Posted: June 21, 2007

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) introduced a major text messaging campaign in mid-May to stay in touch with voters, and now her closest rival has followed suit. Barack Obama has launched an SMS initiative to expand his grassroots network, organize volunteers for events and allow supporters to request information. Supporters can text “Go” to OBAMA (62262) to sign up for the service

A press release from Obama’s campaign states, “With millions of Americans relying on cell phones, this new service will enable the campaign to not only communicate news about events and campaign developments, but it will also allow users to request information from the campaign. The campaign will use text to inform supporters about important public appearance and ask for opinions and advice.”

Obama campaign officials also said they will use free ringtones and wallpapers to highlight the candidate’s positions and key statements on the war in Iraq, healthcare and other issues. The campaign said it won’t charge for the wireless service.

“This campaign is about the people across the country who are taking organizing into their own hands and text messaging is a key tool that will help us reach out to people who rely on their mobile phone service for information,” said Joe Rospars, new media director for the Obama campaign. “This is a service we hope to use to continue to communicate with our growing base of supporters who are excited about playing an active role in our efforts to change this country.”

The campaign blog says that millions of Americans rely on cell phones and are cutting the cords to their landlines. Therefore, the service is essential for them to communicate with this rapidly expanding group of potential voters.

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Posted: June 11, 2007

Cellit is finding more and more applications for its solutions. One of the most exciting is using our tools to extend recruiting efforts to the phones. Many clients are using our solutions for this, the biggest being HEB and (most recently) Dell. Our system for recruiting is a perfect match; users can text in for info, and if they like the job, they can request an application to be sent to them via FAX or email. Of course, the recruiter is instantly notified of the lead.

Dell’s use of the technology has been picked up here! We love the press!

We are very excited about this system and feel it is a natural industry fit. We have several more clients looking to do this with us and we look forward to making it happen.

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Posted: May 17, 2007

Cellit is now in the voice business.  We’ll be putting out a press release shortly, but I wanted to blog about this briefly.

I think the combo of voice systems (both outbound-dialing and incoming IVR) plus text/WAP is a potent one.  We’re still trying to figure out all the ramifications, but we are currently running a program for a Broadway show that seems to be a great use for the technology: send a “voice greeting” to a friend, and at the end, they can press “1″ to connect to TeleCharge to buy tickets.  The next logical step will be: “press ‘2′ for a text of the info’… gee… not a hard one for us to do.

But, what about:

• Call a number, wait for the prompt, and then start singing.  When you finish, you will get texted back a ringtone of yourself for your phone!
• Type a message on your phone and text it to your “blast list”: each person would then get a call with a text-to-speech of the message. (perhaps good for college security?)
• Play a game on your cell phone, and if you get the answer right, Carl Castle records your voicemail greeting!
• At a broadway show (much of our business these days) you are asked to text in your email address, and in return you get a call from the stars of the show!

There’s a lot to think about here, but as the technology evolves, the possibilities (which are now endless) will become even more endless.  This is going to be fun.

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Posted: May 2, 2007

As long as there has been expression, there has been censorship. It is inevitable that someone will be offended by or perceive some sort of threat from certain thoughts being put on public display. There is a reciprocal relationship between the reach of media, its potential to offend, and the opportunity to censor which has reached an unprecedented level with the advent of the ultimate equalizer of expression; the internet. Now, anyone with access to the web can say whatever they want, whenever they want, and post it for the entire world to see.

Yet, the internet has also heightened our awareness of how the airing of our thoughts can have a powerful effect on other people, even when it was never our intention to make anyone feel threatened or uncomfortable. It is no coincidence that the rise of “political correctness” and the proliferation of cheap or no-cost internet access have mirrored each other. While I whole-heartedly support all attempts to curb discrimination, and truly believe that we should err on the side of being too sensitive, it seems as though our ability to be offended can sometimes outweigh our ability to recognize true prejudice. A recent story illustrates this imbalance.

