From Fierce Wireless:

Executives from the nation’s two largest carriers defended their respective text messaging rates at a Senate hearing yesterday, denying allegations of collusion among Tier 1 carriers to raise text messaging prices.

Randal Milch, Verizon’s executive vice president and general counsel, said in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on antitrust, competition policy and consumer rights that it was "absolutely false" that carriers conspired to raise rates on certain types of text messages.

Milch said that most Verizon customers buy their text messaging plans in buckets, instead of "by-the-drink" text messages, meaning text messages purchased outside of bundled plans. Customers pay a fee per text message in those cases. He also said that individual text messages not purchased through post-paid plans represent less than 1 percent of the text messages Verizon provides.

An AT&T representative made similar pronouncements. "The faulty notion that prices for text messaging have risen derives from an unduly narrow interest in the trend of a single pricing option for text messaging services, the pay-per-use option, when the vast majority of AT&T’s customers do not choose that option," said Wayne Watts, general counsel of AT&T, according to Reuters.

Not surprisingly, industry association CTIA echoed the sentiments. "The U.S. wireless industry is the most competitive and innovative in the world. Third party organizations and influentials–from Consumer Reports Magazine to Former Vice President Al Gore–have echoed this statement," CTIA chief Steve Largent said in a release, which cited association figures showing 270.3 million U.S. wireless subscribers sent more than 1 trillion text messages in 2008, up from 2007 when 255.4 million subscribers sent 363 billion text messages.

Last fall, shortly after Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.), the subcommittee chairman, sent letters to AT&T, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile USA and Verizon asking them to justify raising rates on "by-the-drink" text messages, the carriers were hit with lawsuits claiming the carriers conspired on test-messaging pricing. Verizon’s Milch, in his testimony, said there was a great variation in the four carriers’ prices for these messages for prepaid customers:

• Verizon charges 1 cent, 5 cents or 10 cents per message, depending upon the plan.
• AT&T charges 20 cents per message.
• Sprint charges 10 cents per message (or can have all of their text messages included for free, depending upon the plan).
• T-Mobile charges 5 cents per message on incoming messages, and 10 cents per message on outgoing messages.

These variations, as well as variations in how the carriers price bundled messages, show that there are more differences than similarities in how the carriers price text messages, according to Milch.  "Nor is there any coincidence in the timing of price changes for the narrow category of post-paid ‘by-the-drink’ text messaging," Milch said in his testimony. "Different carriers changed prices for this product over a period of almost two years. There was no collusion or price-fixing."

We at Mobivity are not so sure the carriers are colluding but we are pretty sure they are getting greedy. The cost of a text message is next to nothing and the margins on them are insane. Carriers best make note of the old adage "pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered" Oink Oink.

Well we’re getting much closer to launch of Mobivity 2.0 and it’s time to start showing some of those new features and tools that will be available.

Mobivity has always been a “do it yourself” platform for our clients. Unfortunately Mobivity 1.0 was missing a few things that would really give our clients everything they need at their fingertips.

When I created the 2–Way SMS api, I wanted to make it erally simple to use. Well it turns out it was so simple that some people didn’t get it. They thought it had to more complicated and that they must have been missing some documentation or something.

Well that’s not the case. If you can create a web page, then you can respond to incoming SMS. You simply put your URL in our control panel, and we post the incoming message to that URL with some additional fields of data.

Something I always wished we had built is a simple way for our customers to test the API without sending text messages. Something simple that would provide them with error messages and feedback.

Well we now have it! Mobivity 2.0 has a new section called the “Developer Center” In addition to ducmentation, forums, samples and a knowledge base, we are adding usefult tools and testers.

The first one is our 2–Way API tester. Here’s what it looks like. Click on it for a larger version:

With this tool, our users can fully test their systems, and get immediate feedback without having to send an actual text message. We’ll also be releasing new comprehensive log files to help troubleshoot during development.

We look forward to some feedback and hope to get it into your hands soon!

I am just hearing about a Nielson white paper that’s dated December, 2008 titled “The Short Code Marketing Opportunity” through FierceMobileContent.

