November 11th, 2009 by admin
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The NBA has set up text message voting this year for selecting the all-star teams. You can vote once per day, from one phone number, by texting a players name to 69622 (MYNBA). Voting on nba.com and text voting began Novemeber 12th and continues through January 18th. Paper voting occurs at each nba arena and will close on January 10th. Starters will be announced January 21st.
This marks the first time the NBA has allowed text message voting for all-stars. In a previous entry we noted that the U.S. was behind in text messaging compared to the rest of the world. Well, this is a big step forward and hopefully the other major U.S. sports will follow.
November 5th, 2009 by admin
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Text messaging, known as SMS in the majority of the world, has been relatively slow infiltrating into the American culture. Most older adults in the U.S. may think that our culture sends a lot of text messages, however when compared to the rest of the world, we are light SMS users. Here are some stats affirming this position:
- Americans are roughly ten times as wealthy per capita as Ecuadorians, but the people from Ecuador send four times as many text messages. (res. 1)
- Ecuador and the Philippines send about 200 SMS messages a month, the Danish and Irish average 100 a month, while Americans send out fewer than 50. (res. 1)
- In Western Europe there are 436 million sms subscribers. In the US there are 234 million. (res. 2)
- In Finland there are popular TV shows where you can send texts that scroll onto the screen in a live chat, and others where you direct a character via SMS (res. 1)
So what’s going on? The richest, most entrepreneurial country in the world is a third-world country when it comes to SMS. While nobody has the exact answer here are a few reasons that may contribute to the disparity:
First, the United States might be the richest and most entrepreneurial country in the world but it is actually behind the times in mobile phone technology. For years Europe and Japan have lead the way with cutting edge technology in the mobile phone industry. With the release of the iPhone, America has gained some ground but are still behind as a whole.
Second, American adults are less likely to adopt “young culture” habits than Europeans. The average American worker works 40+ hours per week with only two-three weeks of vacation. There is little time for play for these adults and little time to stay up to date with the youth. Europeans on the other hand work less and get more vacation time. France has a mandatory 35-hour work week, where it’s against the law to work more than that. Many workers in Spain, France, and Italy get the entire month of August off.
Third, it could be just a matter of critical mass, where people use text messages because their friends do. The United States in significantly larger in popluation than the countries where SMS is more popular. According to Google, America has a population of 304 million while France, Spain, Germany, Ecuador, and Great Britain each don’t even top 85 million individually. So because the U.S. is more than triple the size of the biggest of these countries, it could just take longer to catch on.
Resources:
- http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2006/08/01/8382255/index.htm
- http://gigaom.com/2007/10/21/ctia-2007-how-far-behind-is-the-us-vs-europe/
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2006/08/01/8382255/index.htm
November 4th, 2009 by admin
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Here is a breakdown of how different industries are using SMS.
Financial – Mobile banking is taking off. There are more mobile applications for accessing your bank account then ever before. One setback is that consumers are weary of mobile fraud.
Retail – Retail stores are using SMS as a means to advertise and grow their customer loyalty campaigns.
Healthcare – This industry is late to the SMSmovement but there is currently some use for anti-smoking campaigns, appointment reminders, as well as some support groups.
Transportation – While there is very little use of text messaging in this industry the current uses are for real-time traffic information, and traffic flows in certain cities.
Travel/Tourism – This industry is using SMS by allowing people to sign up to certain concerts/shows with their cell phones or book a table at a hotel or restaurant.
Government – While government is usually a late adopter of technology, they are a relatively early adopter to using SMS. Currently governments across the world use SMS as a means to send critical information to their citizens and allowing anonymous tips to crimes or the whereabouts of criminals.
Resources:
This article is a summary and extension to http://www.slideshare.net/andre4e/sms-trends-august-2008-presentation.
