Services that combine IM and social networking are gaining steam. The newest addition to the space is VelvetPuffin, a free service from Radixs. The Singapore company (not much detail at this unusually enigmatic website) received $10 million in funding from Purple Ray, Artisan Encipta, the Economic Development Board of Singapore and Raffles Technology. Radixs is perhaps best known for MXI, a universal mobile operating system (OS), which the company developed but never launched. Since then the company has fine-tuned the OS, using it as the basis for its PC-mobile social networking offer. The service currently runs on Windows, with Apple OS support expected soon.
VelvetPuffin lets users chat over multiple IM networks such as MSN and Yahoo. The Java-based mobile client allows users to search and view all videos available from YouTube on their handsets. Red Herring reports the company has signed with an unnamed Asian carrier.
Radixs co-founder and CEO R. Chandrasekar was quoted in an article on ZDNetAsia as saying the company will also pursue a D2C strategy until the service gains traction. “The direct model will still drive revenues in the shorter term because when you work with one operator, [the partnership] is only in a particular country with limited numbers of subscribers,” he said. “But, within the next 12 to 18 months, that will change as we strike deals with more operators.” To finance the free service Chandrasekar said some revenues will be generated from contextual advertisements that will be introduced on both Velvet Puffin desktop and mobile clients. Release.
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