Wednesday, June 25, 2008

IDK MY BFF Marketing

Texting is growing rapidly as a form of communication in the US, which is catching up to Europe and Asia for the technology. Today's blog post gives a basic understanding of the new marketing tool as well as some interesting data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Text or SMS (Short Message Service) are small messages sent from wireless phone to wireless phone. The messages are a maximum of 160 characters (including spaces) in length. Nearly all wireless phones in use today have text messaging capability although not all users have the service enabled with their carrier.

Many users have unlimited, or a certain number of, free text messages per month on their wireless plan. Otherwise, sending and receiving text messages can cost around 10 cents per message.

Texting is also not just for kids anymore. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project 63% of Americans from ages 18 to 27 text message. Those teens are bringing texting to their parents — or are moving into the workforce and texting with older colleagues. Now 31% of cell phone owners ages 28 to 39 use text, and 18% of those 40 to 49 do.

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