A woman’s email to Telecom New Zealand’s help-desk, to see if certain cell phone services were available in her area, was rejected because of the inclusion of her name, Gay, in her query. Telecom’s automated reply to her email said the message “was identified by our content filtering processes as containing language that may be considered inappropriate for business-like communication.” It confirmed that the offending word was “gay”. The woman, who happens to be gay, was surprised that the word had garnered such attention.
Public relations spokesman Lenska Papich said the response was triggered by Telecom’s internal email monitoring system, which exists to “prevent misuse of email technologies in the workplace and act as a deterrent to harassment. Our systems internally detect a number of words, including both the words gay and heterosexual, that could be deemed as inappropriate for use at work,” she said.

Telecom claimed the telling-off was never intended for Hamilton, as the warning system that threatens “disciplinary action” is intended to reprimand employees, not clients. Papich apologized to Hamilton last week and the two sides parted amicably.

Now to me, this seems like a simple case of misunderstanding, where a company is trying to protect itself and its employees from harassment by restricting office communications to work-related topics. Nothing in the exchange suggests that the company has anything against gay people, just that they feel any discussions of sexual orientation do not belong in inter-office emails. If her name had been “heterosexual”, the same thing would have occurred; but would the media scrutiny have been as voracious?

Here are some of the headlines for this story in various publications:

1) Telecom New Zealand bounces gay email - sounds both aggressive and bigoted
2) A Gay by any other name - obviously meant to provoke an immediate emotional response

3) ‘Gay’ filtered in Telecom emails - this makes it sound like any mention of homosexuality specifically, but not sexual orientation in general, will not be tolerated

4) Gay too gay for NZ Telecom - this makes the company seem horribly discriminatory by removing all context

And the worst by far, which coincidentally was the most used:

5) Telecom New Zealand tells woman her name Gay is ‘innappropriate’ - makes it seem as though the company hates anyone named Gay, and gives the full name of the company, but not the context, so your righteous anger can be directed appropriately
Gay Hamilton, the woman who contacted the help-desk, hasn’t sought any legal action or made any attempt to incriminate New Zealand Telecom, yet even she couldn’t resist joining in on the witch-hunt. Ms Hamilton has said that she is worried about the amount of time and effort Telecom must have put into deciding that gay was an inappropriate word in e-mail communication. “If they do have to put content filters on, then maybe they should ensure that it only gets genuinely abusive words.”

Again, Telecom never said that the word gay was “abusive”, only that any discussion of any sexual orientation is not appropriate for office communications. There is no evidence that the company labored over this decision, wasting huge amounts of “time and effort”, and any programmer would tell you that the amount of time it takes to apply a content filter is miniscule. Ironically, the time and effort the media and Ms. Gay herself wasted trying to make this story into something it isn’t, combined with the time and effort they forced New Zealand Telecom to waste defending itself vastly outweighed the energy put into the original decision.
While all of these points may seem subtle, the typical viewer of news is bombarded with so many different types of media, that their relationship to any one source is quite often casual and certainly not exhaustive. Therefore, they rely on headlines and sound bites to create their view of a certain event. Using these tools in this case could lead even a reasonable person to assume that Gay Hamilton was discriminated against, and this obvious prejudice stemmed from New Zealand Telecom’s bigotry towards homosexuals. This gets the media more viewers and more ad revenue, but does New Zealand Telecom deserve the inevitable backlash because of a simple mix-up?

In another story, Iran’s state television station announced this weekend that the Telecommunications Ministry will start filtering “immoral” messages sent via mobile phones. According to the report, the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution instructed the Ministry to buy the necessary equipment to monitor and intercept inappropriate messages sent via MMS. The station did not say when the filtering would begin or how the Ministry would define immoral.

This story sent up all kinds of red flags when I read it. This level of censorship is shocking in any part of the world, and such actions seem ripe for concern and outrage. Here are the headlines for this story:

1) Iran to Filter Immoral Messages 

2) Iran to Filter Immoral Messages Sent on Phones

3) Iran to Filter Immoral Messages on MMS

4) Iran to Filter Immoral mobile Messages

5) Iran to Filter Immoral Cell Phone Messages 

And the most controversial:

6) Iran to Filter Racy Messages

All of these headlines say the same thing, and outside of the word racy and a few sarcastic quotes around the word “immoral”, they are factual and wothout judgment. Apparently, this information has not caused the media any concern, and cannot hold a candle to a wireless company accidentally offending someone because they are trying to keep their workers on task.
This strange dichotomy shows how backwards our priorities can become when we start looking for reasons to be offended while ignoring the more sinister attempts to censor and discriminate around the world that might not affect us directly. It is the difference between thoughtful vigilance and selfish paranoia; and if anyone is in a position to understand the high cost of real censorship, it is the media.

