Not everybody owns a smartphone or can afford one. You can listen to songs on your inexpensive mobile phone thanks to FM radio but wouldn’t it be nice if you could watch videos too? Now you can do just that with Jigsee.

Jigsee has over 2,00,000 minutes of popular video content covering Bollywood, spiritual stuff and great entertainment. And you get all this for free. Most of the content is from 1take media, Gypsy Videos, Mukta Arts, Point Zero, Speed Records, Spice Digital, Soor Mandir, Manorama, Mayura, UTV, UTV Bindaas, Wave Music (Vee Gee) and Yuki. Although Jigsee is at the beta stage it works fine on basic phones through wireless data networks like GPRS.

According Sanjiv Kataria, strategic communications and PR counsel, “With an estimated 90 per cent of Indian mobile subscribers using basic phones, this translates into a potential audience of over 500 million in the sub-continent. These subscribers have so far been unable to access streaming video such as YouTube, which caters primarily to users of advanced smartphones with access to high-speed broadband connections.”

To download Jigsee Beta just go to http://m.jigsee. com. You can also get it at half a dozen app stores, including Appia (Opera Mobile Store), Mobile2day, Zedge, Airtel, Getjar, Ovi and Tata Docomo.

To begin with, over 200 Java enabled mobile handsets will support the Jigsee application. Over a period of time Jigsee will support more models, including those on the Android operating system. You can find the list of supported handsets at the Jigsee website.

Key Benefits

Smooth Streaming: Jigsee offers smooth and continuous delivery of video streams. There is little or no pauses once you start watching a video even in environments with slow data connections.

Compatibility with Java enabled phones makes reliable streaming possible for some of the most used phones in India, including many that are unsupported by popular video streaming services such as YouTube.

Auto-bookmarking: This makes watching long videos easier. If you are cut off mid-stream due to a drop in network signal, or if the phone battery dies, Jigsee automatically remembers where the stream stopped and provides a simple option to resume watching the next time the application is opened.

Magic queue: It is something like a playlist.

On-the-fly Video Quality Maximizer: The speed of wireless networks change all the time. Jigsee streams automatically adjust on the fly to provide the highest quality possible, without stopping the show. It works on any network over 2G (GPRS), 3G, 4G and WiFi. On phones that support automatic switching between networks, Jigsee streams will play continuously without stopping.

“Jigsee is more than a technology, software or mobile application. Jigsee is our way of dissolving borders that prevent entertainment, education, and information content from being equally accessible to everyone,” says 35-year-old Jigsee founder and CEO Ray Newal.

Content genres available on Jigsee include trailers, scenes, songs, news and events related to entertainment, short films, kids content, animation and education. Besides, there is also devotional content and content on fashion, lifestyle and yoga. There is enough light-hearted stuff in the form of comedy and animation that will keep children and adults alike engrossed for hours.

“Jigsee brings a smartphone-like video streaming experience to basic feature phones. Nothing else compares to Jigsee, free or paid,” says Jigsee co-founder Areef Reza, a mobile technologies expert, who spent over a decade working with Nortel Networks and Research In Motion.

Jigsee works best on GPRS /EDGE networks and it only gets better on 3G or WiFi. All that a user needs is a GPRS connection on his phone. Unlimited GPRS plans have recently become available from operators for as little as Rs 5-6 a day or between Rs 50 and Rs 99 a month.

The content is available in Bhojpuri, English, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu. Assamese, Bengali, Malayalam, Punjabi and Rajasthani content will be rolled out soon.

Established in 2008 in Toronto, Ontario and funded by Sequoia Capital and the Indian Angel Network, Jigsee’s mission is to break the technical, cultural, and economic barriers that prevent mobile subscribers from accessing and discovering the content they want. The company specialises in delivering content over low bandwidth, and to devices with limited processing capabilities.

So who needs a smartphone for streaming video?

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