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Nielsen Mobile estimates that 2.9 million US mobile subscribers received a text message from the Obama campaign over the course of Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The VP message was sent in the late hours of Friday night and is, by many accounts, the single largest mobile marketing event in the US., to date. From a mobile perspective, it makes sense that the campaign chose to use text-messages. Today, 116 million US mobile subscribers (52 percent of subscribers) actively use text messaging, making it a new mass medium for marketing efforts.
onesimcard.com, an online provider of International mobile phone service, announced they are now offering FREE SMS (short message service) to their onesimcard.com customers. It’s free to send an SMS to any onesimcard phone, from the onesimcard.com online portal and it is free to receive directly on the handset through out the world.
onesimcard.com provides mobile services for business travelers and tourists traveling overseas where US mobile phones will typically not work or are expensive to use. The company provides a sim chip (subscriber identity module) which enables business and leisure travel customers to use the discounted onesimcard service on a GSM mbbile phone.
*Comment from Wireless and Mobile News * Now that you can’t Twitter in the UK, this may cut SMS costs for travelers.
Twitter is no longer delivering outbound SMS over their UK number, due to the high cost from UK mobile operators.
Twitter has worked cost-effective deals in Canada, India, and the United States, so that it can provide full incoming and outgoing SMS service without passing along operator fees in these countries.
Twitter will be introducing several new, local SMS numbers in countries throughout Europe, in the coming weeks and months. These new numbers will make Twittering more accessible for all the folks who have been using SMS to send long-distance updates through our UK number.
The Twitter blog states “Even with a limit of 250 messages received per week, it could cost Twitter about $1,000 per user, per year to send SMS outside of Canada, India, or the US”
Twitter will continue to negotiate with mobile operators in Europe, Asia, China
When Barack Obama chooses his running mate, his campaign will let texters know first According to his website, "You have helped build this movement from the bottom up, and Barack wants you to be part of this important moment."
Supporters can sign up at the website or text VP to 62262.
Obama has mobilized via wireless since starting his campaign, he employed 25 text messengers.
You can also get ringtones and wallpapers sent directly to your phone at http://www.barackobama.com/mobilev2/
Clickatell is providing Text Alerts for CNN Olympic
coverage. Available now, fans can register from their mobile phones by logging
onto the CNN mobile site at http
The free gold medal alert service from CNN will enable fans to get real-time SMS updates with their favorite country's gold medal tally. A hyperlink within the alert will give one-click access to exclusive blogs from CNN's correspondents in Beijing, allow users to comment on the Olympics blogs, watch video round-ups of the latest sporting action, visit the events timetable, and upload images or video to CNN's user generated service, iReport.
Alltel Wireless, and Txtstation announced they will be working together to provide unique promotions to fans at select Alltel sponsored sports properties. As the Official Wireless Partner of FansSM, Alltel will leverage Txtstation’s capabilities and implement a real time text messaging feature at five sponsored properties.
The text feature, titled the ‘Alltel Fan Poll’ will pose a compelling question to fans inside the stadium and ask them to weigh-in with their opinions. At each home game, fans will be able to interact with the video board by sending a text message from their wireless phone to 88222. Within seconds, votes will appear live on the screen, causing percentages to change and providing a fun and entertaining experience for all.
The “Alltel Fan Poll” will debut later this summer as the football season begins.
Got a sports opinion to get off your chest, but you don’t want to get off the couch? Now there is a way. The Score Television Network has partnered with MyThum Interactive to deliver the next generation in interactivity for sports fans, txtTV. Sports fans can now share their two cents on The Score broadcasts in the form of rants, opinions, votes and predictions - all via mobile SMS.
Users can text in their expert opinions during select live Score-produced programming, including Drive This (4-6pm EST). Viewers at home will be able to interact with the hosts and help steer the direction of the programming. Sports experts will also be able to customize their nickname and hometown to help solidify their status as recognizable on-air personalities.
In the first quarter of 2008, Verizon Wireless delivered nearly 58 billion text messages from coast to
coast. But for those looking to control text messaging, such as on their
child's cell phone, Verizon Wireless offers numerous consumer-friendly
options to block some or all text messages.
These options include: Blocking: Customers can log into http://www.vtext.com or http://text.vzw.com using their mobile number and password, choose preferences, then text blocking, then select from several options --
1. Block all messages from the Web/Internet (where most spam is generated)2. Block all messages from e-mail
3. Block messages from up to 15 specific domain names or e-mail addresses.
4. Allow only texts sent to a nickname@vtext.com.
Premium SMS Blocking
Log into "My Verizon" on
http://www.verizonwireless.com, choose features, then choose
add/delete to block only text messages for short code campaigns that
involve premium charges.
V-BLOCK: This option prevents a specific mobile number/cell phone from sending or receiving text messages. The only messages the customer
will receive are voicemail alerts.
Customers can also add any of these options by calling Customer Service.
AT& announced t that the company has
shattered its text messaging record of 64.5 million by generating more
than 78 million messages this season of “American Idol” — the most
popular show on television.
