ABC News report on cell phone use by Americans, including speaking minutes per month and text messages per month.

Mobile phone handset designers should look to social networking for inspiration to improve the management of communications on phones, says BulkSMS.com managing director, Dr Pieter Streicher. He maintains that many aspects of the mobile phone user interface haven’t changed in ten years, especially contact management and SMS functionality.

Naomi Baron’s 2009 study into mobile phone behaviour highlighted the “reachability conundrum” in consumers’ attitudes to always being in touch. Reachability was one of the aspects of the mobile phone that users liked the most, and the least. People were finding it more difficult to separate their work life from leisure time.

To help solve this, designers and manufacturers can learn from the way social networking platforms such as Twitter and Facebook allow users to manage their contacts, build lists and ‘unfriend’ or ‘unfollow’ people.

The creation of groups of contacts, for example, work, family, would allow people to separate work and leisure time. They would have the ability to respond to calls differently at different times, so, for example, a work call received after hours could be replied to via SMS asking the caller to respond in the same way. Some of this functionality is starting to appear on phones, but none are fully integrated yet.

Other suggested improvements:

1.      Users should be able to search their messages. With more businesses using SMS to send customers important information such as reference or account numbers, customers want to be able to quickly the find information in their saved messages.

2.      Delivery reports are currently stored separately to the messages, and usually only a limited number of reports are kept. These should be integrated with the sent message, allowing the user to easily see whether or not a message has been delivered.

3.      While some smartphones do allow you to list SMSs as a threaded conversation, similar to the way instant messaging (IM) software behaves, this capability should be introduced as a matter of course to better reflect how people use messaging.

It doesn’t make sense that handset manufacturers haven’t kept pace with the way consumers behave, says Streicher. This could be explained by SMS not being intended to be a commercial service – it was something that evolved more or less by accident. But its popularity amongst users, and its growing adoption as a major business tool, means that SMS and messaging behaviour should really be a critical factor directing handset designers.

About BulkSMS.com 

BulkSMS.com, a division of Celerity Systems (Pty) Ltd, has been in operation since 2000 and is headquartered in Cape Town, South Africa. BulkSMS is a leading wireless application service provider offering bulk SMS messaging solutions to large and small businesses, public benefit organisations, and individuals. BulkSMS.com has a global market presence, including Europe, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. BulkSMS.com, a division of Celerity Systems (Pty) Ltd, has been in operation since 2000 and is headquartered in Cape Town, South Africa. BulkSMS is a leading wireless application service provider offering bulk SMS messaging solutions to large and small businesses, public benefit organisations, and individuals. BulkSMS.com has a global market presence, including Europe, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.

BulkSMS offers two-way bulk SMS messaging, premium rate solutions and supports mobile marketing campaigns to further an organisation’s SMS communication needs. BulkSMS flagship messaging solution is the BulkSMS Text Messenger, an application that allows clients to quickly deploy an SMS service from a computer.

The company is a member of the Wireless Application Service Provider Association (WASPA) and the Mobile Marketing Association.

Author, Dr Pieter Streicher, is MD at BulkSMS.com and is the guest author of this post.

We’ve said it before.  Don’t Text and Drive.

Text messaging while driving is estimated to cause 200,000 auto accidents per year in the United States!

Want to know who are the biggest problems?  Adults.  47% of adults 18+ send or read a text messages while driving.

Galaxy S Smartphone

A British woman has set the world record for fast text messaging.

Melissa Thompson, 27, wrote “the razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human”, in 25.94 seconds.  Try doing that while driving (just kidding).

The official Guinness World Record is currently held by American Franklin Page, 24, who wrote the same passage in 35.54 seconds in March this year.

Ms Thompson, from Salford, Greater Manchester, was using Samsung’s new Galaxy S smartphone when she shaved a huge 9.6 seconds off Mr Page’s record.

That’s quite a text message record.

In 2003, residents of the Philippines sent the most text messages per cell phone user, 195.  In the United States, the average cell phone user sent 13 text messages.

Fast forward to 2009.  In the Philippines, the average cell phone user sent 600 text messages per month and in the United States, it is 420.

Mobile media is certainly catching on when it comes to advertising agencies and their use of it.

Moms love mobile marketing.

According to a the Advertiser Intelligence Report, nearly half (46%) of the marketers and agency media buyers surveyed are currently incorporating mobile media into their advertising plans.

62% of those surveyed expect to increase their spending on mobile in the next year.

The iPad is certainly having a profound affect on advertising executives.  22% use the iPad now and 49% expect to use it over the next 12 months.

Text message marketing is use by 60% of those currently using mobile media.  Video (15%) and mobile search (9%) are anticipated to show the most growth over the next year.

If you are in business, there are some things you need to buy that you’d just rather do without, at least until you actually need them.

Let’s hope that you never need them, but that’s simply not realistic.  We all need things like insurance.

And, when it comes to insurance, it’s actually more than just health insurance; there are several types of insurance that a business needs.

One type of insurance that you’ll need if you wish to attract top employees is business health insurance.  It’s the single most important insurance benefit that your employees need and deserve.  A group health plan is something that you’ll want to offer your employees; it’s just the right thing to do.

But, getting a small business insurance plan is not easy.  It’s tough to find companies willing to write a reasonable policy for companies with less than 10 employees.

The great thing about this site is that it offers any type of insurance that you need.  Just fill in the easy form and you get a quote and no annoying calls from pushy agents.

63% use text messaging.

According to a report by ComScore, Americans are using their mobile phones more than ever before.

• 63% used text messaging.
• 30.1% used mobile browsers.
• 28.6% downloaded apps.

(Source — ComScore; March ‘10)

We’ve been doing trade shows for many years.  While some things have stayed the same in successful trade show participation, many things have changed dramatically.

One such area where great improvements have been made is in the trade show display world.  I remember lugging three large boxes through airports to get to our destination trade show.  Then, having to pay union workers to put up our booth.

Today, however, with pop up displays, the trade show booths are light and can be put into the trunk of your car.  What a difference it has made to now have a trade show pop up instead of those bulky items from the past which are now rotting in our basement.

With pop up trade show displays, the cost of shipping the booths is greatly reduced, because the weight of the items is so much less.  It’s amazing how much easier it is to display at trade shows with pop up booths.

Everybody knows that the more links you have to your web site, the higher your search engine rankings will be.  That is, so long as those links are not spammy links and not from bad neighborhoods.

Business related links are some of the best because they are from trusted sources.  One such source is Universal Business Listing.  It’s a great way to get your site listed with a trusted web site that will pass along significant link juice to your web site.

But, the best thing about Universal Business Listing is that it’s not just one web site.  For just $30 per year, Universal will submit your enhanced business listing to numerous sites on the web.  $30 a year for one good link is a bargain, but think about getting many more links for that $30 fee!  It’s almost unbelievable.

Links equal higher Google rankings nad Universal Business Listing can help you rank higher.  And, if you rank higher, you just might get that call from the big whale customer that needs your product.