Jill posted a sort of perplexing message on her blog about going to the US and her confusion over SMS. The message itself sounded more like a crusade than confusion even - she imagined she wil arrive here and confuse everyone by incessantly SMSing them. I think not. While most American's rarely use SMS for anything, many do know what it is. her SMS's though, will cost people that receive them, will make that cost in ddition to the calling plans which they perceive as free, will probably most ly amuse them until they see the bill... I am curious how this will pan out. Posted a comment there...
Ah... sms :) I live in America but travel i Europe extensively. Ever since I found out about renting mobiles there, I've been hooked on SMS (waaaay cheaper and quicker, you don't hve to spend time on niceties unlike when you call, you can just get to the point and get what you need). Unfortunately MOST of the time I live in the US... So I got curious why SMS wasn't so popular here. Here is why:
1. Ability to send SMS between carriers (as in Verizon to AT&T to T-Mobile) has only been implemented about 1.5 years ago. Yep, until then, you couldn't send messages to anyone who wasn't with the same provider and how often do you actually ask your friends - hey, which cell phone provider do you use? - since calling doesn't pose such problems. In fact, Sprint customers still can not send SMS (well they can, but its an extremely difficult and annoying setup) or receive them, at least from Verizon customers (trust me, I've tried many times over the last few years).
2. Some of the older and/or cheaper phones that come for free with calling plans have very limited SMS capability (as in, some people can see SMS but can't tell who they are from or how to respond to them). I used to hve that problem until I got a new phone a year ago. It was really annoying, especially since I was assured I had SMS ability when I got my old phone. Well yes, I could receive them... but it was sort of useless.
3. SMS makes using a cell phone simply more expensive. Most providers do not give free SMS and they charge for incoming messages (albeit a nominal about of 2 cents, but still). You can buy a plan now, but the advertisement is only now catching up with availability of the service. To be fair, teen SMS use in the US is on the rise so I suspect adults will follow suit soon. It would take Sprint and Nextel to make SMS use simpler though (most of Manhattan uses Sprint for example).
4. Cars. When is European downtime? Transit. People send SMS in trains, subways, at bus stops, on the bus, etc. Unless you are in one of the very few metropolitan centers in the US, YOUR transit time is YOU driving. SMS while driving? please don't... Although, guilty as charged, I have sent SMS while driving... Its very difficult, takes time, the phones are not very well set up for this and it IS dangerous.
So maybe screaming out - "its culture!" - is a little too nearsighted in this case. Yes much of this is culture, but at a much deeper level than - oh they just don't know how to use it. Some of it is very much a technology barrier still, and some is rooted in fundamental structural differences both in economic and cultural make up of the two sides of the Atlantic and the two sides of the Pacific. People, whom I have introduced to text messaging though, love it. So who knows, maybe Americans will catch up.
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