Florida students sign up for wireless coupons

TAMPA, Florida -- Since launching this Spring, over 700 University of South Florida (USF) students have signed up for and are using MoBull Messenger, a new free wireless discount coupons and notification service.

Using the Air2Web wireless platform, USF's IT department has implemented MoBull Messenger that allows students to sign up for discount coupons from area restaurants, sporting events, nightclubs, and retail stores such as bicycle shops, hair salons and clothing stores. They are receiving the coupons on their cell phones, PDAs, and pagers. As part of MoBull Messenger students can also sign up for real-time campus information updates such as class meeting changes, school closings, emergency alerts and payment deadline reminders.

There are 46 vendors registered to advertise through MoBull Messenger, including restaurants, clothing stores, bike shops, nightclubs and hair salons. Some vendors are seeing up to a 10% return on their wireless coupons and are paying as little as (10 to 15 cents per message).

"This is one of the more interesting wireless retail programs I have seen to date," said Jeff Roster, Senior Analyst, Global Industries, Retail, Gartner Dataquest. "One of the key advantages of this wireless coupon program is that retailers don't have to make any investment in IT infrastructure to participate. The retailers simply pay a set charge for every coupon they send out."

Generating revenue

USF's IT department launched this wireless application to not only communicate more effectively with their students and staff but to generate revenue which they are doing, a first for University IT departments. 

With just 5,000 students signed up and receiving four messages a week, USF expects to make a gross revenue of $124,800 annually from MoBull and a net revenue higher than $50,000, according to George Ellis, associate vice president of information technologies for USF. He added that with increased marketing and new vendors signing-up, the university expects much higher revenues in the future. USF and Air2Web are also jointly marketing this wireless application to other colleges and universities, who in turn can extend it to their area merchants.

"We are really excited about the response we've had to our new wireless notification service from both our students and our local retailers," Ellis said.

"Considering that we just launched this program and with very little promotion, we are thrilled with the uptake. We plan on mounting a big marketing campaign in the Fall, and expect the response to be even bigger," Ellis said. "The MoBull Messenger Notification Service is an extremely valuable tool that is allowing us to communicate effectively with our students and staff while generating revenue for the university. This is a win, win all the way around."

Wireless discount coupons

As an example of how MoBull works, Ellis said if a participating restaurant having a slow night, the restaurant manager simply goes to their computer, logs onto www.mobull.usf.edu/messenger, enters the discount they want to offer (such as $2.00 off any large submarine sandwich), selects the age of the students they want to target (18-21, 22-25, All, etc.), their geographical location (All of Greater Tampa Area, Northwest Tampa, etc.), and then confirms the price per message, the number of messages being sent, etc. The vendor's credit card is then charged the amount calculated and the wireless discount coupon is sent out to the students' cell phone, pda or pager as instructed.

""The MoBull Messenger Service is one of the most progressive and effective promotional vehicles on the market today," said Sanjoy Malik, president and CEO of Air2Web. "It gives participating retailers near real-time promotion, and it is perfect for vendors with "perishables" such as food, concert seats, etc. It is also generating revenue for USF while giving the university a way to instantly communicate to the students and staff."

MoBull Messenger was developed by the USF IT Division and uses the Air2Web Wireless Platform to send SMS Text messages instantly to any wireless device.

Wireless financial applications

To date, Air2Web has more than 65 production deployments with blue chip customers providing wirelessly enabled financial applications, critical field force applications, customer relationship management, m-commerce and subscription-based content services. Customers include companies such as BellSouth, ADC Telecommunications, Lexmark International, Nortel, UPS, Holiday Inn, Intercontinental and Crowne Plaza hotels, the Weather Channel, CBS SportsLine, and other leading finance, travel & hospitality, media & entertainment, health care, retail, and transportation companies.

Air2Web recently closed a round of $20 million Series C funding. The investors participating in this latest round of funding include CDP Sofinov, member of CDP Capital; BellSouth (NYSE: BLS); Nextel Ventures; VeriSign, Inc (NASDAQ: VRSN); Mitsubishi; and Jay Chaudhry, Chairman of Air2Web. 

Founded in 1956, the University of South Florida is a public research university of growing national distinction, serving 37,500 students in ten colleges on campuses in Tampa, Lakeland, St. Petersburg, and Sarasota. It has been classified Doctoral/Research University Extensive by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.