Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Major League Baseball has decided to opt-out of using landline bullpen phones and go mobile.  We just wish that they had decided to use text messaging instead of mobile phone calls.

Major League Baseball is cutting the landline phone from its dugouts and will now be going mobile…just like the rest of the world.

Sometimes, baseball is, well, just too (well) steeped in tradition. One tradition you won’t be seeing much longer, however, is the landline phone in the bullpen. With 34% of American households now cell phone only, MLB bullpens will soon be joining the trend and cutting the landline. This is the landline bullpen phone that has been around since the 1930′s and the one that nearly cost the St. Louis Cardinals the 2011 World Series against the Rangers.

During the 2011 World Series, manager Tony LaRussa made the proverbial call to his bullpen in game 5 only to have the bullpen coach misinterpret what he said due to crowd noise and a bad connection. The result was that the normally flawless Cardinals’ manager did not have the proper reliever warmed up to face Rangers’ slugger Mike Napoli. Napoli’s hit gave the Texas Rangers game 5 and put the Cardinals in a 3-2 hole–a hole that the Cardinals overcame with victories in the final two games.

T-Mobile’s deal with Major League Baseball was announced yesterday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. On hand to make the announcement was Miguel Cabrera, Bryce Harper, Joe Torre, and Frank Thomas. Tony LaRussa was conspicuous by his absence.

The new technology will use T-Mobile’s G4 and Samsung phones. The bullpen phones will be geofenced meaning that they won’t work outside of the bullpen area. Hence, bored relievers won’t be able to call the hot girl flirting with them in section 135.

 

 

Since April 16, 2007, whenever children leave for their high school, many parents’ hearts skip a bit. Probably, it skips a bit almost every hour until they are back. Most of us may still remember that it was a day the tragedy at Virginia Tech took place.

A gunman ‘Cho’ went berserk at an early morning hour that day at Virginia Tech killing 32 people including students and faculty members.  Surprisingly, this happened in two separate incidents, though the gunman was the same. He initially shot a few students at the West Ambler Johnston Hall and then after almost a couple of hours went to the Norris Hall at Virginia Tech campus to kill professors and students.

Could this tragedy have been avoided?

The question that obviously comes to mind is that, could this tragedy have been avoided had we adapted emergency text messages service? Could text message solutions like bulk text messaging have saved precious lives?

This topic and other solutions for the safety of children at school were discussed vigorously in the aftermath of the massacre; but still, the debate is yet to be concluded. Rather than concentrating on what had happened and how it could have been avoided; it is better to look out for some effective solution implementation that can avoid such tragedies from happening again.

Mobile marketing to the rescue

Mobile marketing provides a clue to emergency text messages that can serve an effective technical solution at the time of such tragedies or disasters. Emergency text messages cannot eliminate the tragedies, but can certainly stop the death toll from aggravating.

Taking the same gory incident into consideration, the death toll could have been certainly avoided, had there been some mobile marketing technique like emergency text messages in place. Such service can notify students and faculty immediately wherever they are. Time to time it can inform the whereabouts of the assassin, thereby helping the students and the faculty to decide the course of action. It could have warned the students from coming out of their classrooms and falling prey to the brutal killer.

Bulk text messages, like the ones used in mobile marketing can reach vast targets within a fraction of a second. It does not require any physical contact between a sender and a receiver. Further, the technology is so easy to operate that school children can also send emergency text messages in case of emergency.

It is high time that emergency text messages and bulk SMS is tailored to suit emergency situations. It is information that is crucial in avoiding many ghastly tragedies and disasters.

Mobile has long been a small blip in most advertising and marketing budgets, despite the huge number of mobile  users and the increasingly advanced devices and usage patterns.

 

Compared with online advertising spending, mobile looks tiny.  According to eMarketer, mobile ad spending will reach $416 million in 2009 compared with $24 billion that will be spent overall for online advertising.

Many marketers have been hesitant to embrace a medium that lacks proven use cases. However, an increasing number have begun to realize that the addictive effect of mobile on the other advertising and marketing efforts spreads easily.  eMarketer predicts that spending on mobile advertising will gain momentum through 2013, reaching $1.56 billion.

The number of text coupons being sent on behalf of business services and products is increasing daily.

More and more, Americans are signing up to receive coupons through e-mails and text messages. According to research, about 8% of US households get coupons through email or text, with users tending to be young, affluent, educated and female.

Text message coupons are typically sent only to consumers who have signed up (opted-in) to receive them. This increases the relevancy of the offer and the potential for the consumer to act on that offer. Not only are these types of coupons convenient, they are environmentally friendly because no paper is used!

Global Handset Market Share %	Q1 ‘08	2008	Q1 ‘09
Nokia	40.9%	39.8%	38.1%
Samsung	16.4%	16.7%	18.7%
LG Electronics	8.6%	8.6%	9.2%
Motorola	9.7%	8.5%	6.0%
Sony Ericsson	7.9%	8.2%	5.9%
Others	16.5%	18.2%	22.0%
Total	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%
Total Growth Year –over-Year	14.3%	4.9%	-13.4%

If you go to our pricing page on 84444.com, you’ll see a secondary option of “Economy Bulk Delivery” of messages to cell phones. 

You might ask yourself: why wouldn’t everybody use this cheaper delivery method?  After all, it’s less than half the price of the traditional text message packages.

The answer is in the technology behind the delivery methods that ultimately effects the look, the cost, and the reliability of that delivery.

Traditional text messaging that you would use if you were to send a text message from you to your friend from your cell phone is known as SMPP, or “short message peer-to-peer protocol.”  These messages are sent through the cell phone carrier’s networks.  There is an intrinsic cost associated with every text message sent via SMPP.

84444.com uses an even more efficient method of delivery, in the SMPP family, called “HTTP delivery.”  This is just as efficient as SMPP delivery, or even more so.  When you launch a text message from the 84444.com web site, it is immediately sent to the carriers for delivery.

This is not the case with SMTP delivery, or “simple mail transfer protocol” delivery.  SMTP is essentially email sent to the cell phone.  At 84444.com, SMTP delivery is branded as Economy Bulk Delivery.

In the case of SMTP, 84444.com attaches the phone number in an email format and sends it to the recipient’s phone.  For example, if you were sending an email to an AT&T cell phone user, you would be sending to phonenumber@txt.att.com).  Check here for a complete list of cell phone carrier email addresses for SMTP delivery.

If you wanted to send an SMPP from your cell phone to a friend, you would simply type his cell phone number in the phone number section and type your text message below.  With SMTP delivery, you could actually send a message from your personal computer’s email to the recipient’s cell phone.

It all sounds good for SMTP until you know that messages sent by SMTP are notoriously slow and may not be delivered at all.  Normal text message delivery by HTTP, known on 84444.com as “Express Delivery,”  is immediate and has priority.  If you are doing an emergency text message alerts program, 84444.com will not permit SMTP delivery; it’s simply not worth the risk for saving a few pennies.

Another problem with SMTP delivery is that it is the method of choice for SPAM due to its lower costs.  It is very easy to see the difference in that an SMTP message has the recipient’s email address at the top.  Therefore, some individuals who have been a victim of cell phone SPAM may delete your message before ever reading it.

There are also legal issues in using the SMTP gateway for business use.  The carriers are clear that SMTP is only permitted for personal use and if the carriers find it is being used for business purposes, the service may be turned off.  Therefore, 84444.com is very careful about what types of messages are permitted on its Economy Bulk Delivery option.

So, now you know.  All text messages are not the same.  It’s up to you to choose the right protocol for your needs.