Archive for the ‘Text Message News’ Category

There was a slight increase in the number of Americans that use text messaging over the past quarter, according to a study by ComScore.

Mobile Content Usage

In November, 2012, 75.9 % of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device (up 0.3 percentage points). Downloaded applications were used by 54.2 percent of subscribers (up 0.8 percentage points), while browsers were used by 52.1 percent (up 0.1 percentage points).

Other than actual speaking on the mobile phone (who does that?), text messaging is the top function performed on the phone taking 14.1% of the overall time spent on the mobile phone.  This is according to a January, 2013 study by Nielsen.

Texting is the top activity done on mobile phones other than actually speaking to somebody.

I sure hope that Santa Claus brought you this board game for Christmas.

Every employee of 84444 is being given one of these games this year.

Neil Papworth is a legend. He doesn’t think he is, but when you’ve been included in a Super Bowl commercial by Best Buy, you are.

It was 20 years ago today that Papworth sent a text message “Merry Christmas” to his friend at Vodafone, Richard Jarvis. Jarvis couldn’t reply, however, since phones weren’t able to do so in 1992.

By 2001, UK mobile users were sending over a billion texts per month and they each cost 10 pence! Today, more than 80% of Americans, who were actually late to the texting game, are avid text message users.

So happy birthday text message. Hope you enjoyed your teen years.

Red Tomato, a pizza restaurant in Dubai, allows consumers to order a pizza from their refrigerator magnet.  A text message is sent to confirm your order.

Check out how they do it in the video below.

And, if you’d like to see more really cool uses of mobile technology, check out our mobile marketing blog here.

When it comes to what we do on our cell phones, only taking a picture is done by more cell phone owners than texting.  The recent Pew Internet study shows that 80% of Americans now use text messaging.  In 2007, 57% of Americans used text messaging.

Here’s what else we do on our cell phones.

2012 is expected to be a very tight race for the president and one pro-Obama group is offering an interactive text message program to help voters find polling places.

Given our current levels of technology, it certainly seems as though the voting system of having to go to a polling place is somewhat archaic, not to mention difficult in some cases to fight the lines.  It would seem to be high time that the public is able to vote by the internet, by an app, or by text message.

Unfortunately, that time is not quite here yet so we’ll have to continue to vote in much the same manner that our forefathers did.

But, there is an interesting use of text messaging and voting today.  A group called NARAL has come out with a text message program that enables users to find out where their polling place is.  I tried it by texting VOTE to 49609.  It then asked me for my address and when I entered it, my polling place came back perfectly.

I have no idea how many people are using this interactive text message polling place finder, but you have to admit, it’s a pretty cool idea, especially in an election that is expected to be very tight.

84444.com is making no political position by this article regarding NARAL or its beliefs.  It is merely pointing out an innovative use of text message marketing.

Fruity drinks and all. These women are texting in a restaurant.

Maybe it’s because they think they need to look cool.  But, anytime there is a break in the conversation or in the action in a nightclub or bar, what do the patrons turn to?

Their mobile phones.

And, the activity that they turn to the most is text message marketing.  In fact, 71% of bar and restaurant patrons have sent a text message while at a bar or restaurant within the past week.  That compares to only 45% that have actually used their mobile phones to actually talk to somebody.

Overwhelmingly, texting is the most common practice for bar and restaurant consumers.

FIGHT FOR THE PRESIDENCY: Romney and Obama can send you political text messages so long as they aren’t from an auto dialer.

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA) was written to address consumer concerns about telemarketing calls.  The TCPA covers sending unsolicited advertisements to fax machines (about the only thing we get here any more are just that), the use of auto dialers, and sending text messages to mobile phones.

The law is designed to protect consumers against unwanted solicitations which is why when it comes to text message marketing, you always need an opt-in from the consumer prior to sending out your text message marketing messages.

But, hold on, the same rules don’t necessarily apply to political messages.  Wonderful, how politicians carved out their own exemption from this rule when it is precisely their messages that most consumers would least like to receive.

So, now that we are in the throes of an election campaign, what are the rules for telemarketing when it comes to political candidates?

Under the rules of the TCPA, campaign volunteers may call voters on their landline or wireless phones.  What they can’t do, however, is use an auto dialer to leave a robocall on a mobile phone.

In  a nutshell:

• LEGAL — Calling a voter on a landline phone from an auto dialer to leave a robocall message without any prior consent of the voter.
• ILLEGAL — Calling a voter using an auto dialer to their cell phone without their prior written consent.
• LEGAL — For a campaign worker to send a text message to a voter’s cell phone.
• ILLEGAL — For a campaign to use an auto dialer to send texts to a voter’s cell phone without prior written consent.

Editor’s Note — 84444.com is not considered an auto-dialer.

If you were sending an emergency text message, I would think that you would want to make sure that the words you included in the messages were easy to understand and that there could be no misinterpretation of those messages.  Unfortunately, that was not the case with the emergency situation at the University of Texas on Friday when a bomb threat was called in to the school.

First of all, the messages were just over 160 characters long so they ended up going into a second message.  That’s not so bad in this case, because the extended part of the message was not critical.  That being said, there is always the possibility that a second message arrived later or did not arrive at all and in some cases that could cause a very different meaning to the emergency text message.  My guess is that the person sending the emergency text message didn’t count the spaces in the message that made it exceed the US carrier limit of 160 characters.  Or, perhaps they were using a system that didn’t notify the user of where the first message would be cut off.

Second, the message uses the term “retenter.”  What is retenter?  Hey, I never said I was the smartest guy so I looked in up in my dictionary.  No listing for “retenter.”  And, when I write it here on the WordPress blog post, it gets underlined, meaning that WordPress doesn’t know what it means either!  So, why would the University of Texas put such a word on an emergency text message!  Did anybody proof the message?

The text message went out to 67,000 students, faculty, employees, and nearby residents to the University of Texas at Austin.  I realize these are situations that require immediate action, but you would have thought somebody on the social media committee did a little proofing of the message before it was sent out.

Fortunately, nobody was hurt from the threat…or the poorly written emergency text message.