Nokia Beta Labs is out with a new application/service for emerging markets – Nokia Listings. Still in beta, the new service is designed to connect buyers and sellers, as well as job seekers and employers. Moreover, it also allows local service providers to promote their offering to mobile phone users.
Apparently, the majority (60%+) of the hiring and consumer-to-consumer transactions, like apartment rentals, in emerging markets currently occur via word-of-mouth or through middlemen who charge a hefty commission for their services. Nokia Listings is created to kill the middlemen and bring the benefits of a digital marketplace to users of basic mobile phones (Series 40) requiring no mobile data connection at all. All communication is done via SMS, though GPRS (or EGDE or 3G) is also supported.
In order to access the service, users don’t need to register. Each listing is geo-coded so that the user is able to find the services nearest to his or her place. Once you find a listing, you can either call or SMS the other party through the application or forward listings via SMS to a friend.
During the beta trial period, Nokia Listings is only available to users in select regions of India with other parts of the country (and I guess other countries, too) to get the service in the near future…
[Via: Nokia Beta Labs Blog]