their firefox browsers and have modified their registries so they never see an ad from Yahoo when they use Yahoo IM.

    Best things in life might be free, but its going to a long while when software is ever the “best thing in life.”

    Let Mundu try what they think is best for their business; if the product is exceptional, people will pay $11 for it. After all, the folks who bought iPhone have already shown that they are willing to pay premium for something that they like.

    007/mundu-im-for-iphone-let-them-charge-for-the-application-please/

  17. Sunny Kalara

    August 3rd, 2007 at 9:00 pm

    http://www.bizorigin.com/2007/.....on-please/

  18. Laurie

    August 3rd, 2007 at 9:08 pm

    JiveTalk is hands-down the best available chat client for iPhone, for pay or otherwise.

  19. yongfook

    August 3rd, 2007 at 9:31 pm

    This post is a red herring. Mike is about to launch TechCrunch Platinum for $50 a month (startup CEOs and VCs only, please. no riff raff) and is testing our response to paid content/software…

  20. Nick

    August 3rd, 2007 at 9:39 pm

    Like Laurie said, I use JiveTalk on my iPhone and it’s by far the best application out there. I used to use FlickIM but the client isn’t quite as nice as JiveTalk. Plus JiveTalk supports all the big messenger applications. I’m always surprised I don’t see JiveTalk talked about more in writeups.

  21. bbebop

    August 3rd, 2007 at 10:02 pm

    isn’t the marginal cost of “TechCrunch Platinum” free???

  22. Andy Villiani

    August 3rd, 2007 at 10:35 pm

    I think Sunny Kalara is making a very good point here. The model of keeping services free and making money off ads has been tried, tested and failed for many a web companies. I have not used Mundu on iPhone (Alas, can’t get it!) but have used their product on my Win Mobile and I love it. I paid just $11 one-time and it allows me to do so much more besides chat; conference, share photos, receive email notifications all through a very cool UI. From the screenshots I have seen, the iPhone UI looks very cool and I know I will pay for some of these features and when I get an iPhone :-)

  23. Barry

    August 3rd, 2007 at 10:59 pm

    So Nick, do you not get paid for the writing you do here at TC?

  24. Vinod

    August 3rd, 2007 at 11:11 pm

    Just a response to “Amit Chowdhry” in comment #1:

    >> Seriously and if you convert that to Rupees, they make like 500 Rupees per user. You know what you can buy with that in India? Like 50 meals.

  25. Vinod

    August 3rd, 2007 at 11:12 pm

    Just a response to “Amit Chowdhry” in comment #1:

    “Seriously and if you convert that to Rupees, they make like 500 Rupees per user. You know what you can buy with that in India? Like 50 meals.”

    No, it does not. The economics are different. As a reference - a bottle of Coca Cola costs 5 INR in India, that’s 12 US cents. A McDonalds burger is about 40 INR - that’s 1 USD. Do the math.

    The average cellphone used by college kids in India costs about 7500 INR - that’s about 185 USD. They spend upward of 250 INR a month on SMS and voice costs alone.

    A question - why the India reference at all? Just because the developer is an Indian company? Or because the commenter is?

    And in any case, this application is for iPhone (by definition - US) users, who certainly could afford 11 USD - if the application were to cost 11 USD at all, which isn’t said anywhere. 11 USD is for the in-device, native IM apps, which are pretty decent, and are priced far better than some of the less functional 30 USD apps out there.

    Clearly, there are bigger things at play here. Their Mundu Radio has been free for a year, it’s a great product, has won awards, has no ads, and the company’s profits are booming. They clearly know how to play the game right, and I don’t believe they will attempt to charge for the app itself. I’d be surprised if they even do ads!

  26. dave

    August 3rd, 2007 at 11:39 pm

    “the marginal production cost of software is zero” - ? - are you fucking kidding me? oh yeah, that’s right, before you were doing this you were hawking domain names, thanks for reminding us all…

    please, do try to shy away from making such offensive and ill-informed comments, just sounds absurd….

    just because companies come banging on your door trying to push free everything to free everybody does not mean that there is no opportunity to make money or that charging for services or software is somehow ‘wrong’…

    sorry for the bite, but that line really rubbed me the wrong way.

