Comment: Re:Text messaging (Score 1) 208
Much fewer people have my cell phone number than my e-mail. I don't check e-mail that often and I don't hear (and wouldn't want to hear) a "beep" each time when a new one is received. Also, I don't answer all e-mails, sometimes I don't even read too long ones - and most importantly - significant portion of my e-mail traffic is not personal or not directly addressed (just CC'd) to me.
SMSes, OTOH, come from real people in 99+% of cases (SMS spam is rarer in Europe than in US I believe), is directly addressed to me and requires immediate action. They are also short enough to be readable, and I get less than thousand SMSes per year, compared to roughly thousand e-mails per month.
E-mail isn't a good substitute for an SMS. Maybe IM would be better one, but IM market is heterogenous (and I appreciate it), so e.g. I have to use ICQ for Russian friends, Gadu-Gadu for Polish friends, Google Talk/Jabber for German friends and AIM/MSN for American ones.
You cannot actually replace SMS with any other existing service without losing some of its advantages.
SMSes, OTOH, come from real people in 99+% of cases (SMS spam is rarer in Europe than in US I believe), is directly addressed to me and requires immediate action. They are also short enough to be readable, and I get less than thousand SMSes per year, compared to roughly thousand e-mails per month.
E-mail isn't a good substitute for an SMS. Maybe IM would be better one, but IM market is heterogenous (and I appreciate it), so e.g. I have to use ICQ for Russian friends, Gadu-Gadu for Polish friends, Google Talk/Jabber for German friends and AIM/MSN for American ones.
You cannot actually replace SMS with any other existing service without losing some of its advantages.