Latest Articles

The Community Glue

Penny Power, Founder of Ecademy, looks at Community Managers and what they can do to help their Social network survive.

more

More Everything - The Ofcom 2008 Report

UK consumers are spending more time on communications than ever before but paying less for the privilege, according to UK telecoms watchdog, Ofcom.

more

Parents Fear For Networked Kids

Internet experts have called on social network sites to do more to protect children as a survey reveals that three-quarters (72 per cent) of parents spy on their children.

more

• Brief Encounter: Richard Mower, PocketSurfer
• Approaching the Crossover
• The Cleverest Thing That Never Existed
• Book Review: Bringing Nothing to the Party
• Marketers Cautious Over Social Media Spend
• Brief encounter: Steve Pammenter, MD, WhiteLabelDating.com
• Business Sites Handicapping SEO

Related Articles

• Is SMS about to Whither as a Marketing Tool?

  Lee Bowden of Piri asks whether the future of mobile marketing lies outside the realms of the humble SMS message. more

• A Count of Ten

  The British have a reputation for patience, politely queuing for hours for the latest Playstation or the Kate Moss collection at Top Shop. But this patience does not extend to online activities, according to the results of a new survey. more

• In Praise of Buzzwords

  Like Shakespeare, new media loves new words. Roger Horberry explains what business can learn from the Bard. more

• Internet World: Future of Agencies

  A panel discussion at the Internet World show this morning concerned the ways digital agencies might embrace or resist the threats and opportunities of a changing marketplace. Ian Delaney reports. more

• The Future of Web Design

  At FOWD this Wednesday, keynote speaker Brendan Dawes speaker outlined interesting ways forward for creative designers. Ian Delaney was there to report. more

Related Events

The Art of the Deal

When: September 20th, 2005
Location: Shepherds Bar, Shepherds Building/Charecroft Way, London, W14 0DA
Price: £50.00 Reduced to £40.00 if you are eligible for a discount.

more



---

Send it like Beckham

SMS - and MMS - messaging is increasingly popular with teenagers and footballers in the UK and Madrid, and we tend to think America is lagging behind. But are they? We check out the rise of SMS.

A little background...

In the United Kingdom last month, 2 billion short text messages (“SMS messages”) were sent between the population’s 30 million cellular phone users. If you’ve had any exposure to the technology or the industry in general, you’ll be aware of the ‘buzz’ – if not from the headlines appearing in the US press, certainly from the data revenue figures of any of the major European carriers.

European heavyweight Vodafone obtains 16% of its revenues from data services (predominantly SMS but also including MMS and wireless services) whilst North American partner Verizon obtains only 1.8% of its revenues in the same manner.

We’re obsessed by sending 160-character messages to each other and conveniently for the telecoms carriers we’re used to paying 12.5 pence per message for the pleasure. It’s not just the British public. The Europeans are at it; the Italians are famous for it; the medium is hugely popular in the Far East and the South Americans have embraced it. But North America is lagging behind, with consumers continuing to prefer voice or even email to SMS. Not for long though it seems. Our colleagues in our Canadian office recently carried out a research study into the cellular usage patterns of the 18-25 audience, specifically geared around those who regularly go out to nightclubs. They found that 83% of a typical nightclub audience have a pay-monthly cell phone account. That’s as expected. However, the unexpected news was that 44% of this 83% group regularly send at least three SMS messages per day. Despite this news, when I visit I always observe people who look like they might be sending a text message … but when I crane my neck to watch them, they disappoint me by putting their phone to their ear to begin a voice call.

Watch out...

Canada is cooking. I fully expect the medium to ‘break’ into the United States shortly. A few million SMS votes in one evening for the last American Idol shows there’s a willing, if not rather sluggish audience. Various press reports put the installed base at anywhere between 1.8 and 2 billion GSM cell phones active around the world. Thanks to recent network compatibility agreements in the US, it’s now possible to send a text message to almost any cell phone in any State. Factor that up to the 2 billion cell users worldwide: if you’ve got a cell phone number, you can send them a text too.

The convenience of the medium is winning converts. It’s fast, unobtrusive, widespread and fairly cheap. If a new customer has left a voice message looking for me, I’d sooner send them a text message to check that it’s good to talk – instead of making a highly obtrusive and interruptive phone call to them. There is nothing worse than placing an interrupting call to someone who wants to talk to you, “…but just not right now!”

