With some two billion SMS messages sent every day, one can safely say that messaging has become both an everyday feature of our lives and a burgeoning business. However, the future direction of mobile messaging is anything but clear.
In Europe and Asia, where consumers focus more on cell phones than PCs, SMS messaging has become a natural method of instant communication between friends and colleagues. By contrast, in the United States, e-mail and Instant Messaging (IM) are the communication methods of choice. In the business community, e-mail has been extended to mobile environments through Blackberry and other mobile e-mail devices.
Leading Instant Messaging service providers including Yahoo, AOL and MSN have introduced IM to mobile phones. In this way, IM is set to bridge the PC world and mobile telephony.
Zero tolerance for glitches
Multimedia and camera phones have made a strong entrance in the last year, and the penetration pace has exceeded earlier estimates of many analysts. However P2P (person-to- person) messaging -- such as sending pictures or other MMS messages -- has been slow to catch on. The main activity covers A2P (application-to-person) and P2A messaging, where content (such as screensavers and ringtones) have attracted more interest. Users are clearly still hesitant to send pictures to each other; perhaps the conclusion is that they haven’t found the application valuable enough. Reasons for slow pick-up for P2P picture messaging are not clear, but might include problems with ease of use, reliability and quality of service. In the US, the first barrier may have come from unreliable services that resulted in lost messages – proving, once again, that consumers expect complete reliability from their mobile phone services. However, operators are still investing in and hoping for growth in this segment, as exemplified by US-based Cingular Wireless, which recently signed a large deal with Mobile 365 for MMS interoperability and delivery services.
It is clear that the applications or services that bring the most value for end users are the ones that will be the most successful. The list of potentially valuable applications for mobile messaging is endless, ranging from eBay bidding updates to calendar reminders. In order to speed up the P2P MMS messaging between people, more innovative concepts and packaging need to be created. Irrespective of the application, the key to success will be the ability to make messaging ubiquitous, highly reliable and easy to use.
The prime area for market growth and new applications in mobile messaging lies in so-called PTX (Push to X) applications where voice and data can be seamlessly integrated, and where both features are fully controlled by the user (both the sender and receiver terminals are intelligent and sensitive) The first instance of this is Push-to-Talk (PTT), which allows you to connect with someone on your "buddy list" instantaneously, without having to dial, wait for the call to connect, and then be answered. PTT allows you to open a voice channel to your party with the single push of a button.
Using the same paradigm, a subscriber will be able to send a voice, picture, video (or basically any kind of data) message instantaneously, without having to go through laborious menus or keypad sequences. At the same time, a subscriber will be able to manage what to receive, when and from whom. For example, during a meeting a user might accept calls from his or her family and manager, but restrict reception to text messages from others.
The key to the success of new mobile messaging applications is for messages to be instantaneous and absolutely reliable -- unlike current e-mail or SMS services that still occasionally result in messages being delivered minutes (or even hours) later. As a result, it seems likely that PTX will only come to full fruition in next-generation networks based on Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) technology, where the subscriber’s phone number and e-mail address can remain the same.
On the device side, there is still plenty of opportunity for innovation. The instantaneous and multimodal messaging paradigm is not ideally suited to either current mobile phones or to Blackberry devices, so the stage is set for the next generation of mobile products.
In fact, new, innovative devices may be the catalyst needed for PTX services to take off. A prime example is the effect that the Apple iPod has had on music downloading. A previously established service took a step function up in volume and became a legitimate business through the introduction of a device that combined existing features with an innovative service.
