Washington Post ran an article “For India’s Traditional Fishermen, Cellphones Deliver a Sea Change” by Kevin Sullivan last weekend revealing the impact of cellphones in the lives of Indian fishermen. Very interesting.  Watch the video of the story available on the page.

Few Excerpts from the story:

The cellphone is bringing new economic clout, profit and productivity to Rajan and millions of other poor laborers in India, the world’s fastest-growing cellphone market.

A convenience taken for granted in wealthy nations, the cellphone is putting cash in the pockets of people for whom a dollar is a good day’s wage. And it has made market-savvy entrepreneurs out of sheepherders, rickshaw drivers and even the acrobatic men who shinny up palm trees to harvest coconuts here in Kerala state.

“This has changed the entire dynamics of communications and how they organize their lives,” said C.K. Prahalad, an India-born business professor at the University of Michigan

[tags]mobile-life-style, mobile-applications, india[/tags]

While going through the net I came through this great idea, how about locating a parking spot to people who are ready to pay a little more for the service. It sounds very interesting and www.spotscout.com has already come up with a service. I am sure driving around searching for a space to park while going to a meeting or an interview is never fun, that’s where this the idea clicks.

This is how it works. Registered users post the location of a parking spot they plan on leaving, as well as a price, for that information. Other registered users could search for soon-to-be-available spaces in a given area. Users can search for this information from their Mobile phones capable of browsing internet or from desktop computers. When a user finds an available space and agree to the price, SpotScout withdraws the money and put on block. When the user actually arrives and picks the spot, transaction is considered complete and money is exchanged electronically. SpotScout takes 15% of the total transaction fee to facilitate this. Remember, you are only paying at this point for the information of a free parking lot.  If there’s a parking meter, you still have to pay that.

Though the idea involves a person leaving a space indicating he is vacating it and the person requiring a space taking it up, the idea has a fair amount of gap. So the person taking the space pays for the spot and the person indicating he is vacating gets a share for his effort and ofcourse spotscout gets a share for the transaction. From the idea it is more of sharing information.

The service is to be launched in San Francisco, Boston and New York in July according to a wired report. The report also indicates 800,000 people already registered for the service. If you think of it on the long run you save gas too along with your time.

With Parking Garages joining the network, the users will be able to reserve a parking spot ahead as well. And users who have parking spaces in front of their condos/apartments can sell the parking lot when they are not using it through this network. That is an excellent service. For more, you can visit http://www.spotscout.com/.

Helen Keegan (Musings of a mobile marketer) compiled the latest Carnival of Mobilists (#48) . Carnival of the Mobilists exposes you to the very best posts of the previous week, all written about mobile and gathered together in a central place.

My favorite highlights from the Carnival #48:

• Rudy at m-trends explains why flat rate data plans are needed to make Mobile 2.0 a reality
• Anders atAbiro discusses what is actually meant by Mobile 2.0
• ..a lovely history of the videophone and its role in the media from Patrick at Mad for Mobile Phones and
• .. thoughts on 12 business models in mobile

[tags]carnival-of-the-mobilists[/tags]