  27. Adam Lindemann

    August 3rd, 2007 at 11:55 pm

    I have to concur with the comments of Mr Sunny Kalara and add another one. I may be reading into the tone of your comments something that is not really there and if so please accept my apologies. However, I sence a certain type of arrogance in your comments, that kind of arrogance that Ayn Rand spoke about in Atlas Shrugged where the second hander beleive they have the right to the production of the builder. You may be right in your business case, you may be wrong, but don`t talk like you know best because you don`t. They have worked hard to make something of value and they deserve to try and see how they can make a living from customers who value their product, rather than advertisers or investors chasing Web 2.0 fantasies.

  28. The African Nerd

    August 4th, 2007 at 12:02 am

    what i think they should do is offer a free ad based version to build momentum and then try to get users to upgrade to a pro version

  29. james

    August 4th, 2007 at 12:03 am

    nick’s writing still blows. he does at least one totally infantile post a week. mike, how about running this like a professional gig and bringing in a grownup?

  30. HelluvaJob.com

    August 4th, 2007 at 12:16 am

    Ummm… you have a phone. Why chat when you can talk?

  31. Zeta

    August 4th, 2007 at 1:12 am

    +1 on 10. Ouebslave
    TC, run a poll who clicked how many ads today.

  32. shumabaobei.

    August 4th, 2007 at 1:26 am

    I believe more and more app with move to it .

    http://www.shumabaobei.com

  33. Joel L.

    August 4th, 2007 at 1:51 am

    “The marginal production cost of software is zero. That’s what the price should be.”

    I’m speechless.

    Sure, this specific app might have too many free competitors to survive, but “just show ads” is hardly solid business advice.

  34. wartik

    August 4th, 2007 at 2:38 am

    I would rather pay subscription fees than look at crappy ads popping up. Coming back to Mundu IM for the iPhone, I love the interface, chat bubbles and the performance. Its fast and works great with Edge and this one for sure is way ahead of other chat applications.

    Paid or free - the iPhone version of Mundu IM is really cool and frankly I wont mind paying for such a product.

  35. Ali

    August 4th, 2007 at 3:45 am

    Amit when was the last time you went to India? Rs. 500 can only feed like 4 people nowadays in a fast food joint like McD’s. The cost has risen a lot in India in the past 2 - 4 years.

    Why would they charge for it you say Mike? Why doesn’t Apple give away free iPhones? It’s business man, just because someone decides to charge for something that doesn’t make them any less than somebody who puts freaking annoying ads next to everything.

    I support them if they want to make money.

  36. Ravish

    August 4th, 2007 at 4:04 am

    Most of the mobile applications are priced at $30 - $50. Mundu is reasonably priced at $11. You should be glad and thankful for the free iPhone version.

    Like all other companies, Mundu requires a positive cash flow to run and grow the company. Sadly, there might me no multi million dollar venture capital for Mundu because startups don’t generally get venture capital in India. It is not easy to sustain a company without a revenue source or venture capital.

    But, few Indian companies like Zoho and Mundu are doing great work unlike Sillicon Valley’s just another social networking website backed with $20 million venture capital.

    It is to be believed that cost of living is low in India. Its actually not, people in India can barely afford basic necessities (food, clothes & home). They can’t afford luxuries, so they are willing to settle for less to suffice the basic needs.

    There is no such thing as 50 meals in Rs. 500. Go to an average restaurant, a single meal will cost you above Rs. 100 ($2.5) and a good restaurant will stick a tab of Rs. 1000 ($25). A small 200 yards home in New Delhi costs over a Million dollar.

  37. Ravish

    August 4th, 2007 at 4:07 am

    Another thing I would like to point.

    There is no iPhone available in India and we don’t see it coming for another year. Still, Mundu has managed to deliver the best iPhone chat client out there and took an edge over its Multi Million dollar backed Sillicon Valley competitors.

  38. eukhost.com

    August 4th, 2007 at 4:37 am

    I guess google’s upcoming gphone is coming up with those features that iphone is lacking at this point.

  39. jccodez

    August 4th, 2007 at 5:46 am

    you are web 2.0 brainwashed….if you want to be around for more than 1 year, sell your product, don’t give it away!

