iCow - A Brilliant Example Of How SMS Is Still Relevant In Emerging Markets

iCow is an agricultural application available via mobile phone to small scale farmers in Kenya. Interaction with the application is via SMS and it allows farmers access to services such as:

• a gestation calendar for their cows,
• access to details about a farmers nearest vet and
• access to best dairy practices

amongst other things. As the iCow website says it's "The worlds first mobile phone cow calendar!"

I love innovative uses for SMS. In emerging markets, where smart phones simply don't have market share, this is a great example of an app that provides a service needed by a market segment that would probably have been overlooked by the smart phone developer market! Performing a search in the App Store for 'Cow Calendar' and 'Cow Gestation' doesn't return any relevant app results! In fact 'Cow Gestation' doesn't return any results! So in fact There ISN'T an App for that! At least not on iOS ;-)

More detail about iCow can be seen in this YouTube video.

This innovative idea shows off that SMS still has legs as an application delivery mechanism in markets where smart phone penetration isn't all that! Again it highlights, that to reach all market segments in mobile SMS (and/or voice ;-) ), is required as a content delivery and access mechanism.

Cheers

M