Computer and Library Learning (Archived)

Text
messaging has become an important part of many people’s lives as a
communication tool. On December 3, 2012, text messaging or SMS (short message
service) celebrated its twentieth anniversary as a communication medium. Part
of the thanks should be directed to Neil Papworth, a software programmer from
Reading, England (now residing in Montréal, Québec). On December 3, 1992, Mr.
Papworth, then working for Vodafone, sent the first text message to a colleague
in another location at an office Christmas party that said “Merry
Christmas”. Papworth used a personal computer to send his text message to a
mobile phone; approximately
one year later, Riku Pihkonen of Nokia initiated the first mobile
phone-to-mobile phone text message. The original intent of SMS was to
utilize it as an internal company paging service and a further seven years
transpired before competitors allowed customers to exchange text messages,
while introducing pay-as-you-go service. The
introduction of Nokia’s first mobile phone in 1993,  Vodafone’s share price alert system in 1994,
and the T9 Tegic in 1995 with its predictive capacity were important precursors
to the growth in popularity and as a revenue stream of text messaging.

At present, Canadians
send 268 million text messages daily. In
the first quarter of 2012, that translated into 23 billion text messages,
while Canadians
sent out 78 billion text messages in 2011 for an average of 2,500 texts per
second. 94% of Canadian mobile users aged 18-24 engage in text messaging. By
comparison, SMS
use in Germany increased to 46 billion text messages in 2011 from 100 million
in 1996; the
average Briton sends 50 text messages per week with the 18-25 year olds sending
the most messages at 133 weekly and 58%
of British adults sending at least 1 text message a day.

Communicating via SMS may have changed how some
people communicate with one another. It is also true that text
messaging is being used as a tool for fundraising and political purposes by
dealing with humanitarian relief in the aftermath of natural and human-made
disasters, empowering activists and grassroots movements, and mobilizing street
protests. Some are concerned with how SMS has changed written language and
affected a decline in face-to-face communication and its accompanying
etiquette. There are even extreme cases of people being injured or worse on
account of being distracted in a busy world.

Text messaging as a communication tool
may have already passed its apogee in terms of profits and usage being on the
decline due
in part to the increasing presence of smartphones and cheap data services,
thereby leading to the competitive presence of data-based instant messaging
(IM) based on the WhatsApp software or
BlackBerry Messenger (BBM). BBM
is free for BlackBerry phone users because BlackBerry users have already
accounted for data in their contracts so no additional charge is applied for
sending or receiving data-based messages. WhatsApp
is similar to BBM but is a multi-platform, data-based mobile messaging app
that allows one to exchange messages without having to pay for SMS.  WhatsApp runs on a variety of operating
systems, including Android, Windows Phone, Symbian and S40 (Nokia), BlackBerry
OS, and Apple’s iOS. Approximately 250 million people are using WhatsApp around
the world or 4 times as many those using BBM. WhatsApp is free for the first
year on most platforms but iPhone users must buy it from the beginning.

WhatsApp
users can also send one another images, videos, and audio messages of unlimited
size. Estimates put WhatsApp’s current daily total at about 10 billion
messages. This capability has effectively challenged MMS or SMS’ multimedia
equivalent that charges for sending longer messages as well as images and short
videos. WhatsApp has been around since 2009 but already some observers such as Tero
Kuittenen of Alekstra are observing accelerating annual declines of SMS volumes
in some market, especially a 25% yearly drop in Spain.

The world of text messaging continues to evolve…