See why brands, advertisers and enterprises are using common short codes to reach their target audience.

Today, cell phones represent the most personal and intimate way to communicate with individuals. In this report, Nielsen highlights how brands can reach practically every mobile consumer in the U.S. - right now by adding a mobile address - a Common Short Code (CSC) - to their marketing mix.

According to Nielson, this is a free whitepaper that:

• Provides a comprehensive overview of key wireless trends
• Outlines advantages of CSCs versus other mobile marketing vehicles
• Presents steps for implementing a CSC
• Illustrates how CSCs are being used by Brands today

I gave it a quick read-through and it looks very informative.

You can get a copy of the whitepaper on the US Shortcodes Website. You have to register to get immediate download, and I’m sure you will get a call from someone at US Short Codes, who are the registrar of short codes. If you want to skip that step, shoot us an email and we’ll send you a copy.

The timing is interesting because we are about to announce our $999.00 short code package. More details to follow but essentially this is a turn-key short code package that includes the short code, a healthy bucket of sms message credits, and use of our industry leading software platform. We’ll be updating the web site soon. For more info Call us at 1–888–808–6274 or email info@mobivity.com.

If you have any questions about the paper, leave a comment below. We’ll answer promptly.

Well clearly we are in the right industry. While unfortunately friends and colleagues are seeing their businesses slow, the mobile industry has not been as affected.

According to Chetan Sharma Consulting (via Fierce Mobile Content) – U.S. wireless data revenue just crossed $10 billion dollar milestone. U.S. subscribers average 485 SMS messages per month (of course my daughter’s 3,000 helps keep that average up).

62% of U.S. subscribers are using a mobile data service. SMS volume increased 27% in the first quarter of 2009. These are extremely promising numbers.

The U.S. wireless data market grew 5 percent quarter-over-quarter in Q1, a year-over-year increase of 32 percent according to Chetan Sharma Consulting, adding that U.S. mobile data revenues for the first time crossed the $10 billion benchmark. Chetan Sharma contends that given overall data revenue growth, it appears the recession has registered as little more than a blip on U.S. operator service revenues despite the negative impact on the infrastructure and handset segments–the firm adds that the U.S. mobile market has so far weathered the economic downturn better than other nations, with capex spending expected to remain strong in 2009 thanks to increasing activity around 3G/4G deployments and trials. Chetan Sharma now forecasts overall data revenues for the remainder of 2009 will grow 24 percent compared to 2008 totals to $42 billion for the year.

Read this for more on Q1’s mobile data growth

This is a great article covering how 160 character became the number we are all forced to live with today. You can read the whole thing at LA Times

In 1985 Friedhelm Hillebrand a communications researcher and a dozen others had were laying out the plans to standardize a technology that would allow cellphones to transmit and display text messages.  Because of tight bandwidth constraints of the wireless networks at the time — which were mostly used for car phones — each message would have to be as short as possible.

Hillebrand had an argument with a friend about whether 160 characters provided enough space to communicate most thoughts. "My friend said this was impossible for the mass market," Hillebrand said. "I was more optimistic."

As chairman of the nonvoice services committee within the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), a group that sets standards for the majority of the global mobile market, he pushed forward the group’s plans in 1986. All cellular carriers and mobile phones, they decreed, must support the short messaging service (SMS).

Looking for a data pipeline that would fit these micro messages, Hillebrand came up with the idea to harness a secondary radio channel that already existed on mobile networks.

This smaller data lane had been used only to alert a cellphone about reception strength and to supply it with bits of information regarding incoming calls. Voice communication itself had taken place via a separate signal.

"We were looking to a cheap implementation," Hillebrand said on the phone from Bonn. "Most of the time, nothing happens on this control link. So, it was free capacity on the system."

Initially, Hillebrand’s team could fit only 128 characters into that space, but that didn’t seem like nearly enough. With a little tweaking and a decision to cut down the set of possible letters, numbers and symbols that the system could represent, they squeezed out room for another 32 characters.

