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Verisign has announced record-breaking mobile messaging totals for the first quarter, and all signs point to 2008 being an unprecedented year as well. Verisign's networks enabled more than 43 billion messages in the first three months of 2008, representing a 34% increase over Q4 2007 and a 150% increase over Q1 2007. That works out to approximately 476 million messages per day on average. 538 million messages were sent through Verisign's networks on Valentine's Day alone, and Verisign estimates that over 2 billion were sent on all networks worldwide for the day.

Verizon Wireless also announced a record for messaging, delivering close to 58 billion text messages in the first quarter of 2008. Its subscribers sent and received close to 20 billion text messages in the month of February alone, just eight months after the company's first-ever 10 billion-message month.

Not to be outdone, AT&T announced that American Idol generated more than 78 million text votes this season, shattering last year's total of 64.5 million.