Nokia Life Tools

Posted by AnneryanHeatwole on Feb 10, 2010

Nokia Life Tools aims to give users direct access to information that can change how they do business.  Launched in 2008 in India, Nokia Life Tools deliver agricultural information, educational resources and entertainment to users over SMS.  At the end of 2009, Nokia Life Tools expanded to Indonesia.

The service allows subscribers to receive updates on chosen topics – market prices, news tips, weather forecasts, English lessons, exam preparation, or entertainment. The SMS-based service sends basic text messages on an icon-driven interface; the delivery system ensures that the service works wherever mobile phones work. The information that is sent out to the consumer’s mobile phone is targeted to the person based on his or her location.

The tools’ primary services are agricultural and educational; entertainment is supplementary, providing users with ringtones and sports updates among other services.

Nokia Life Tools works with local content providers to gather the information needed to create a hyper-local, regionally-specific service. In both India and Indonesia, Nokia Life Tools works with local state agricultural boards for crop and market information, meteorological departments for climate and weather information, and educational boards whose information corresponds with local educational curriculums. 

The program runs in dual languages – primarily in the local language of the user, but subscribers to the educational programs can get English translations and lessons side by side with their other information. When Nokia Life Tools originally rolled out in India, the service operated in nine local languages (Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Hindi) and also in English. The current rollout in Indonesia operates on the same premise – local languages are the primary means of communication with English as an educational supplement. 

Dinesh Subramaniam, senior manager of communications for Nokia, spoke about the challenge of creating a program that adapts to the needs of users in varying regions:

It is not a service that can be conceived and developed in one market and rolled out in another. It is very hyper-localized, it is a service that is built from the ground up, and it is built based on direct feedback from consumers in those markets. So [there was] a lot of empirical research on their pin-points, on their needs, or their desires – and then after all those kinds of research data have been gathered, we start building the ecosystem and start working with the partners and getting collaboration with them.

The program launched on the Nokia 2323 classic and the Nokia 2330 classic, and now also runs on the Nokia 2700 classic. Users who buy the phones for Nokia Life Tools have the program preloaded – but still have to pay a $1 or $2 USD (depending on the region) monthly subscription. Says Subramaniam: 

For these people, whose income is about $100, $120 U.S. dollars per month, parting with a dollar or two a month is a big deal. So what was a pleasant surprise was the willingness to carry on with this service month after month. It proved that the service had benefit to them, in that it brought information directly to them – they didn’t have to go out and search for the information, didn’t have to spend a lot of time and money or go into the local town to get the information.

While Nokia has not yet publicly released figures for the number of Nokia Life Tools users, Subramaniam says that the program is meeting Nokia's goals and expectations: 

We have found that people have a very strong emotional attachment to the agriculture and education services. In our research, we found that people were subscribing to at least two of the four services, when we had the pilot at least. That was in India; we had four services, two in agriculture and two in education and we found that people were subscribing on a monthly basis to at least two of the services, which showed that they had very strong attachment to them.

In early 2010, Nokia will be announcing new countries to which Nokia Life Tools is expanding. 

Basic Information
Organization involved in the project?: 
Project goals: 

Nokia Life Tools aims to:

  • Provide emerging markets with hyper-local information via SMS in three sectors: agriculture, education, and entertainment.
  • Give users an easy and reliable way to access information 
  • After launching in India and Indonesia, Nokia plans to expand Liife Tools in more global markets in early 2010

 

Brief description of the project: 

Nokia Life Tools is an SMS-based service that provides hyper-localized information to its subscribers in three sectors: agriculture, education, and entertainment.

Target audience: 

The target audience of Nokia Life Tools are users in emerging markets who want access to reliable agricultural information (including market prices, weather forecasts and crop recommendations) and educational opportunities (such as English language instruction).

Picture 1.png
Detailed Information
Length of Project (in months) : 
13
Status: 
Ongoing
What worked well? : 

According to Dinesh Subramaniam, senior manager of communications for Nokia, collaborations with local partners such as agricultural boards, meteorological departments and educational boards have helped create the hyper-local information needed for the service to run.

What did not work? What were the challenges?: 

One of the biggest challenges facing the program is the initial collection of data; creating specifically targeted information for different regions takes time and manpower, which limits the speed with which the program can be rolled out to new countries. 

