1. Executive Summary
Currently SMS is the most popular one for text messaging market, and the traffic of SMS was 5.9 trillion messages in 2011 which occupies 64.1% of the global text market. According to the research from Informa, the market share of SMS will down to 42.1% in 2016. At the same time, global mobile instant messaging traffic will increase from 1.6 trillion messages in 2011 to 7.7 trillion messages in 2016, doubling its share of global messaging traffic from 17.1% in 2011 to 34.6% in 2016.
The number of IM users in 2011 reaches 2.6 billion and there are various kinds of instant messaging application available in market already. Each IM application tries to focus on the different features to differentiate from other competitors. Some IM applications are focusing on the computer users like MSN or Skype and others are focusing on the mobile device users like Whatsapp or Line. ChatInn provides a new way to help people to keep communication between different platforms.
Whatsapp, one of the major competitors of IM service provider, after reaching 1m users by the end of 2009, Whatsapp’s downloads increased tenfold during 2010. The company does not reveal its current user numbers but analysts assume it is in the tens of millions.
ChatInn is a web base instant messaging service which can work on the computers and the mobile devices. ChatInn’s goal is to provide a quick, simple and a safe way for person who wants a quick short meeting or chatting. Not like other IM applications, ChatInn doesn’t require the installation or the complicated registration to be able to use this service. For the new user, the only required information is the username and password, no other personal information is needed. To host or start a short meeting or chatting, the user only needs to send out the meeting url link which is generated by ChatInn to the target contact. The target contact could just simply click on the link from the computer or mobile device to enter the meeting or chatting. ChatInn also provides the app for mobile device users which allow the user could be always contacted online just like other IM apps.
ChatInn is expected to reach 100K users in 6 months and more than 1 million users in the 3rd year of operation. Advertising will be the major profit center, and it highly depends on the
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size of user base. There will be net profit in the end of 2nd year and will generate net profit of 5.29M. When the active users keep growing steadily, ChatInn would start global marketing promotion as well in order to keep expending the business scale.
ChatInn's Home page Chart 1: Highlights
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To reach 1 million registered users on ChatInn service and average 100,000 active online meeting are being held each day in the first operation year with this service launched in English and Chinese. 1000% yearly growth rate should be reached in the second year with the major languages supporting globally. Another 1000% yearly growth rate ( about 100 million users) is expected in the third year and this service could be integrated or linked in major social network service, online auction and other commercial services site.
There is no or very limited profit expected in the first operation year. Start from second year, the revenue will be generated from the paying end users and online advertising ( mainly from advertising since the goal is to reach quite amount of end users ASAP.) The anticipated break even will occur in the third operation year.
1.2. Mission
Due to the trend of the popularity of various mobile devices, there are more and more instant messaging applications have been created to provide people the better way to communicate.
Email is another major way for people to communicate at work and in their daily life and so do those online meeting applications or services. However, all of those applications or services have their disadvantages or the space needs to be improved. Most of the instant messaging and online meeting applications need the users to install the application on the computer or the mobile device before they can start using that service. After installed it, the user might also needs to add the person who he wants to communicate with to his contact list first. As for email, the sender won't be able to get the response immediately until the receiver check his inbox. There are many circumstances that the user might need to chat or have a quick meeting with someone who is not on his contact list and he is not willing to add even after the chat or meeting.
ChatInn's mission is to provide the reliable, quick and easy to use instant online meeting service with simple, clean and user friendly user interface on both Web and mobile devices platforms. Unlike the other instant messaging services, the service ChatInn provides, users could receive chat or host meeting with anyone on any platform without requesting any installation on the receiver side as long as the web browser is available on the receiver's
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device. With the guarantee that no record will be saved on the server side once the meeting is over, we fully respect and protect user's privacy and also save the storage cost at the same time. ChatInn will be one of the major tools that people will choose for instant, reliable and safe communication.
1.3. Keys to Success
The key to success for ChatInn would have:
1. No Platform Limitation: Most of the instant messaging applications available in the market now usually are made for specific platform such like Windows, Mac or Linux which are for personal computer and Symbian, Android, iOS or RIM which are for mobile devices. ChatInn’s instant messaging service doesn't require any specific platform as long as there is the web browser running on the platform. So our target users won't need to worry about what kind of platform or mobile devices that their friends or customers are using when they want to start a quick chat.
2. Easy to start: Unlike the other instant messaging applications, ChatInn doesn't require the users to install the application on their computers or mobile devices. All the users need to do is sending out the link to their contact(s) and the chat could be started as long as the receivers click the link to access the chat. All the participants of the online meetings do not need to worry about any personal data or information leak while installing the application since they don’t need to install anything.
3. Easy to use: User will find ChatInn is quite easy to get familiar with the simple, clean and easy user interface design. No user registration required to use this service and easy to manage the new and existing meetings in the management system.
4. Quality: With the stable, reliable and fast connection, ChatInn will make sure to provide all the users the great and comfortable online chatting experience.