09 Mar 2008 03:50:23 | Anthony Wayne
Text Messaging Catching On in America
by Anthony Wayne Editor -- Cool Ringtones Blog
Philadelphia – Once considered a teenage fad, text messaging
popularity in the United States is rising dramatically.
According to The Wall Street Journal, 4.7 billion text messages
were sent in the USA in December, 2004 compared to 2.1 billion
in December, 2003.
In fact, text messaging is entering all aspects of our society,
even relationships. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that
nine percent of singles have even admitted to breaking up with
their significant others via text message. Thirty percent of
text users said that they’ve continued an argument by text
message; probably part of the same group that ultimately
contributed to the break ups.
The applications for text messaging promotions are also
increasing just as quickly. Major League Baseball offers a text
message service that enables its fans to catch up on the latest
news and results of their favorite team. There are also custom
cell phone wallpapers of team logos and unique actual game
recorded play-by-play ringtones in the professional baseball
offering. Live 8, which sponsored the single biggest text
messaging promotion in history, garnered 26 million texts last
month supporting increased government aid to poor African
countries. The opportunities for promoters appear to only be
limited by one’s imagination.
One of the more interesting applications that we’ve seen is one
being sold to radio stations by Chicago-based Spark Network
Services. Spark, which got its start by offering 900-number
based radio voice personal datelines, is now selling a suite of
text messaging products called PromoTXTRadio. The text messaging
products allow radio stations to offer votelines, sweepstakes,
song dedications, station play lists, traffic reports, and
breaking news via text message. It even allows radio stations to
offer their station jingles to be played as cell phone ringtones.
Still, Americans have a long way to go to catch their Asian
brethren when it comes to the growing phenomenon of text
messaging. CTIA-The Wireless Association, estimates that the
average Chinese cell phone user sent 651 text messages last year
compared to just 203 for US wireless users.
C U L8r.
About Author :
Anthony Wayne is the editor of the Cool Ringtones Blog—a blog
that reports on cell phone ringtones, text messaging, and the
mobile data content industry. He is also an avid text messaging
user and claims to easily be outdistancing the average Chinese
user.