Nokia Life Tools Locations

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Nokia Life Tools data sheet 13554 Views

Nokia Life Tools aims to give users direct access to information that can change how they do business.  Launched in 2008 in India, Nokia Life Tools deliver agricultural information, educational resources and entertainment to users over SMS.  At the end of 2009, Nokia Life Tools expanded to Indonesia.

The service allows subscribers to receive updates on chosen topics – market prices, news tips, weather forecasts, English lessons, exam preparation, or entertainment. The SMS-based service sends basic text messages on an icon-driven interface; the delivery system ensures that the service works wherever mobile phones work. The information that is sent out to the consumer’s mobile phone is targeted to the person based on his or her location.

The tools’ primary services are agricultural and educational; entertainment is supplementary, providing users with ringtones and sports updates among other services.

Nokia Life Tools works with local content providers to gather the information needed to create a hyper-local, regionally-specific service. In both India and Indonesia, Nokia Life Tools works with local state agricultural boards for crop and market information, meteorological departments for climate and weather information, and educational boards whose information corresponds with local educational curriculums. 

The program runs in dual languages – primarily in the local language of the user, but subscribers to the educational programs can get English translations and lessons side by side with their other information. When Nokia Life Tools originally rolled out in India, the service operated in nine local languages (Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Hindi) and also in English. The current rollout in Indonesia operates on the same premise – local languages are the primary means of communication with English as an educational supplement. 

Dinesh Subramaniam, senior manager of communications for Nokia, spoke about the challenge of creating a program that adapts to the needs of users in varying regions:

It is not a service that can be conceived and developed in one market and rolled out in another. It is very hyper-localized, it is a service that is built from the ground up, and it is built based on direct feedback from consumers in those markets. So [there was] a lot of empirical research on their pin-points, on their needs, or their desires – and then after all those kinds of research data have been gathered, we start building the ecosystem and start working with the partners and getting collaboration with them.

The program launched on the Nokia 2323 classic and the Nokia 2330 classic, and now also runs on the Nokia 2700 classic. Users who buy the phones for Nokia Life Tools have the program preloaded – but still have to pay a $1 or $2 USD (depending on the region) monthly subscription. Says Subramaniam: 

For these people, whose income is about $100, $120 U.S. dollars per month, parting with a dollar or two a month is a big deal. So what was a pleasant surprise was the willingness to carry on with this service month after month. It proved that the service had benefit to them, in that it brought information directly to them – they didn’t have to go out and search for the information, didn’t have to spend a lot of time and money or go into the local town to get the information.

While Nokia has not yet publicly released figures for the number of Nokia Life Tools users, Subramaniam says that the program is meeting Nokia's goals and expectations: 

We have found that people have a very strong emotional attachment to the agriculture and education services. In our research, we found that people were subscribing to at least two of the four services, when we had the pilot at least. That was in India; we had four services, two in agriculture and two in education and we found that people were subscribing on a monthly basis to at least two of the services, which showed that they had very strong attachment to them.

In early 2010, Nokia will be announcing new countries to which Nokia Life Tools is expanding. 

Basic Information
Organization involved in the project?: 
Project goals: 

Nokia Life Tools aims to:

  • Provide emerging markets with hyper-local information via SMS in three sectors: agriculture, education, and entertainment.
  • Give users an easy and reliable way to access information 
  • After launching in India and Indonesia, Nokia plans to expand Liife Tools in more global markets in early 2010

 

Brief description of the project: 

Nokia Life Tools is an SMS-based service that provides hyper-localized information to its subscribers in three sectors: agriculture, education, and entertainment.

Target audience: 

The target audience of Nokia Life Tools are users in emerging markets who want access to reliable agricultural information (including market prices, weather forecasts and crop recommendations) and educational opportunities (such as English language instruction).

Picture 1.png
Detailed Information
Length of Project (in months) : 
13
Status: 
Ongoing
What worked well? : 

According to Dinesh Subramaniam, senior manager of communications for Nokia, collaborations with local partners such as agricultural boards, meteorological departments and educational boards have helped create the hyper-local information needed for the service to run.

What did not work? What were the challenges?: 

One of the biggest challenges facing the program is the initial collection of data; creating specifically targeted information for different regions takes time and manpower, which limits the speed with which the program can be rolled out to new countries. 

Nokia Life Tools Locations

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not able to use life tools

i am not able to use life tools for nokia 2700

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