3jam Launches SuperText

Mobile messaging firm 3jam announced the private beta launch of SuperText, a web-based text messaging service that employs patent-pending PresenceText technology to route texts to a user's computer or mobile device based on their location. According to 3jam, SuperText enables users to begin text conversations via PC, enjoying the benefits of a full QWERTY keyboard and free messaging--they may also continue the dialogue on their mobile device. SuperText also promises familiar IM features including conversation threading, online message history and Reply All communication.

For more on SuperText:read this release

Happy Birthday SMS!

SMS has had such a huge impact and become so pervasive in such a short period of time that it is hard to believe that it is just 15 years since the first ever SMS was sent. The party to celebrate the event in London brought together both the sender and receiver of that historic first SMS.

On 3rd December 1992 a young engineer at Airwide Solutions, Neil Papworth, sent the world's first ever commercial text message to Vodafone Director Richard Jarvis at a staff Christmas party. Although text messaging has often been accused of causing irreparable damage to the English language, this did not start with the first message which was simply 'Happy Christmas'.

Intended originally as a pager service, it was some years before users discovered they could send SMS to each other. Neil Papworth, still working for Airwide, was then working for the company as a test engineer and today is Principle Software Engineer said “I was a young engineer working on new communications technologies. We thought SMS was a clever way for a company’s staff to send simple messages to one another. I’d never have predicted that it would spread into the consumer world and become what it is today. At the time it didn’t seem like a big deal.”