Voice SMS boosts usage massively
Rating: no hiding place
By Annie Turner
Whichever way you look at SMS, it was an unlikely success story. It’s more expensive per litre than Chanel (or am I getting that mixed up with HP printer cartridge ink?), anyway, it’s the same principle. Plus it’s hell to use and has inspired a whole new type of illiteracy, as no doubt will be illustrated entertainingly later this week when the GCSE results are published (that’s O levels in old money – exams kids take at 16 before they finish the obligatory bit of their schooling in the UK).
Operators that have deployed BubbleTALK voice SMS services from Bubble Motion, are seeing massive usage from their customers according to the company. Some users are sending thousands of voice texts each month, the record so far being 3201 in a month. Also according to the company, many consumers have started to use BubbleTALK as their main form of communication: the top five users racked up at least 67 Voice SMS messages every day, or 2000+ messages per month. Even the 50th top user sent 1200 Bubble messages a month.
Part of the attraction for customers is the ability to include more emotional content in a short message than other messaging services and it has also proven popular with those whose first language is not supported by text entry on a phone keypad. The BubbleTALK implementation at Vodafone Egypt was also recently named as being one of the top ten non-voice revenue-generators by telecoms analyst group Analysys. It’s also deployed in Airtel in India, Digi in Malaysia, Indosat in Indonesia, CSL and New World Mobility in Hong Kong.
It’s like this. I’d like to be able to use it because it’s convenient, but I’m not sure I want people I communicate with frequently to use it because they are bad enough already with the old sort of SMS, which took time and effort, and god help us all if public relations companies get hold of it – we’ll have to emigrate. But where to? It can be used anywhere. There’s no hiding place. ARRGGH.
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