SMS is very much the "in thing" at the moment, if the number of Web sites offering the service free of charge is anything to go by. There are a number of operators in this field, and most of them target the consumer market almost exclusively.
Personally, I`ve never tried to get rich quick through SMS - I have a feeling it may be more trouble than it`s worth.
Basheera Khan, Journalist, ITWeb
All well and good, considering that pertinent messages can be communicated in 160 characters. This presents a substantial cost saving to cellphone users who like me are very mindful of the phone bill steadily increasing with each passing minute of a conversation. It`s no surprise then that the entrepreneurial types spotted the gap in the market and began offering free SMS from various Web sites.
But as we all know, there is very little in the world that is free. At any rate, something classified as free costs someone, somewhere, up or down the value chain a great deal of money.
Cost sense
In the cases of Vodacom and MTN, offering free SMS via Web makes perfect cost sense. The chances of an SMS recipient responding via SMS directly from his or her handset, or by an actual voice call, are very high - high enough to make up several times over the cost to the company of free SMS.
Selling discounted SMS in batches to other Web sites was a stroke of equal genius. What better way to promote brand value of the Web sites while simultaneously boosting use of the individual GSM networks?
But of course, with communication comes marketing, and with that, the evils of spam. There are a number of companies cottoning on to the idea of a sort of mass direct marketing targeted specifically at cellphone users. There is arguably no way to get closer to the consumer -- unless of course you print promotional messages on toilet paper.
The question then is whether consumers want to be touched in that manner - SMS, I mean. To be honest, the only valuable business-related SMS I receive are the ones I`ve actually registered to receive. The other crap that gets funneled into my in-box serves only as a source of irritation, and is erased immediately.
The only effect it has is to make me constantly aware that Truworths has sales which I am never interested in, and that my medical aid has taken care of my medical bills - often so long after I`ve been to the doctor that I`ve actually forgotten I had been ill in the first place. Of course, that`s another story altogether.
Disdainful nuisance
SMS as a communications medium is invaluable. Companies operating in highly service-oriented environments use it as an essential tool in ensuring that service levels never drop - and that if they do, enough people know about it to rectify the situation within an acceptable time.
SMS as a money-making opportunity when one agrees to receive a certain number of messages a month for a small fee is a nuisance and should be treated with the same amount of disdain as any other pyramid scam, er, scheme designed to push often useless information where it`s generally not wanted. Personally, I`ve never tried to get rich quick through SMS - I have a feeling it may be more trouble than it`s worth.
While the Direct Marketing Association appears to be addressing the issue, there is no saying how long it will be before an industry accepted standard of behaviour becomes the norm. The fact that spam continues to plague e-mail, despite many industry bodies established to combat it, doesn`t bode well for a spam-free SMS future.
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