Bending it like Beckham

The personal applications of the technology are the stuff of dreams for bored journalists looking for an amusing story. Rude messages sent to the wrong phone; a 160-character marriage proposal (“Wil U mry me drlg? I luv u! x”); cheating husbands; and of course wired teenagers. Almost every teenager in the UK has a cell phone and almost every one of them sends hundreds of messages each month. It’s not surprising for monthly bills to exceed 40 or 50 pounds, or even more. The brain-space needed for long term one-line conversations across hours or even days is staggering. Some I’ve observed or spoken to are ‘talking’ to 5, 10 or even 15 different friends continuously – through school, homework, sports, watching TV and even in bed. This kind of consumer application is not in itself new – in fact you could do it all quite effectively with a fancy PocketPC phone and MSN or a standard Blackberry. The challenge is the availability and installed base. My PocketPC MSN is great for chatting to work colleagues whilst I’m on the train during the day. It’s useless when my contacts are away from their desk. They don’t carry their computer with them everywhere. But... they’ve got their cell phone. Nice!

Blackberry: super technology but useless as the girlfriend refuses to use one, despite the device featuring regularly on “Sex-in-the-City”. While I’m in constant contact with many of my business associates daily using the Blackberry, it’s a 100% waste of space in the consumer sphere. With SMS I can always be in contact with my friends and family. If my friend is off to Australia – it’s no problem. I used to remember group email announcements for this sort of thing (“I’ll be away for AGES but I might be able to check my hotmail, I dunno”). Relax! He’s taking his cell with him. It’ll roam on an Australian network in seconds. The moment as he touches down in Sydney he’ll have got my text message and be replying right away. Next door, or next continent, no biggie. I, like the millions of other texters enjoy the ability to maintain conversations with friends and colleagues – at my convenience - across the globe easily and comparatively cheaply. Girlfriend shoots off to New York at a moment’s notice? No big deal. We’re still “in communication” – even if I’m not actually sending or receiving a message to her. The point is – I can. This perspective is one that I’m observing more and more.

And now the interesting bit

As I write I’m aware that it’s possible some of you reading may be thinking I’m indulging in a bit of exaggeration or creativity. Surely SMS isn’t that heavily used? Surely I’m over egging the teenage acceptance of - and reliance on – this two way medium? Not at all! Here’s a good example of where the industry is heading.

One of my companies provides SMS-text-to-screen services for nightclubs. The technology plugs into the nightclub’s giant screens and enables the 2,500 clubbers to send text messages to the screen – effectively creating a (moderated) public chatroom to connect everyone in the venue. It’s very entertaining, collects a phenomenal amount of user data and is used every evening in hundreds of venues across the UK and internationally. Every user has the opportunity to opt-in to receive SMS updates from the nightclub. Under 18s nights are popular occasions and usually held monthly, on Tuesdays or Wednesdays – whenever the club is not running over 18 nights. The challenge for these under 18s is that they have had to rely on the grapevine to find out when their next club night is. It could be the 2nd of the month, or perhaps the 5th. The nightclub similarly had a problem reaching this audience to inform them of the date. Email addresses had been collected but the penetration of computers in bedrooms is still not very high. Enter the SMS technology! Send out a text message to 1,000 Under 18s a week before the event and the club will be packed. This is the shocker: when our guys sent out the SMS distribution, we got replies. We deliberately built in a two-way facility originally because we needed to opt-in users correctly. We didn’t really bargain on getting replies from the people we were talking to. Obviously it’s a feature of the medium, but we using it to broadcast and not expecting replies.

“What time is the club opening? Thanks luv hayley”.

“Who iz tha DJ this time? The last 1 was xcelnt”

“Can me and my friends have my birthday party there?”

“How do I buy tickets for 5? Thx”

Those are genuine examples of messages we receive in from the under 18 youth audience. Every one needs to be answered, and each answer we send typically generates two or three more responses. What’s more, we were continually surprised to receive multiple messages from the audience during school hours. Used correctly, the medium offers pertinent, real-time, personal, two-way with customers, complete with a huge array of up-sell opportunities, not to mention the research potential. How many companies are geared up to deal with this communications medium today, and how many of them do you think are based in the UK and Europe?

Ewan J. MacLeod is the pizza eating CEO and co-founder of Neo One, the world leader in the provision of two-way interactivity for internet, new media and television.