on sms

M/C Journal – Text

1Mobile

An article about sms.

Some extract:

Mobile phones are one of the fastest growing technologies ever, outstripping even the internet in many respects.
…0ne of the reasons for this is mobility itself: the ability for people to talk on the phone wherever they are.
…In this article, I wish to consider another important and so far also under-theorised aspect of mobile phones: text. Of contemporary textual and semiotic systems, mobile text is only a recent addition. Yet it is already produces millions of inscriptions each day, and promises to be of far-reaching significance.
…Txt msg ws an aciddent. no 1 expcted it. Whn the 1st txt msg ws sent, in 1993 by Nokia eng stdnt Riku Pihkonen, the telcom cpnies thought it ws nt important. SMS – Short Message Service – ws nt considrd a majr pt of GSM. Like mny teks, the *pwr* of txt — indeed, the *pwr* of the fon — wz discvrd by users. In the case of txt mssng, the usrs were the yng or poor in the W and E. (Agar 105)
…SMS was built into the European Global System for Mobile (GSM) standard as an insignificant, additional capability.
…Television broadcasters are also interested in the capability to send video clips of favourite programs to viewers. (why not the other way around? Noce’s note on possibiities about tv-mobile hybrid format)