  40. Dominic

    August 4th, 2007 at 5:52 am

    In the days up to News Corps buying MySpace( when it was basically ad free), the traffic at MySpace was literally going through the roof. Post acquisition, when News Corp implements their monetizing strategy, and applies the same, they experienced huge traffic drops and members went elsewhere. The same thing will happen to all these social networks. I don’t care what the age demographics are, people do NOT want this continued bombardment of ads. Even the GoogTubers are coming to hate all the ad hype. The same dynamics apply to B&M and web businesses alike; to make a profit, you have to charge your customers. PROFIT isn’t a dirty word, and you can’t give away the barn and make a profit.

  41. Chas

    August 4th, 2007 at 7:01 am

    I don’t see why you expect everything to be free. Eleven dollars is peanuts. I regularly buy software from small developers like Panic and Omni Group because they make great stuff that works. I have no problem supporting them; I want them to succeed and make my life even easier. I’d rather give them the cost of a couple of espressos than have ads clutter my phone.

  42. IdeaTagger

    August 4th, 2007 at 7:10 am

    One of the problems I see with web 2.0 is this fixation on number of users - almost as though it were a goal in itself. Isn’t the goal of every business to make money? If a web business will make more money by having a few thousand paying users than it would with a million non-paying users in an ad-supported model, how can that be a bad thing?

  43. Amit Chowdhry

    August 4th, 2007 at 8:16 am

    Response to Ali and Vinod,
    The last time I lived in India was from July 2006-December 2005. I’m not talking about dirty McDonald’s meals here or Coca Cola. I’m talking about meals from dhabas. And besides, it was an exaggeration.

    The point to take away from that was to understand that 500 Rupees in India gets you a lot farther than $11 in USA.

  44. αlexander

    August 4th, 2007 at 8:31 am

    The marginal production cost of software is zero. That’s what the price should be.

    Ummm, no. The price should be tied to the marginal value of the product as indicated by what the market is willing to bear. Unless of course the producer isn’t trying to make a profit (and there are many business models that use that method, however, these guys don’t seem to be following that path).

  45. Marko

    August 4th, 2007 at 8:53 am

    I just paid a hefty $ 55 for a chat application (http://www.agilemobile.com/) Why? Because I want features and more development. I’ve tried many others, but this one is very good. The free ones are not even close. And with Agile Messenger I at least know how they make money…

  46. Ali

    August 4th, 2007 at 11:43 am

    @Amit

    Yes, an exaggeration that was way out of proportion.

  47. nimool

    August 4th, 2007 at 3:18 pm

    Everything must be free I think :P

  48. Colin Dowling

    August 4th, 2007 at 3:52 pm

    My favorite part of the web 2.0 ridiculousness is the essentially socialist idea that everything should be free to use and have open standards. Puke. If no one will pay for your product, then it is worthless, no matter how much the “put ads on it” crowd argues otherwise.

  49. Geodesic - Mundu

    August 4th, 2007 at 6:42 pm

    Hello everyone,
    Geodesic would like to thank everyone for their comments on Mundu IM - iPhone Edition and the spirited discussion on whether we will charge for it or not.

    To clarify Mundu IM - iPhone Edition will not be a paid product. I encourage everyone who has an iPhone to try out Mundu IM at http://iphone.mundu.com.

    For those who have other smartphones (Palm and Windows Mobile) you can get Mundu IM with some extremely innovative features at just $11 one-time fee. Try it for free at http://messenger.mundu.com

    Mundu IM for the iPhone has been a true labor of love for our engineers. And the overwhelming positive response has boosted our spirits to no end.

    Thank You!

  50. Professor Print

    August 4th, 2007 at 6:45 pm

    Most Indian software companies subscribe to the belief: WE BUILD = WE GET PAID. OUR PRODUCT IS GOOD = WE DESERVE MONEY FOR IT. There is rarely an internal dialogue about competitors, customer acquisition, or market share. It’s very black and white over there when it comes to business strategy.

  51. Amit Chowdhry

    August 4th, 2007 at 10:55 pm

    @Ali,
    Agree to disagree.

  52. ShitPants

    August 5th, 2007 at 3:28 am

    Where’s my pizza at, dog?

