Twitter Is Coming To All Phones, Even Ones Without Internet Access

Twitter Inc. is hoping to find a way to offer its services on emerging markets where the people often only have entry-level mobile phones that aren't capable of accessing the Internet. The first step to do this is its partnership with Singapor-based startup U20pia Mobile.

U20pia has a similar deal with Facebook Inc., according to Reuters. Its Twitter project is expected to launch in the first quarter of next year according to chief executive and co-founder Sumesh Menon.

The way it will work is that users will simply need to dial a code into their cell phone to receive a feed of the most popular trending topics on Twitter. Currently, more than 11 million people reportedly user the company's Fonetwish services, which helps access Facebook and Google Talk on mobile devices that don't have a data connection.

Twitter, which sees about 230 million regular users, held what can be considered by some to be a successful initial public offering last month, which has valued the company around $25 billion.

According to Reuters, U2opia uses a telecom protocol named USSD, or Unstructured Supplementary Service Data, which does not allow viewing of pictures, videos or other graphics.

USSD as a vehicle for Twitter is almost hand in glove because Twitter has by design a character limit, it's a very text-driven social network," Menon said.

Apparently, eight out of every ten people in emerging markets internationally are still not accessing data on their phones.

U20pia, which has a presence in 30 countries in seven different languages, will find a way to localize Twitter's newsfeed according to the user's location without any Internet.

"So somebody in Paraguay would definitely get content that would be very very localized to that market vis a vis somebody sitting in Mumbai or Bangalore," Menon said.

The company's biggest markets are in Africa and South Africa. It partners with telecom carriers such as Telenor, Vodafone and Bharti Airtel Ltd. U20pia usually gets 30 to 40 percent of what users pay its telecom partners to access Facebook.

"For a lot of end users in the emerging markets, it's going to be their first Twitter experience," he said.