OMG, US txtng brks rcrd
Ready for some truly staggering figures? VeriSign has reported that it delivered some 95.4 billion text messages between US carriers in the first six months of the year, setting a new record. Single-day and single-hour records were also set in the same period -- 648 million and 42 million, respectively -- proving that Americans are finally warming up en masse to text messaging as a totally valid means of communicating, probably thanks in no small part to the proliferation of devices like the enV2, Rumor, and Blitz. If you can call the complete bastardization of the English language used during texting "communicating," that is.
Filed under: Messaging
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
dramamoose @ Aug 28th 2008 11:56AM
I don't know whether to be excited about this news, or whether I should be seeing this as a sign of the coming Apocalypse.
That's what... 318 text messages per American?
Wow.
orangecat @ Aug 30th 2008 2:54PM
yeah I get about 300 or so texts a month
Jason @ Aug 28th 2008 12:51PM
I bet this was accomplished with the mass Obama txt message telling people who his running mate was.
jrk @ Aug 28th 2008 3:03PM
yeah, cos that totally happened 'in the first six months of the year'.....
Montusama @ Aug 28th 2008 1:25PM
Well I average about a 1000 txt messages a month but I try not to do short-cut spelling as it drives me crazy
unwizard @ Aug 28th 2008 1:49PM
95.4 billion texts / 250 million cell phone users = 382 texts per user in 6 months = 64 texts per user per month, or ~2 per day. 2 texts per day is hardly anything. I send a message, I get a reply, done texting for the day. Will someone think of the kids and the hundreds of texts they send per day.
Think of IM and how many hundreds of messages sent and received in a single conversation. Move this to a phone and you can see that it isn't all that much.
Iain @ Aug 28th 2008 3:09PM
Er, not quite - your figures say 2 texts sent per phone user per day, so the one you receive doesn't count towards your total.
unwizard @ Aug 28th 2008 4:21PM
You're correct Iain. It should be each cell phone user sends 2 texts per day.
This is still really low. I would hardly say "Americans are finally warming up en masse to text messaging as a totally valid means of communicating." The breakdown of figures was to show that while 95.4 billion is very large in volume, when shown how low in volume it is per user, it still shows there is along way to go before text messaging en masse is used for having conversations.
Iain @ Aug 28th 2008 5:24PM
It's a start though - and once your crappy carriers get their heads out their arses and stop charging you to receive texts, I think it'll really take off.
Jeremy K. @ Aug 28th 2008 2:08PM
Man, when will they make texting cheaper, i.e. free with a regular plan, or just call it 1 minute or something?
Kevin @ Aug 28th 2008 5:09PM
And note, this isn't even ALL text messages. This is just the messages that go between carriers. From the actual article:
"said it delivered 95.4 billion inter-carrier text messages in the first half of 2008"
No telling how many more messages internal to VZW or ATT went uncounted.
Michael S @ Aug 28th 2008 5:45PM
I believe there are also other intercarrier text messaging providers (Sybase 365). I wonder how many intercarrier messages they handled during that period of time.
Jason White @ Aug 28th 2008 5:17PM
Most people I know, and myself, use full grammar and punctuation in their text messages.
freekfone @ Aug 28th 2008 11:40PM
I love the S45i!
ShadowDrake @ Aug 29th 2008 12:29AM
I use full sentences in my texts, as do all of my friends. We all have unlimited texting, and lately, feel as if we have contributed greatly to that number. My birthday was recent, and through the day I got my normal batch of texts (I average 600-700 incoming per month), and that night my friends decided to text bomb me, I must have recieved over 800 in the span of an hour.
Last month I sent a touch over 3000, recieved the same (busy month!), but that isn't typical. Combine that with regular spam bombs of 200-300+ texts outgoing from me and others of my friends, its very easy to see how such a number is possible.
Jason @ Aug 29th 2008 12:33AM
Forgot to add, I have Helio (Sprint).
Most of my friends have Verizon. One has AT&T (iPhone, such an outcast!).
Someone I text a lot has Sprint. I'm not sure if they count whenever I text her as Helio is a Sprint MVNO...