SMS is so ubiquitous these days, it's hard to imagine that the first message was only sent 15 years ago.
On 3rd December 1992 a young engineer at Airwide Solutions, Neil Papworth sent the world's first ever commercial text message to Vodafone Director Richard Jarvis at a staff Christmas party. It took a while before the txting language and smileys caught on though. The first message simply said: 'Happy Christmas'.
It was intended originally as a pager service, so it was some years before users discovered they could send SMS to each other.
What's Made SMS so successful?
Four main factors have been identified:
1. Every phone has SMS - installed and working and nothing is required of the user to activate it.
2. Interoperability - users do not need to know what network the other person is on.
3. Utility and ease of use - SMS certainly has utility and can in many cases convey a message better than a voice call and while not perhaps the easiest it is easy enough to use.
4. Affordability - it is cheaper than making a phone call
There is a fifth factor that I would add to that is brevity. The fact that an SMS is only 160 characters means that users open and reply to them quickly. An email can be of unlimited length and for many the process is delayed until a suitable moment. SMS elicits far quicker resonpses.
It has now moved beyond peer to peer messaging, with bulk messages system such as txt4ever offering a complete business and marketing tool.
