Is it 70 million, 150 million, 500 million? No, no and no, the actual figure stands at a staggering 1 billion texts per week, which according to the MDA (Mobile Data Association) is 25 percent higher than a year ago and equal to the entire number of texts sent during 1999.
Speaking to the BBC, head of the MDA Mike Short said that one of the reasons for the dramatic increase is that business are increasingly communicating via the medium of text.
It’s a lot more convenient for a business now to notify lots of their employees about an urgent message using a text message.
Apparently this puts the UK in the top six nations in terms of number of texts sent per year. Now that is some serious thumb power.
(Via BBC)
For some, text messages are a handy means of communicating quick snippets of info to people without having to make a call; stuff like, ‘wrking l8 2night, be back around 9′ or ‘fan c a pint?’. For others they completely supplement the spoken word and text chats that can last upwards of several days dominate their social interactions and their phone bill.
If you exist in the latter category then you ought to at least think about taking a look at the Efficasoft SMS Counter, an application for Windows Mobile smartphones that keeps track of all of your SMS spending. The application counts all of the text messages you send in real-time and automatically recognizes long messages (i.e. those twenty line text opuses you get double billed for) helping you to monitor your spending and keep it within your budget.
Not a bad idea really and for £5.92 you could save yourself the asking price easily in one month.
(Via Clickapps)
A new classified ads service for mobile phones has been launched, letting people post ads direct from their mobiles.
Upingme is actually called a ‘Classified ads 2.0′ service because of its real-time, user-generated nature (as in ‘Web 2.0′. Get it?).
Anyway, Upingme is a free service in which users post their ads via a text message - including a U then a space, then the message - to a special number. After the ad is sent, Upingme will forward it to those people who has told they service they want what you’re offering (or who want to meet someone like you).
You can post anything - within reason - for instance selling something, organising somewhere to stay or party, or selling a service.
Any mobile phone works with the service and it’s now available across the UK, with a global roll-out following in 2008. Naturally, the more people who use the service the better it will be, but you can find out more here.
Threaded text messaging is, simply put, a way of displaying SMS messages so that they appear as conversations do in an instant messaging app. Messages between you and the person you’re chatting with are tracked in a single window, rather than mingled with all your other messages. It’s been a feature of the Palm platform for years, has made it into iPhone, and now available (in official form) for your Nokia.
Nokia’s Beta Labs team has just released a beta of its upcoming Conversation, which brings threaded texting to S60 handsets (Nseries and similar phones). There are a few things which strike us as immediately needing fixing, such as there being no visual difference between your and the other person’s messages. But overall, this is a great — if rather overdue — step from Nokia.
To download the Conversation beta, head over to the Nokia Beta Labs pages.
For the text-addicted masses, here’s an interesting thought: how about setting up an app to send SMS messages for you at preset times in the future?
If you have a mate who’s always late leaving the house, create texts to give them a prod in good time. Or set up a message to remind the missus/ mister to take the dinner out of the oven before it burns — or to feed the dog/ tiger/ shark*.
Well, Sansango’s DelayedSMSSender bounds onto the scene offering exactly this functionality. If you’re a Windows Mobile smartphone owner who feels the need to digitally nag the tardy people in their life, head over to Handango and lash out the grand sum of $5.99 (£3) on this app today.
*Delete according to degree of evil villainy
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