Still, his committee wondered, would the 160-character maximum be enough space to prove a useful form of communication? Having zero market research, they based their initial assumptions on two "convincing arguments," Hillebrand said.

For one, they found that postcards often contained fewer than 150 characters.

Second, they analyzed a set of messages sent through Telex, a then-prevalent telegraphy network for business professionals. Despite not having a technical limitation, Hillebrand said, Telex transmissions were usually about the same length as postcards. 

Just look at your average e-mail today, he noted. Many can be summed up in the subject line, and the rest often contains just a line or two of text asking for a favor or updating about a particular project.

But length wasn’t SMS only limitation. "The input was cumbersome," Hillebrand said. With multiple letters being assigned to each number button on the keypad, finding a single correct letter could take three or four taps. Typing out a sentence or two was a painstaking task.

Later, software such as T9, which predicts words based on the first few letters typed by the user, QWERTY keyboards such as the BlackBerry’s and touchscreen keyboards including the iPhone’s made the process more palatable.

But even with these inconveniences, text messaging took off. Fast. Hillebrand never imagined how quickly and universally the technology would be adopted. What was originally devised as a portable paging system for craftsmen using their cars as a mobile office is now the preferred form of on-the-go communication for cellphone users of all ages.

Obviously Hillenbrand was dead on. Text messaging has been a major boom around the world and here in the US where mobile users sent an average of 357 texts per month in the second quarter of 2008 versus an average of 204 calls.

If you are wondering if the guy who helped revolutionize SMS became rich, unfortunately for him he did not. But thanks to Hillenbrand I was able to start-up a Mobile Marketing company with my partner Greg and I can let my wife know when I am running late for dinner.

Over the last few months we have been hard at work completing Mobivity 2.0. While most companies change their version numbers with only minor upgrades, we felt that 2.0 should be a significant change from our existing product.

Over the last 2 1/2  years we have consistently added features to Mobivity to make it a better product. With Mobivity 2.0, we have made some major changes to both the feature set, as well as the interface.

The first change as you might have noticed is our new logo. Mobivity has grown up a lot since our launch in 2006, and we thought it was time for a “facelift”. We upgraded the MobileMarketing.net web site, and have designed a completely new interface for Mobivity. While it may be new, this interface is no more complicated than our existing product. In fact we have made it much more robust, without complicating the process that our customers are used to.

We have posted some early sample screen shots on the Mobivity site. Head over and take a look! We will also be creating videos to show the new features.

Over the next few weeks we will highlight and discuss each of the new features here on our blog. Please provide us with any feedback through the comments of each post. Your feedback can only help make Mobivity even better! 

We’re very excited to bring Mobivity to the next level and to continue being the #1 leading affordable SMS and Mobile Marketing platform available.

Here’s a short list (not all) of some of the new features

• Enhanced Reporting, Charts and Analytics
• Detailed Log Files
• Export of all data
• Import of lists
• Enhanced subscriber lists to include custom fields and other details
• RSS feeds
• Group SMS
• Reminders
• Autoresponders
• New Developer Center!
• WAP Page Builder
• And a ton more!!

We look forward to your feedback.

The U.S. wireless industry expanded to 270 million total subscribers at the end of 2008, a 15 million year-over-year increase, according to CTIA president and CEO Steve Largent. Speaking today at the industry organization’s annual CTIA Wireless event, Largent said that U.S. subscribers spent a combined 2.2 trillion minutes on their mobile devices last year, a 100 billion minute increase over 2007. In addition, U.S. consumers sent 1 trillion text messages, almost tripling the previous year’s SMS traffic. "Our industry is vibrant–a shining light in an unfortunately troubled time," Largent said.

