Could SMS Notifications be big business?

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From: Rohit Khare (Rohit@KnowNow.com)
Date: Mon Sep 25 2000 - 10:31:22 PDT


 From RCFoC:

    (WHY SMS? -- By the way, if the idea of sending short text messages
     from your cell phone seems odd and you're thinking "Why would I
     bother," it probably means that you live in the U.S. RCFoC reader
     Jerome Davies points out, in the Sept. 9 BBC News
     (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_916000/916337.stm),
     that SMS is now taking the UK by storm: In June of last year, UK
     cell phone users tapped out 600,000 SMS messages to each other; in
     June of 2000 they sent 500,000,000. And considering that they
     typically pay about 17 cents (U.S.) per SMS message, that's already
     big business. Cahners In-Stat, in the Sept. 18 EE Times
     (http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20000918S0003), expects 244
     billion wireless messages per month, globally, by the end of 2004!

     SMS-type pocket messaging is likely to become even bigger business,
     and eventually to become commonplace in the U.S. as well -- it's
     because of the convenience factor of this merging of the two-way
     pager, cell phone, and Email -- and how businesses are already
     beginning to use it.

     For example, we've previously seen that in some Scandinavian
     countries you can buy a soft drink by tapping in the code on the
     vending machine, and in other countries, such as Estonia, you can
     pay the parking meter in the same way. Now, some UK real estate
     companies are automatically sending their clients an SMS message as
     soon as a house comes on the market matching their needs.
     Headhunters are sending an SMS message when a possible job match
     shows up, and soon, folks in the UK can sign up to be notified by
     SMS when their favorite artist releases a new CD. You get the
     picture -- it's all about convenience!)


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