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.”

Some facts and figures about SMS

* The first text message was sent in December 1992, and SMS was launched commercially for the first time in 1995
* 1998 - Interconnect between UK Operators O2, Orange, Vodafone and T-Mobile
* The first recorded monthly text message total was 5.4 million in April 1998
* August 2001 was the first month in which over one billion messages were sent in the UK
* December 2002 - 1 billion SMS per day were exchanged globally
* The MDA has forecast that 36.5 billion messages will be sent throughout the UK during 2006, with an average of 100 million messages being sent per day
* 65 million UK subscribers were registered as active on UK networks as of the end of December 2005 of which over 70% send text messages
* 95% of 16-24 year olds use text messaging regularly, each sending an average of 100 texts per month
* On New Year's Day 2003, the number of text messages sent in one day topped one hundred million for the first time
* On New Year's Day 2006, the highest daily total ever recorded by the Mobile Data Association was reached, when 165 million messages were sent
* Annual SMS totals: 1999 - 1 billion; 2000 - 6.2 billion; 2001 - 12.2 billion; 2002 - 16.8 billion; 2003 - 20.5 billion; 2004 - 26 billion; 2005 - 32 billion
* Britons sent 120 million text messages on Valentine's Day 2006, compared to the estimated 12 million cards sent.
* On average, 4.1 million messages are sent every hour in Britain.
* 72% of women v 70 % of men text regularly (source - ICM Research)
* More women than men use picture messaging, while men are bigger users of the mobile internet (WAP) (source - Enpocket)
* The peak hours for texting are between 10.30pm and 11.00pm
* There is a huge range of services that can send you text updates e.g. Movie reviews, bank balances, sports, and weather.
* The Rt. Hon. Tony Blair MP became the first UK Prime Minister to use text message technology to talk directly to the people on 25th November 2004, answering questions submitted in advance by text message from members of the public as well as in real-time in a mobile phone chat-room, transmitted live from No.10 Downing Street.

British Are Highest Text Users In Europe

According to Guardian report mobile subscribers in UK send more text messages than any other nation in Europe.

An average of 100 text messages are sent by UK mobile users each month, according to a worldwide survey of 10,000 mobile phone owners by media agency Universal McCann.

Read more here

Four New Handsets From Nokia

Nokia unveiled four new handsets at Nokia GoPlay event in London.

• N81 & N81 8GB - dedicated music and gaming keys, new slider, 3G, WLAN, quad GSM/Edge & WCDMA — 430€
• N95 8GB/N95 (US) - update to the N95, 5MP Camera, built-in A-GPS, WLAN, HSDPA and a 2-way slideUS market — 560€ / $699 (US Version).
• 5610 - features amusic slider key that automatically launches the music player, quad-band GSM/EDGE and dual-band 850/2100 WCMDA 3G, supports upto 4 GB of miscroSD storage — 300€
• 5310 - a candy bar design with dedicated external music controls, tri-band GSM/EDGE, supports upto 4 GB of miscroSD storage — 255€

Read more here.

Yahoo to Offer A Network For Web Ads On Cellphones

Yahoo is moving to secure a position on the next Internet battleground: Web search and advertising on cellphones.

The company plans to announce on Tuesday that it is creating a mobile advertising network that will allow marketers to place ads not only on its mobile services, but also on those of other online publishers. And Yahoo is offering tools to help publishers customize their content for easier use with its mobile search service.

Yahoo’s network of publishers at this point is tiny — three Web services, including MobiTV, a video service to be used with cellphones; Opera, a maker of Web browsers; and Go2, a Yellow Pages site. But the company said it planned to expand the network quickly over the next few months.

“We are being very aggressive on mobile and moving extremely fast to get the building blocks in place,” said Steve Boom, Yahoo’s senior vice president for broadband and mobile. “We felt that business services for publishers is something that was lacking.”

From nytimes

Music to dominate mobile content by 2011

According to a new report issued by market intelligence firm iSuppli, premium mobile content providers and aggregators earned $7.7 billion of the total $16.3 billion mobile content market in 2006--mobile operators raked in $4.4 billion from content, while content enablement platform providers claimed the remaining $4.2 billion. iSuppli forecasts the overall mobile content market will grow to $35.3 billion by 2011, $19.3 billion of which will line the pockets of providers and aggregators--the report adds that full-track downloads, ringtones and related music services will account for nearly half of all content revenues.

"Bringing content to a handset is a very complex and fragmented process with an assortment of partners and ever-changing proportions of on-deck and off-portal transactions," said iSuppli, principal analyst for multimedia content, services and infrastructure Frank Dickson in a prepared statement. "In some instances, players in the value chain will be partners and in some instances, they will be competitors. However, we will see a more simplified ecosystem in the future as companies such as Amdocs, Nokia, Real Networks and Sybase have led a wave of acquisitions in the space that measures in the billions of dollars. Furthermore, the acquisition wave seems to be intensifying."

Report