More mobile messaging
Research firm M:Metrics says picture messaging is on the rise because more people own camera phones these days. Jupiter Research comments that ”the growth in MMS (multimedia message service) has still been very very slow compared to what mobile phone operators had hoped for” and that “a growth in uptake of camera phones has been fuelled by the fact that there are decreasingly small amounts of non-camera phones available in the market place” (via BBC News - Technology).
Well, I didn’t buy my phone because of the camera. But now that it is there, I have started to use it. For example when I ended up in the middle of a World Cup party.
Maybe new mobile software will help drive growth for multimedia messaging. The findings by M:Metrics should be an encouraging sign for software developers such as Toronto-based Ambient Vector who build new kinds of social networking offerings to be used with camera phones.
When I was in Europe in June I was surprised how much text and picture messaging is used by people of all ages. I have sent and received way more messages on my cell phone in those few weeks over there than in the last 18 months in Canada.
The roaming worked perfectly with my Fido phone for both voice communication and text messaging. But now that I am back in Canada, I get error messages (did my phone overdose on SMS in Europe?) Need to get that fixed.
