Ez Texting SMS Marketing News

Cnet's Crave, one of our favorite technology review sites, has a honest and somewhat disappointing report of the Blackberry Storm. For all you iPhone owners who are avid texters (about half our office), be glad you read this as we are sure you  seriously considered switching at one point:

The Storm, which is Research In Motion's first touch-screen device, was supposed to be Verizon Wireless's iPhone killer. Verizon is the exclusive carrier for the Storm. Apple's iPhone is sold exclusively by AT&T. Verizon and RIM had supposedly been working on the device even before AT&T launched the original iPhone two and a half years ago.

The Storm launched in November, in time for the holiday-shopping season. And while it sold well initially with about 500,000 shipping the first month, the Journal reports that many customers who bought the device are complaining of buggy software and hardware glitches.

Read the whole post here.

The New York Times released an interesting story on the state of mobile technology in the US versus other countries, notably Japan and the UK:

Imagine a technology that lets you pay for products just by waving your cellphone over a reader.

The technology exists, and, in fact, people in Japan have been using it for the last five years to pay for everything from train tickets to groceries to candy in vending machines. And in small-scale trials around the world, including in Atlanta, New York and the San Francisco Bay Area, nearly everyone has liked using this form of payment.

But consumers in the United States won’t be able to wave and pay with their cellphones anytime soon: The myriad companies that must work together to give the technology to the masses have yet to agree on how to split the resulting revenue.

Read the full article here.

A new report from Ad Age reveals the recent rise and success in marketing to Hispanic's via SMS:

Read the whole article here.

MediaPost's Marketing Daily predicts a big jump in mobile shopping:

Read the whole article here.

A look back at yesterday's big news, with Ez Texting's CEO Shane Neman tapped for comment by the Boston Herald:

Read the full article here.

14,528 texts per month - think you can beat that? This article from the NY Post has been getting a LOT of press recently:

Greg Hardesty didn't LOL when he got his teen daughter's cellphone statement. All he could think was "OMG!"

The California man's 13-year-old daughter, Reina, racked up an astonishing 14,528 text messages in one month. The online AT&T statement ran 440 pages.

"First, I laughed. I thought, 'That's insane, that's impossible,' " the 45-year-old dad said. "And I immediately whipped out the calculator to see if it was humanly possible."

He found it was - barely. It works out to 484 text messages a day, or one every two minutes of every waking hour.

Read the full article here.

There's a new sheriff in town:

Read the full release here.

A recent article from Ad Week explores the current state of mobile in our tightened economy. It is a good piece that explores the beauty of mobile and how it is importing in driving action for brands, but also warns that brands may not be ready to go full-force with mobile unless it acts as a supporting effort to make campaigns more interactive.

Click the link above for the full story.

We ran across a very interesting story from across the pond. Click the link for the full article, or read the excerpts below:

An innovative scheme using mobile technology to identify patients at risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD) by effectively establishing smoking status has recently proved a success for Hammersmith and Fulham health services in London.

The scheme found that the use of iPLATO Patient Care Messaging to request a patient’s smoking status via text message, resulted in significantly higher response rates than other methods of communication previously used, enabling a patient’s medical record to be updated quickly and efficiently.

According to a study made by the British Heart Foundation, the risk of mortality from any cardiovascular disease is 60% higher in smokers compared to non-smokers, making the identification of this ‘at risk’ group a crucial element in the battle against CVD.

From searches made on their GP system, the surgeries sent out a text message asking patients to text back their current smoking status. Patients who received this message were able to text back their status via a reply text that arrived at the surgery as an email (to a pre-defined surgery email address). The Brook Green Medical Centre, in Hammersmith and Fulham, successfully used the platform and achieved response rates of 49% when requesting smoking status via text message. 

The Washington Post has the story on how two local companies are going to save Washington...cellphone usage, that is:

Wireless carriers are expecting an explosion of cellphone traffic on Jan. 20, when millions of visitors pour into Washington to welcome the new president. So many calls, text messages, photos and video clips hitting the airwaves at the same time can choke communication networks and result in delayed messages and dropped calls.

While carriers are erecting extra cell sites to boost capacity, two local companies are also trying to help traffic move along. Wireless operators are urging people to avoid making calls and instead send text messages because they take up less bandwidth.