NetworkIP Blog

According to a recent survey conducted by Opinion Research Corp. (ORC), a text message is far more likely to elicit a quick response than leaving a voice mail. To add, those under the age of 30 are four times more likely to respond within minutes of receiving a text message compared to a voice mail, & 91% respond to a text message within one hour. Adults 30 & older are also quick to text & are twice as likely to respond within minutes to a text message as compared to a voice message.

I’ve been testing the results of this study both at work with colleagues & after hours with friends & my results coincide with those published by ORC. Text messages are not only easier for people to access, they are also less evasive, & more importantly in my opinion text messages force both the sender & the receiver to get straight to the point - 160 characters doesn’t allow for much “small talk.” To my delight I met with a client today who described a previous job where he worked directly with his CEO for 3 years & within those three years they never left more than 3 or 4 voice mails for each other because outside of face-to-face meetings all communication was done through text messaging because text messaging proved to be so effective.

If text messaging can speed up communication between two people, what else could text messaging make more efficient for us?

As I began to consider all the things we could do as part of our daily activities through text messaging I was reminded of some examples that Jyri Engeström, co-founder of Jaiku, a microblogging service acquired by Google in 2007, discussed at the Mobilize 08 conference that I attended earlier this year. Jyri discussed how he uses text messaging back home in Finland on a daily basis. He described a scenario at an airport where you, the consumer, are alerted of flight delays via text messaging, you pay for your airport parking with text messaging, you check-in for your flight via text messaging, & you use a previous text message you received from your airline as your boarding pass to board the plane.

This evening I did a quick bit of research on Finland & their use of text messaging & I found a couple of interesting articles that I thought I’d share. The first article describes how the Finnish Road Administration is using text messaging as a way to curb vandalism in public restrooms. Their solution requires restroom visitors to text “Open” (in Finnish, of course) to a local SMS number that will then unlock the door to the restroom. The idea of course is that people will be less likely to graffiti up the place knowing that their mobile number is on file as a result of opening the restroom door via a text message. This second article I found doesn’t point to a specific texting service or solution, but it does demonstrate the popularity of text messaging in Finland given that even the Ilkka Kanerva, Finland’s Foreign Minister, uses text messaging. Unfortunately for Kanerva he used text messaging in a way that resulted in him being ousted from his seat in April of this year. Lastly, I think it’s worth noting that the “Father of Text Messaging”, Matti Makkonen, is from Finland & according to this article Makkonen didn’t make a single dime off his invention which started as an idea while at pizzeria in Copenhagen.

Just as I begin to believe that we in the U.S. have figured this “mobile thing” out I’m reminded of how far behind we really are. The good news is that the mobile market is still open for us & others to shape here in the States. We have an opportunity to learn from what others have done well, what they haven’t done so well, & then to use that knowledge to build our mobile services even better. Opportunity is knocking in the mobile market; can you hear it? If you still can’t hear it, maybe I’ll send you a text message.

Brian Kirk
VP Business Development
NetworkIP & Jaduka

Nielsen Mobile released a survey recently suggesting that American mobile phone users are actually texting more than they are talking. According to Nielsen, in Q2 2008 U.S. mobile subscribers sent & received on average 357 text messages per month (that’s 11+ text messages a day) versus making 204 phone calls a month.

What I find so remarkable about this surge in text usage in the U.S. is that the cost associated with texting only continues to increase. In fact, in the past two years the cost for sending & receiving text messages without a *special* text message plan has increased by 100%. Without one of these *special* text messaging plans, the consumer is paying $0.20 for each individual text message that is sent & received. The reason why texting is so popular in the Philippines (the text messaging capital of world) for example is because the cost of a text message is less than a penny & the mobile subscribers in the Philippines simply can’t afford to make phone calls. Europe provides another good example of a consumer base that heavily texts, but again, Europeans text in an effort to avoid high roaming charges between countries.

So with the costs of text messaging rising here in the States, why & where is the increased volume coming from? Not surprising to most parents - it’s coming from teens. Teens 13 to 17 years old on average sent & received about 1,742 text messages a month or 58 text messages a day! A surprising statistic to me was that kids under the age of 12 are also heavy text message users. These pre-teens send on average 428 text messages a month.