  53. Jay Neely

    August 5th, 2007 at 7:14 am

    Nick, I’m surprised you forgot to mention Trillian. They have an iPhone-specific app, and they’ve been playing the compatible-with-all-IM-services game before Meebo was a thought in anyone’s head. I wrote about Trillian’s app as an example of convergence, which is essential for the mobile web. You can view those thoughts at:
    http://socialstrategist.com/20.....mobile-web

  54. Neil Anderson

    August 5th, 2007 at 8:30 am

    Give it away first to secure a huge user base … then charge for it. :)

  55. baze

    August 5th, 2007 at 1:10 pm

    I’m using it now, and it appears free to me. Looks good, and worth $11 too. I dropped $600 on the phone, $11 for what appears to be a really useful application is fine with me. If it IS free, I’ll send them 500 rupees no problem.

    Apple changed the industry metaphor that led us to expect expensive pieces of hand held technology to be free–as our cell phones have been over the past 10 years. If it’s worth it, I’ll pay for it–same attitude I have with shareware or donationware. My iPhone was worth paying for–software guys need money too.

  56. Blog Opinion

    August 5th, 2007 at 1:28 pm

    I really like mundu mobile application. great access from mobile

  57. Mark

    August 5th, 2007 at 3:14 pm

    I agree that there’s far too much talk of some alternative business model that “should” (in a moral sense) be used instead of simply charging for a product. The same sort of arguments are made for intellectual property as well. “The labels should give away the songs so that people will be driven to buy the CD” (which is one variant, and is ludicrous). Another is “Artists should give away the songs to drive people to their concerts” (which might make sense for major artists but makes little sense for bands that play in small venues).

    There _might_ be good business models to replace simple payment, but there’s a certain hubris in those who assert that those business models are necessarily (and without any sort of rational explanation) superior. Then, there are those who, like Adam Lindemann said, simply expect to get things for free, because they have no concept of the time and energy that’s expended in creating things.

  58. Reed

    August 5th, 2007 at 4:03 pm

    1. Mundu has been around for a while making IM apps for handheld computers (I use it on my Palm for example), and shareware (i.e. free demo, small fee to buy) there is the norm.

    2. Shareware (i.e. free demo, small fee to buy) has always been fairly sucessful on macs. A bit less so on OSX since the open source community is now involved.

    3. $11 is pretty cheap. Especially if you can afford an iPhone.

  59. Joshua Duck

    August 5th, 2007 at 6:48 pm

    So Nick, you have no problem paying hundreds of dollars for the iPhone, but you bulk at paying $11 for something that would make the phone much more useful? That seems like double standards to me.

  60. Freeform5

    August 6th, 2007 at 3:10 am

    While I don’t claim to know what’s best for them to charge, I still don’t get what this has to do with marginal costs.

    A market price has nothing to do with cost but with demand. So either you can charge sth for your product (than you should charge as much as you can) or you cannot. Marginal costs might indicate a price floor (minimum price) but not more.

    Btw, marginal costs for duplicating software aren’t zero (i.e. customer support costs) - but that’s a different topic.

    TC is a nice blog. It’s be sad if the quality is constantly lowered by posts like that.

  61. Mark S

    August 6th, 2007 at 10:37 am

    Yes the “marginal cost” is zero but there are also fixed costs the developers desire to get back + profit. Moreover, there is “opportunity cost” that they incur by creating it in the first place. Throw up an ad??? That’s a great idea… And they should also get VC financing so they can waste $25 million while they wait for the advertisers to jump in…

  62. Nedo Ljubav

    August 6th, 2007 at 3:40 pm

    Nick, a typical “know-it-all-but-never-done-it-myself” type. A few are suspecting that you don’t know much at all in reality.

  63. Pablo

    August 6th, 2007 at 6:58 pm

    Just look at the sidebar on this site… full of ads

  64. David

    August 7th, 2007 at 7:44 am

    Your proclamations in this post are absurd. Any piece of good software deserves a penny to go along with it. How sustainable is a business that gives everything away for free?

    They should be giving away a free 30 day trial, and if the user likes it, they buy it. If nobody buys it, they need to start over and build it better.

  65. Steven Hodson

    August 7th, 2007 at 1:45 pm

    gee I wonder why my post - which linked back to here — never showed up … http://tinyurl.com/2kh4tu

    guess they didn’t like my honest opinion

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