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Posted: April 30, 2007

It seems as though wireless carriers have finally realized how ubiquitous text-messaging has become in our society, and their pricing strategies have begun to change to reflect this surprisingly late, but still appreciated, insight.

Earlier this month, Leap Wireless International announced they would now include unlimited messaging in all of their plans. Instead of charging an additional $5 per month for unlimited messaging, Leap has opted to include the feature in all of its price plans, because “SMS and MMS are pretty fundamental communication tools now, just as voice has been for many years,” according to Al Moschner, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Leap.

Not to be outdone, Verizon Wireless has stepped into the unlimited messaging game by including unlimited messaging in a new level of individual and family plans. The individual plans are $20 more expensive per month than their regular plans, and the family plans have increased by $30 each. Verizon Wireless reported that its customers sent and received 17.7 billion text messages and more than 353 million picture and video messages during the fourth quarter of 2006.

“The new plans are in response to customers’ increasing demand for greater text messaging options,” said Jim Naughton, Verizon Wireless’ direct of consumer marketing. “Text messaging has moved from being a nice feature to a necessity for many customers. With the Quick Text features on many devices today, more and more professionals are using this service, in addition to the many teenagers who depend on text messaging for fast communications.”

Most recently, AT&T, the nation’s largest wireless provider, has also unveiled its own line of unlimited messaging plans. Called “Messaging Unlimited” (how did they come up with that one?), the plan provides customers with unlimited text, picture, video and instant messages to any wireless phone in the United States for $20 per month. AT&T had previously capped its messaging offers at 3000 messages per month.

AT&T is also offering an unlimited in-network messaging add-on to its traditional 200 message kit for an extra $5 per month, bring the total price to $10 per month. They have also boosted the messaging capabilities of some of their bundled data packages. The $15 MEdia Works package received an additional 500 messages, bringing its total to 1500 messages plus 5 MB of data transmission, while the MEdia Max package grows from 3000 messages to unlimited text messaging with unlimited data for $40 per month.

Additionally, T-Mobile already offers unlimited messaging for families for an additional $20 per month. Meanwhile, Sprint offers a $10 unlimited SMS package (per-line charge) and includes unlimited picture and video messaging with its Power Vision packs, which start at $15 per month per line.

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Posted: April 25, 2007

While sleep may remain safe from work for now (for those of us who actually sleep now and then), its tenuous grasp on isolation from the daily grind has slipped another notch with the concerted effort to allow cell phone usage on airplanes.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority says that it has enabled a limited evaluation of GSM mobile phones and GPRS devices on a commercial aircraft. The evaluation, which is limited to one aircraft for up to 12 months, will be conducted by the national carrier, Qantas. The evaluation will be conducted on one Qantas passenger aircraft operating only on domestic Australian routes. Qantas has decided to commence the evaluation with email and text only, disabling voice services. ACMA and other government bodies will then consider the potential for permanent regulatory arrangements for the service once the results of the evaluation are known.

Furthermore, starting in July, Air France will conduct a six-month trial in which customers flying on the Airbus A318 will be able to send text messages and emails from their cell phones. For the last half of the trial passengers will also be able to use voice services. The service is expected to initially cost between $2.30 and $2.50 for making in-flight calls. For texts and emails, no formal pricing plan has been released by the airlines.

Air France said it is aware of the potential annoyance of in-flight mobile phone conversations and so, at the end of each flight during the trial, passengers will be given a questionnaire for feedback on the service.

BMI and Ryanair have also explored the possibility of enabling mobile services on their aircraft, but have been delayed by certification procedures.

With wireless signals become more and more ubiquitous, now working in most indoor spaces and even in underground spots such as subways, airplanes are one of the last places that people cannot use their mobile phones. Although email can still be used, the lack of voice communication has forced some of us to relax and take a much-needed break from the 24/7 work week. It has also allowed those of us without a mobile device attached to our hip a brief respite from businessmen and teenagers who seemingly have no regard for how disruptive and annoying they can be, especially those who haven’t realized that cell phone technology has progressed to the point that one no longer needs to shout into the handset to be heard. If your company, your friend, or your significant other cannot exist without your constant input for the length of a flight, then perhaps that relationship is too demanding in the first place.