Since AT&T introduced text message voting in season 2 of FOX’s “American Idol,” text messaging has continued to play a significant role in the Idol interactive experience. In fact, during last week’s hometown visits, a new text messaging component was used to inform the final three contestants of the Producer’s Choice selection via their Apple iPhones, an AT&T-exclusive handset.
By texting their votes this season, AT&T’s wireless customers helped crown a new “American Idol” champion, David Cook, and made it possible for AT&T to capture a new text messaging milestone for television’s No. 1 show.Amika Mobile, the pioneer in the delivery of key mobile content
including emergency alerts to any mobile phone, and Firehot Solutions
Inc., provider of IT System Management Solutions, announce that they
have signed a partnership agreement to offer key Email-to-SMS content
for any mobile phone on the Firehot Mobile-Message portal.
This mobile Internet service by Firehot Solutions provides users
with a cost-effective critical Email to SMS solution for consumers and
business users at 10% of the cost of typical mobile messaging
solutions. The service supports mobile message alerts from multiple
email accounts, including all the popular ones such as, Hotmail, Gmail,
Yahoo Mail, Rogers and Sympatico, allowing you to monitor and read your
critical email content from anywhere, at anytime, and any place on any
mobile phone from any carrier in North America.
The Federal Communications Commission passed guidelines for mobile alerts during emergencies and disasters, named the Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) .
Wireless carriers that choose to participate in the CMAS will transmit text-based alerts to their subscribers.
Consumers can expect to receive three types of messages via their cell phones and other mobile devices from participating wireless carriers, including:
•Presidential Alerts - national emergency-related alerts delivered to the American public that would preempt any other pending alerts;
•Imminent Threat Alerts - alerts with information on emergencies that may pose an imminent risk to people’s lives or well-being;
•Child Abduction Emergency/AMBER Alerts - alerts related to missing or endangered children due to an abduction or runaway situation.
Messaging International Plc,signed an agreement with Alltel Wireless, to provide itsText-to-Landline service. This application will allow Alltel Wireless subscribers to send text messages from a wireless phone to any landline phone and receive responses back to the wireless phone.
With the Text-to-Landline application, Alltel customers can create and send text messages which are converted to voice messages and retrieved by landline recipients. The recipient can then respond by voice to the wireless customer, who will receive the reply message as a text. Also, a status text message will be sent to inform the wireless customer that the message was either delivered to a live person or a voicemail system. Text-to-Landline is available for the cost of a standard text message.
“The Text-to-Landline application complements our existing Axcess Voice2TXT application, which quickly converts incoming voicemails to text messages in the customer’s inbox and also allows customers to store and forward converted voicemails as regular text messages,” said Craig Kirkland, director of messaging and voice services for Alltel Wireless. Now voicemail messages left by landline customers can be answered by replying to the text message enabling two-way data communication between landline and wireless phone users.
If you get lost this weekend, remember this number 347-328-4667 -(DIR-ECT-IONS). When you call the number from your mobile phone, the voice recognition technology-based service, will give startpoint and an endpoint (which can be a national business chain as well as an address). Point-to-point directions are texted to you for free.
DIR-ECT-IONS works on any handset - no smartphone is required for this service, or additional monthly costs..
The technology is the result of over ten years of research and development. They have been integrated into Jingle’s Free 411.
Brickhouse Security is marketing a SIM reader that can read data on cell phone SIMs including deleted messages and phone numbers.
The website asks,”Have you ever wished you can spy on your wife, husband, teens, or colleague phone to see what they are up to? Are they being suspicious when on their cell phone?”
According to calculations by VeriSign, Inc.the leading provider of Internet infrastructure for the networked world, a record 2.2 billion mobile messages, including short message service (SMS), and multimedia messaging service messages, are expected to be sent and received across carriers and mobile application providers on Valentine’s Day 2008 in North America alone.
Valentine’s Day is traditionally the busiest day of the year for mobile messages. For the past two years, the number of messages VeriSign powered on its infrastructure jumped 40 percent on February 14 compared to an average day.
“Mobile messaging continues to show impressive growth,” said Charles Meyers, group president, Messaging and Mobile Media, VeriSign. “This is a business where the ability to quickly scale to meet huge spikes in demand is absolutely critical. VeriSign successfully met this demand by delivering 530 million SMS messages on New Year’s Eve, and we’re confident that Valentine’s Day will bring another record day to the network.”
Mobile messaging activity has continued to skyrocket in the past 12 months. VeriSign powers inter-carrier mobile messaging for seven of the top ten wireless carriers in North America, and the company’s global infrastructure currently enables over 400 million messages on a typical day. In 2007, VeriSign enabled 96 billion mobile messages across its network globally, up from 43 billion in 2006.
Verizon informed customers that the rate for sending and receiving a text message to North American phones from 10 cents to 15 cents on March 1.
There has been a lot of conjecture for this hike, many saying that the increase will make more customers switch to an unlimited plan. Savvy customers have realized that when there is a adverse material change to their contracts and they want to leave their carrier, they can avoid an Early Termination Fee if they inform Verizon the reason they are canceling in the change.The Consumerist notes that subscribers should state, “Because this 50% increase in text messaging has a material adverse
affect on me, I would like to cancel my contract without a termination
fee.”
