SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Zero rating, the practice of providing internet service for specific applications at a different per-GB cost (either free or discounted), is widely deployed worldwide, with more than 160 mobile operators in 85 countries offering such programs for over 1,000 mobile applications, and 3 billion users getting access to them.
But in practice, these programs are not easy to implement and there are many complexities that affect and slow down all players. This becomes more visible in places like Europe, where despite existing Net Neutrality regulation that requires inclusive, category-based zero rating programs, mobile operators face challenges to onboard new partners and application providers experience a high barrier to participate in such programs respectively.
Selfie Networks unveils its zero-rating toolkit and brings information and technology to help all actors in the ecosystem - telcos, application providers, and regulators. Along with its products, the company also publishes a state of industry report, the first of its kind that highlights opportunities and challenges from implementing zero rating programs, and how well they comply with net neutrality regulations.
Selfie Connect is an end-to-end solution for mobile operators to rapidly onboard new application providers in their programs, in order to better serve their users and meet compliance requirements when applicable.
“We try hard to delight our users, and digital benefits like zero-rating and premium subscription giveaways have been critical to do this,” said Juan Velez, CEO of Virgin Mobile in Mexico and Colombia. “Working with Selfie Networks allowed us to quickly partner with a world leading dating application and better understand the impact of such partnerships on our users and partners. We are looking forward to more similar initiatives.”
Selfie Growth helps application providers drive international growth through zero-rating partnerships with mobile operators, reducing the need for business development and internal engineering resources.
“Tinder is present in more than 190 countries, and working with mobile operators is important to boost our brand coverage and launch win-win partnerships that eventually benefit users,” said AJ Cihla, Director of International Growth at Tinder. “Yiannis and the Selfie team help us to navigate the complex telco ecosystem and works across the board to meet multiple KPIs on zero rating and beyond.”
“Zero rating is critical yet hard for any music service. At the end, we want to compete fairly with other music apps that already participate in such zero rating plans worldwide and help our users listen to their favorite artists while on the go,” said Dave Macli, CEO and co-founder of Audiomack, a music streaming service. “Working with Selfie allowed us to quickly join certain zero rating plans in Europe, and we expect to expand this significantly over the next few months.”
“There is a tremendous opportunity for application providers to work with mobile operators and vice versa. But each partnership requires a manual and overwhelming process for both sides, which impacts efficiency, performance, compliance, and eventually limits opportunities to a handful of very large companies,” said Yiannis Yiakoumis, CEO and co-founder of Selfie Networks. “We are squarely focused on automating, simplifying, and accelerating win-win partnerships between applications and mobile operators alike so that more players can participate.”
About Selfie Networks
Selfie Networks, founded by Yiannis Yiakoumis (Stanford PhD) and Nick McKeown (Stanford Professor and serial entrepreneur) builds technology to democratize partnerships between application providers and mobile operators, and enable innovative network services in the presence of net neutrality. Selfie Networks is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and funded by top-tier investors, including Bowery Capital, Lightspeed Ventures, and several luminaries in the networking and systems space. Visit https://selfienetworks.com/ or follow us at @Selfie_Networks
