Two Decades of Texting – Looking Back

Texting – who doesn’t know about it anymore? Over the last two decades – and especially over the last 10 years – texting (or messaging, or SMS, or TMS – as it is variously called) has become one of the prime forms of communication. Almost a week back (3^rd December), SMS celebrates 20 years of its existence – from its origins when an engineer sent a simple “Merry Christmas” to Vodafone mobile number from a PC. From those humble beginnings, the SMS has come a long way indeed – and has impacted our society in a way few technologies have.

SMS stands for Short Messaging Service – though I will like to share some numbers which are anything but small. For example, the total numbers of SMS sent in 2011 are estimated at 7.8 trillion (!), expected to reach 9.6 trillion in 2012. The global SMS revenue is expected to reach a figure of US$ 150 billion. MMS, a close derivative of SMS, is also enjoying good number growth, with 207 billion messages exchanged in 2011 and expected to reach 275 billion by 2016.

Those are some humongous numbers – are a testament to the popularity of SMS as a primary form of mobile communication. Interestingly, the development and acceptance of SMS has bought about some interesting development in a number of ways – not least the way we communicate and interact with each other. A whole new grammar and language of “textspeak” has evolved over the years – with young users developing particular dexterity in its use.

SMS has Business Uses too

As with a lot of other technologies, SMS has also found profitable use for businesses. For example, most telecom service providers send messages to users informing them about new offers and plans. Banking companies have found a lot of business traction with SMS – sending offers and information about financial services. Indeed, banking has evolved into an additional field – phone banking – offering unparalleled convenience for users and business growth for banks.

The 20^th birthday of texting has also been marked with some concerns about the future viability of SMS –as a communication form and also as a revenue stream for businesses. The rise and popularity of Twitter and Facebook – the two leading social networking websites - has provided a great medium for casual communication – thus poaching on the traditional territory of texting. The evolution of smartphones, and the consequent popularity of apps such as Whatsapp, Googletalk, BBM etc also pose a significant threat to SMS as the primary method of casual communication.

But let me end this post on a positive note. First, the recent BBC interview with Matti Makkonen – the person who actually ideated about a texting service – it makes for a very interesting reading. The very last line is particularly striking and almost clairvoyant – when he speculates about a new type of texting service that people can receive and read right over their glasses – something akin to Google glasses. And just after a few days, I came across an article that was talking about a new technology that would be able to project text messages on contact lenses!