Ez Texting SMS Marketing News

There's a texting-themed trend piece over at the New York Times today, that goes from funny to not so funny, when divorce trials come into play:

Text messages are the new lipstick on the collar, the mislaid credit card bill. Instantaneous and seemingly casual, they can be confirmation of a clandestine affair, a record of the not-so-discreet who sometimes forget that everything digital leaves a footprint.

This became painfully obvious a week ago when a woman who claims to have had an affair with Tiger Woods told a celebrity publication that he had sent her flirty text messages, some of which were published. It follows on the heels of politicians who ran afoul of text I.Q., including a former Detroit mayor who went to prison after his steamy text messages to an aide were revealed, and Senator John Ensign of Nevada, whose affair with a former employee was confirmed by an incriminating text message.

Sounds straightforward so far - cheaters cheat, and they got caught by SMS. But there's more:

Proving adultery is not the only value of a text message to a divorce lawyer. Last year Mr. Karpf, the lawyer from Miami, represented a husband whose wife was seeking sole custody of their child. The wife claimed the husband had left her and the child. He countered, saying he left because she was physically abusive. She denied it until Mr. Karpf produced several text messages the wife sent her husband apologizing for her inappropriate behavior. “She set up the whole case for me,” Mr. Karpf said.

Robert Stephan Cohen, the lawyer who represented Christie Brinkley in her divorce from Peter Cook, said a spouse’s finding out about a cheating partner by reading their personal text messages would have a profound effect on how such cases were played out, both in court and among friends and family. Mr. Cohen predicted that the battles in even the most routine divorces would become uglier with more text messages as evidence.

“It’s much different than rumor running around about a husband at dinner with a babe in the back booth,” he said. “It’s in the spouse’s face. They read it over and over again. It’s harsh and hurtful.”

Read it all at the New York Times

This could be great for parents...not so much for teenagers:

Read more @ intoMobile

For the 10th Annual Late Night Bash at SXSW, event sponsor Playboy spiced things up with some 'uncensored' text-to-screen:

Read more @ Mobile Marketer.

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

Read the whole article here.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports on an unconventional text messaging application (ie what your future is going to look like):

Japanese technology can link a kettle to a mobile phone, so every time an elderly person boils water for their morning cup of tea a message is sent to a family member letting them know their relative is up and well.

Say that again?

"So without any invasion at all of a person's space or dignity, you are able to know that that person is alive and having a cup of tea or whatever the case may be," Mr O'Neill told AAP.

Read more @ The Sydney Morning Herald.

Who needs Pig Latin:

LONDON (Reuters) - R U cycle? Book! Fancy an adds down the sub? There's a gr8 new carnage.

It may look like gobbledegook, but the most streetwise of teenagers would have no trouble translating and responding to it in kind.

A new language is being developed by mobile phone-addicted kids based on the predictive text of their treasured handsets.

Key words are replaced by the first alternative that comes up on a mobile phone using predictive text -- changing "cool" into "book", "awake" into "cycle", "beer" into adds", "pub" into "sub" and "barmaid" into "carnage".

Those expressing excitement with the old-fashioned text phrase "woohoo!", now use the far more hip "zonino!" instead.

The replacement words -- technically paragrams, but commonly known as textonyms, adaptonyms or cellodromes -- are becoming part of regular teen banter.

@ Reuters