"You hear a lot at MWC that SMS is dying, but it is very far from the truth – except maybe for consumer-to-consumer. But for B2C, SMS is alive and well; our SMS business even grew by 19% year-on-year between 2011 and 2012. Even in Europe, which is supposed to be a low-growth market hit by the financial crisis, it increased by 29%."
So all good news there then. If you provide the enablers, there is still room for growth in a SMS market that everyone claims to be slowly dying!
On a second SMS note, I am always a sucker for a great SMS idea. If it's not the Danes allowing people to pay for postage stamps via SMS it just might be local reviews via SMS! TxtRoo, created from a hack at MWC 2012, is going to try to do just that. Provide a SMS based reviews service for feature phones. The underlying SMS enabler used is Twilio.
TxtRoo highlight the world has 6 billion mobiles, most of which (5 out of 6) are still feature phones. I.e. phones that make and receive calls and make and receive texts! TxtRoo is going to try and chase the 5 out of 6 phones that are still feature phones, that most people in the app world are currently ignoring!
TxtRoo will allow businesses to register, and will then provide them a Mobile number that Customers can text to find reviews about the business. By texting the same number a Customer can also leave a review. It is up to the business to promote their TxtRoo number and they might do this via a store window promotion. A very simple way to engage with a feature phone market that is now largely neglected. Let's see if they can make a go of it!
Cheers
m
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