Hopefully these trials will be so annoying to those on the plane that the airlines will be forced to abandon the project. Yet, I seem to remember everybody saying that reality television was on the way out about five years ago because most viewers thought it was annoying, and if you need any further proof that this death knell was premature, I just saw an ad for the casting of The Real World 20. At least wireless carriers haven’t penetrated our dreams; yet.

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Posted: April 23, 2007

Last Saturday, a 13-year-old girl named Morgan Pozgar, won the LG National Texting Championship, in which contestants were challenged to text a small paragraph without any mistakes in the quickest time possible. The paragraph, from the movie Mary Poppins, read, “Supercalifragilisticexpialidoucious! Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious. If you say it loud enough you’ll always sound precocious.” Young Morgan rifled off the statement in 15 seconds without any errors and was awarded $25,000 for her efforts.

While I applaud Morgan for her talent and her impressive win, it is an almost unnoticed statement she made after her victory that really caught my eye. During one of the numerous interviews she gave after the contest, Morgan estimated that she sends over 8,000 text messages a month to various people. This certainly explains her proficiency, and if she can really text that quickly, perhaps 8,000 per month really isn’t that much.

Yet, this is not a career athlete who dedicates their life to training, going from contest to contest in hopes of garnering accolades and money to continue pursuing their passion. In fact, the LG Championship was billed as the first texting championship to be held. No, this is an otherwise normal girl who sends at least 8,000 messages per month. Let us consider the math.

1) 8000 messages a month works out to roughly 267 messages a day.

2) The average person sleeps 8 hours a day, leaving 16 hours of conscious time per day. (Actually, it has been widely shown that teenagers sleep more than this and more than any other age group, but since I can’t be entirely sure that Morgan doesn’t text in her sleep, we’ll call it even.)

3) If she did nothing else but text all day, Morgan would compose and send roughly 17 messages an hour, every hour, or about a message every 3.6 minutes.

4) If Morgan takes only 2 hours and 40 minutes a day to wake up, brush her teeth, go to the bathroom, eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, and any other task that might take her away from her device momentarily, her average now becomes one message every 3 minutes. That’s every 3 minutes she is awake, every day of the year.

Now obviously, we here at Cellit believe that text-messaging is an amazing technology which has opened up incredible opportunities for communication which hardly existed before. Yet just as television, the internet, and mobile voice have dramatically changed the way we communicate while simultaneously creating unimaginable opportunities for addiction and time-wasting, so too does texting have the potential to envelope those who choose to obsess over it. Just think about the types of things we look up on the internet, or talk about on our cell phones simply because we can. Hopefully, the new wave of uber-texters is just a phase, and the technology will soon fit in nicely with the rest of the mobile universe; but it is important to realize its potential for abuse and make sure that we recognize the signs of this abuse before it goes too far.

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Posted: April 19, 2007

While the popularity of text-messaging has been widely recognized, many are still under the impression that it is a tool which should mainly be used to reach younger consumers. No one would dispute that the “Cellular Generation”, those aged 18-24, are more likely to use text messaging as a primary form of communication, but older generations have embraced SMS and MMS in significant ways as well. There is perhaps no greater example of this than the recent adoption of text-messaging projects by two television networks and programs with historically older audiences.

In January, viewers of Hannity & Colmes on the Fox News Channel were asked to text in their reactions to President Bush’s State of the Union address, marking the first time the network had experimented with the service. Nearly 90,000 viewers responded, and TVNewser reports it will likely become a regular feature on the program.

In late February, Larry King Live followed suit and introduced text message polling for the first time. While response figures aren’t readily available, the fact that the technique has continued to be used on the program points to its success.

Both the Fox News Channel and CNN, especially Larry King Live, are geared towards and watched by predominately older Americans. Their embrace of text messaging as a viable communication strategy represents the universal power of this technology across all age groups.

