Twitter has taken India by storm. According to the latest news release, out of its 12 million users, 5 million are from India. That’s a huge number and was enough for other service providers to jump into the fray to provide additional value added services facilitating the usage of Twitter.

So what is this story about Bharti Airtel and Twitter?

Twitter had an option of adding a mobile phone device. You could add your mobile phone number and choose to receive Tweets directly to your mobile phones. You could also send out tweets from your mobiles. This option was available for the Indian market as well but the charges that the service providers charged were extremely exorbitant. This is when Twitter decided to discontinue this service for India.

It was then that Twitter exploded. Since the beginning of this year, Twitter has accumulated almost 12 millions users and when almost 35% of it comes from a country like that of India, it was obvious for Twitter to think of introducing better services for this market.

That is when Bharti Airtel, the leading mobile phone service provider decided they would partner with Twitter to get a useful and cheaper service for the Twitterers in India.

This is an excerpt from the Twitter Blog -

Bharti Airtel is offering people in every city, every village, every remote taluk and even the smallest panchayat the opportunity to connect to Twitter and enjoy the open exchange of information with no added fees. We are proud to have Bharti Airtel as our partner. Give Twitter a try with your Airtel phone by sending START to 53000. And spread the word!
Twitter is not about technology, it’s about people. We worked quickly to establish full SMS service in India with the largest operator because organic growth in the region has been unusually strong and there is huge potential for positive impact.

So if your thoughts are around the question – Why only Airtel, then this should answer it. At Official Twitter Blog, Biz Stone, Twitter Co-founder said -

We worked quickly to establish full SMS Service in India with the largest operator because organic growth in the region has been unusually strong and there is huge potential for positive impact.”

That is indeed and interesting association. Since I am with Airtel, I immediately subscribed to the service and am excited at the options available.

This service is exclusive to Airtel for the first 4 weeks after which the other mobile phone service providers can also start such a service.

How to subscribe to this service?

Airtel subscribers can try out the Twitter notifications by sending this shortcode SIGNUP to number 53000. Existing Twitter users who wish to link their Airtel Number to Twitter account need to send START to 53000 for activating their device.  More details about Twitter on Airtel can be accessed at this exclusive page – http://airtel.in/twitter/.

New users:
Send SIGNUP to 53000

Existing Twitter Users to link their Device to their account:
Send START to 53000.

The Twitter advocates from India includes people like film stars Priyanka Chopra @priyankachopra, Gul Panag @gulpanag, and Mallika Sherawat @mallikala, director Karan Johar @kjohar25, Minister of State Shashi Tharoor @shashitharoor, upper house member Pritish Nandy @pritishnandy, news anchors Barkha Dutt @bdutt and Vir Sanghvi @virsanghvi, plus media outlets MTV India @MTVindia and NDTV @ndtv just to name a few.

So if you are on Airtel, then start using Twitter on your mobile phone and enjoy the service.