I forecast that even with the costs of text messaging rising, (which they are -see Verizon’s notice from last week about hiking their fees for mobile-terminated messages) that the popularity of text messaging will continue to increase here in the States. Not only will our teen population continue to send more text messages, but the enterprise world is continuing to adopt & deploy more mobile marketing campaigns with the help of SMS gateway providers such as Clickatell.

Brian Kirk
VP Business Development
NetworkIP & Jaduka

Last week’s Democratic National Convention (DNC) was interlaced with contactless & mobile technology from beginning to end.

First Data kicked the convention off by introducing their new GO-Tag; an innovative electronic sensor that is small enough to transform any device into a contactless payment solution. The GO-Tag which was distributed in the form of a small button at the DNC allowed the 5,000 lucky journalists & delegates who received them the ability to “purchase” free snacks & drinks by tapping their GO-Tag button on electronic sensors at concession stands installed throughout Denver’s Pepsi Center. In a recent BusinessWeek article, Michael Capellas, First Data’s CEO, is placing a major bet on the fast-emerging world of mobile electronic commerce. According to the article, the GO-Tag project is one of five new ventures that Capellas has launched since he took over First Data. The other four projects include information analysis, customer-loyalty programs, fraud detection, & consumer-behavior prediction. The article went on to say that Capellas believes that mobile commerce could add more than a $100 million to First Data’s revenues in 2009.

Then there was Senator Barack Obama who announced Joe Biden as his vice-presidential pick with a text message. Nielsen Mobile described this text message based ad campaign as “the single largest mobile marketing event in the U.S., to date.” Nielsen estimates that 2.9 million U.S. mobile phone subscribers received the text message launched by Obama’s campaign. Obama supporters can still sign-up for future text messages from Obama’s campaign by texting “GO” to short code 62262 (spells OBAMA). Supporters can even subscribe to specific types of information updates by texting specific keywords such as “HEALTH”, “EDUCATION”, etc. For more information about Obama’s mobile campaign you can visit Obama’s web site & while you are there you can even download wallpapers & ring tones for your mobile phone too.

Delegates attending both the Democratic & Republican National Convention also made good use of their mobile phones for communicating events from the convention. They sent & are continuing to send text messages to services such as Twitter which in-turn distributes these messages from the convention to their “followers”. These same people are also shooting short video, audio, & taking pictures with their mobile phones & then uploading them to their blogs as mobile blog entries (”moblogs” for short).

These are just a handful of examples on how contactless & mobile technologies are being used in larger scale mediums such as our current presidential election & more importantly these two technologies are increasingly becoming a part of our everyday landscape.

T-Mobile announced that they are increasing their text messaging fee from 15¢ to 20¢ a text message. The rate increase will go into effect on August 29th & will only affect those consumers who do not have a text messaging plan in place. T-Mobile is simply joining ranks with the likes of AT&T, Verizon Wireless, & Sprint who already have increased their text messaging rates to 20¢ a text message.

It was only a year ago when these same providers increased their rates from 10¢ to 15¢, While any price hike should frustrate consumers; what’s frustrates me most about this increase is that as services become mainstream they usually go down in price, not up. The providers have been raking the consumers over the coals for years now on text messaging fees. I can remember when text messaging was 5¢ for sending a message & incoming messages were free. Now it costs me 40¢ to message someone to tell them I’m running ahead of schedule & for them to acknowledge my text.

This price increase by T-Mobile will inevitably force those users who haven’t already signed up for prepaid text messaging plans to do so now. Domestic only text messaging plans offered by T-Mobile include $4.99 per month for 400 messages, $9.99 for 10,000 messages, & $14.99 for unlimited messages. Of course these plans offer a much better rate assuming the user actually sends this many text messages. Many consumers will simply sign up for one of these plans just because they’d prefer to know what they will be charged at the end of the month versus worrying about how much 20¢ a text message will add up to. Regardless, the service providers stand to make a hefty profit on text messaging & will continue doing so until Smartphones become more ubiquitous & chat applications are introduced.