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Posted: March 19, 2007

A recent Harris Interactive study on adult cell phone users and their willingness to receive advertising on their handsets revealed some interesting facts.

“Historically, U.S. mobile phone users have been resistant to receiving mobile phone advertisements, but, according to our research, cell phone users are more willing than ever to receive advertising,” said Judith Ricker, president of the Marketing Communications Research Practice at Harris Interactive. “To make their mobile campaigns more effective, advertisers should take note of how cell phone users are most interested in being contacted. Advertisements need to have a clear value proposition, be relevant and allow recipients to control how they are profiled.”

The study revealed that of those who are interested in receiving ads on their phones, the majority (56%) would prefer to receive them via text-messaging. This is great news for us considering text-messaging is the main conduit Cellit uses to deliver mobile ads. Furthermore, picture messages (40%) and videos (24%) were the next most-preferred methods of delivery, both of which Cellit has added to its portfolio of services.

More importantly, those surveyed were asked what could be done to make the mobile advertising experience as painless as possible. The top 4 responses were: the ability to opt out, choosing the types of ads to be received, choosing the number of ads to be received in a given time period, and providing a profile of desired areas of interest so only specific ads are sent.

Cellit realizes that the value of any campaign is only equal to the number of people who choose to participate, and that is why we have built several consumer protections into our marketing strategies. Not only can subscribers opt-out of receiving ads at any time, but our opt-in procedures are very specific and clear, letting each subscriber know exactly what they are signing up for, including who is sending the content, what form the content will take, a maximum number of ads to be sent per month, and clear and concise opt-out instructions. These safeguards make the consumer much more open to advertisers, thus making the campaigns significantly more effective. The Harris Interactive study confirms that mobile consumers value highly the types of content and features that have been part of Cellit products for years.

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Posted: March 16, 2007

I was browsing the internet the other day, not really looking for anything in particular. Even within the boundaries of such an unfocused search, I came across these facts (courtesy of Cellular News) pertaining to the health and future of mobile messaging both in America and around the world. I think they speak for themselves.
THE UNITED KINGDOM

1) The UK’s Mobile Data Association (MDA) has published its firstly monthly report into MMS usage in the UK. During the third quarter of 2006, a total of 88 million picture messages (MMS) were sent throughout the UK - on average, almost 1 million per day throughout July, August and September. October’s total was the highest yet, with 30 million picture messages sent across the networks.

2) The UK text messaging total broke through the 4 billion barrier for the first time during December 2006, according to figures announced today by the Mobile Data Association (MDA). December’s remarkable total of 4.3 billion takes the overall figure for 2006 to 41.8 billion, surpassing the MDA’s prediction of 40 billion and giving a daily average for the year of 114 million.

Person-to-person texts sent across the UK GSM network operators throughout the last month of the year show a growth of 38% on the December 2005 figure of 3.1 billion, and represent an average of 138 million messages per day. On Christmas Day this leapt to 205 million texts, an average of 8 million per hour, with the figure for New Year’s Day 2007 even higher reaching a record breaking 214 million, the highest daily total ever recorded by the MDA.

When compared to the mere 42 million messages sent per day five years ago throughout December 2001, it becomes clear just how far the nation has come in embracing text messaging technology which has emerged from a popular craze to becoming an essential communication tool, inclusive to all age groups. The MDA has forecast that figures will continue to rise this year to deliver an annual total of 45 billion text messages for 2007, with an average of 3.75 billion messages being sent per month and 123 million messages per day.

URUGUAY

1) Ancel, the mobile unit of Uruguayan state-run operator Antel, ended 2006 with a daily average of 6 million SMS sent compared to 2 million in 2005, local newspaper La República reported Antel deputy sales manager Osvaldo Novoa as saying.

Novoa also said Ancel ended last year with 950,000 mobile telephone subscribers compared to 568,000 in 2005 and mobile traffic was up 65% year-on-year.

CANADA

1) The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association says that mobile phone customers sent more than 4.3 billion person-to-person text messages in 2006, almost triple the 1.5 billion messages sent in 2005. Text message volumes peaked in December 2006 at more than 560 million in that month alone, which represents more than 18 million per day.