From Fierce wireless:

The four largest U.S. operators–Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile USA–announced an agreement to incorporate their mobile marketing guidelines within consumer best practices outlined by the non-profit industry trade group the Mobile Marketing Association. Per terms of the agreement, the operators will incorporate their respective mobile marketing guidelines and codes of conduct (i.e., "carrier playbooks") into a unified document under the supervision of the MMA, generating operational efficiencies upward of $200 million annually. The best practices are expected to yield five primary benefits: 

• Promoting a consistent consumer experience including standardizing key consumer disclosures;
• Enhancing efficiencies in running short code programs;
• Accelerating the time to market for mobile campaigns;
• Guaranteeing monitoring programs and audit results are more consistent; and,
• Cutting operational costs across the mobile marketing ecosystem.

The MMA adds that major aggregators, brands and content owners also played a substantial role in securing the best practices agreement, singling out the efforts of VeriSign, Neustar, Limbo and Thumbplay. The group’s Consumer Best Practices Committee will review the first draft of the document early next month, with plans to finalize and release it to the public by the end of June.

For more on the carrier playbook consolidation:
- read this release

This might finally make all of our lives a little easier. Conformity by the carriers, who would have thought it possible.

I have two sons  who I absolutely adore. I love going to soccer, baseball and basketball games to root them on. We wrestle and play tackle football in the living room until my wife yells. So the question I get every now and then is whether I wish I had a little girl to go along with my rough and tumble boys. I know without question I would have been an absolute over protective father if I had a daughter. After reading the following article I once again am thankful that I did not have to subject a littler girl to imprisonment until she turned 30 (and even then no guy would have been good enough)

Summarizing the article, it discusses how young ladies in Oxford England can send an sms to the school nurse to obtain a morning after pill. HELLO!!!

Six schools in Oxfordshire are to take part in the project after a rise in the number of teenage pregnancies in the county.

Any girl at four schools in Oxford and two in Banbury will be given the opportunity to ask for emergency contraception if they have had unprotected sex or their contraception has failed. Parents will not automatically be informed of any request.

Child protection staff will step in if any girl aged between 11 and 13 uses the service.

Family and religious groups expressed concerns about the scheme. They also questioned the absence of a limit to the number of times schoolgirls can use the service.

The text messaging service will be introduced in July by Oxfordshire County Council and the Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust, which have refused to name the schools involved.

The service will focus on contact with pupils outside school hours. It will also operate on weekends and holidays, when a nurse will arrange to meet the child to give her the pill.

Read the whole article here

Honestly I think it is a good idea. I am just happy I have two boys. My sympathies to my partner Greg!!

Came across this article at the TMC Net and thought I’d share

A recent survey of about 300 college students conducted by Ball State University found that 27 percent own a smart phone as compared to the national average of 19 percent for working adults. The research also found that 99.7 percent of students have a mobile communications device and the rates of sending text messages, e-mail, photos and videos are increasing.

SMS has overtaken email and instant messaging as the main form of communication for college students, 94 percent of whom send and receive text messages.

When using their mobiles to keep in touch with family and friends with 59 percent text, 17 percent call, nine percent send IMs and seven percent use email.

As lucrative as many believe mobile marketing will be, there are warning signs. The study indicates 52 percent of respondents received ads on their cell phone in the last few months, up from 24 percent in 2005. But a backlash might be building.

"In 2005, we found that 30 percent of students said they were annoyed at getting an advertisement, and that has grown to 48 percent in the most recent survey," says researcher  Michael Hanley, Ball State journalism assistant professor.

"What good is an ad if nearly half of your target market is not happy about receiving it?" he asks.

We at Mobivity have been saying for quite sometime that Mobile Marketing can be an extremely powerful tool if used properly and destructive to a brand if used improperly. Messages and ads must deliver value  or offer some sort of appeal to the reader. Though the article does not elaborate on whether the ads are opt in text or mobile web, marketers still need to ask themselves "what person likes to see an ad or message that has nothing to do with who they are and what they like".

Granted we are still in the infancy stages with Mobile Marketing and we will experience growing pains, but marketers need to tread lightly as to not tarnish the image of potentially the most powerful marketing tool to ever be introduced. As a reminder, the world has roughly 6.7 Billion people with about 4 billion of them being mobile subscribers. This means about 60% of the planet Earth has a mobile phone. Now that’s power!!