“Although text messaging volumes have been doubling year-over-year since 2002, the extraordinary surge in 2006 is directly related to Canadians’ continuing adoption of wireless data services,” said Peter Barnes, President and CEO of CWTA. “Canadians continue to be the world’s second largest consumers of wireless voice minutes at an average of 400 minutes per month. However, non-voice services such as text messaging, e-mail, gaming, ringtones, music and video now account for more than $1 billion in yearly service provider revenue.”

At the end of 2006, Canadian wireless phone subscribers numbered 18.5 million, representing a national wireless penetration rate of approximately 58%. Recent CWTA research estimates wireless penetration in major urban centres has exceeded 70%, with some greater metropolitan areas approaching the 80% mark.

GLOBALLY

1) Sybase 365 (formerly Mobile 365) has said that it delivered a record-breaking number of mobile messages in 2006, successfully sending more than 25 billion domestic and international MMS and SMS messages worldwide-almost twice the number of messages delivered in 2005.

“The sheer volume of messages delivered by Sybase 365 in 2006 reflects the remarkable growth of the mobile messaging market” said Marty Beard, president of Sybase 365.

Sybase 365 also reported that for calendar year 2006 it delivered 249 million Mobile Originated (MO) MMS messages-more than five times the number delivered in 2005.

MMS traffic increased nearly 17 percent from November to December 2006 alone, with Christmas Eve and Christmas Day serving as the heaviest traffic days of the month.

2) The messaging interconnection firm, mBlox has announced a record number of off-portal transactions for 2006, processing over 1.4 billion application-to-person transactions worldwide. 2006 was the fifth consecutive year of high growth for mBlox, with business up 40% over 2005.

In the USA, the number of premium SMS transactions mBlox processed increased 100% over 2005, and globally mBlox cleared and settled payments for mobile content transactions worth more than $500 million in street revenue.

3) Thousands of miles, different time zones, even the seas and oceans proved no barrier for friends, family and loved ones this New Year, as the amount of SMS sent globally increased over 30 per cent compared to last year, to reach a staggering 33 billion messages sent worldwide. These statistics are being attributed to increased use of SMS by groups outside of the traditional young user segments.

Responsible for handling more than half of all messages sent in the world, LogicaCMG has calculated that its systems processed around 18 billion messages on New Year’s Day, up one-third from the previous year.

With around two billion active SMS users worldwide it is by far the largest messaging community in the world, and with mobile penetration on the rise the future looks bright for SMS as the consumers’ choice for mobile communication.

Across the globe, record traffic growth in established messaging markets combined with a number of newer emerging SMS markets caused a volume growth of messages far beyond anticipated levels. LogicaCMG, the messaging specialist that serves over one billion subscribers in 135 countries across six continents, saw new traffic records for the last festive season across the majority of the world’s mobile markets including the UK (29 per cent growth), France (28 per cent growth) and Thailand (close to 50 per cent growth).

Henk de Boer, senior vice president, messaging, at LogicaCMG said: “The double-digit growth of SMS sent globally proves that its relevance in the lives of people is stronger than ever. Mobile users are able to fully rely on the capability of SMS to guarantee real-time delivery of their personal messages to businesses, friends and family at time critical moments.

4) A new report from Portio Research forecasts a healthy future for SMS, which continues to be the star of the data services show with traffic volumes and revenues that continue to confound predictions. Although the growth of SMS revenues will not be as aggressive as the growth of SMS volumes due to declining prices, by 2012 global SMS revenues are expected to reach US$67 billion, driven by 3.7 trillion messages.

If there was one message this report should get across it is this: SMS continues to be a phenomenal success as the cheapest, quickest and easiest to use form of peer-to-peer mobile communication. Markets have continued to grow and greatly exceeded the predictions of similar research carried out in 2005.

SMS traffic has not flattened out in mature markets but continued to boom whilst the US market has grown much faster than expected. The SMS market despite declining prices continues to be fuelled by new subscribers.

In Asia alone, in the five minutes it takes to read this press release and in every subsequent five minute period for the next six years, 2,267 people will have bought their first ever mobile phone. For the majority, these new handsets will offer little affordable functionality apart from basic voice and SMS services. This translates into an additional 1.4bn new mobile subscribers in Asia alone with a consequent boom in SMS traffic in the region.

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