SMS Softwares & Tools
Latest advances in wireless telephony and development of SMS softwares have put a lot of new and innovative features in the hands of the mobile phone users. The demise of the once popular pager was mainly due to the fact that mobile phones offered free texting facility, which was restricted to other mobile phone owners. Pagers went out of circulation when people realized that it was easier to call up the person if he had a mobile phone. Text messaging really took off with the introduction of newly developed SMS software, which added audio, video, colour and music to the existing text messaging. Advanced software now enables sending of long messages, a relief from the severely truncated 150 –160 character message regime.
Today’s SMS message is a new generation product compared to that of just five years back. Because the software manufacturers have developed several different proprietary software for the new generation mobile phones. If we look back at the older models most of them were very heavy in weight and hence difficult to carry around and worked in fits and starts most of the time. There have been three generations of mobile phones using advanced technologies that enabled the mobile phones to become slimmer, lighter, more durable, more efficient and more importantly more user friendly and more useful. Mobile phones have plummeted in prices once the mass production models flooded the market. With the almost universal domination of mobile telephony all across the world, mobiles and SMS have become the common means of communication.
In this scenario, to cope with the growing demand as well as usage, companies have come up with platforms and service for marketers and media owners that enable setting up and running local, regional and national campaigns. The campaigns are part of many initiatives like competitions, voting, polling, chat, text to win and text to TV. The phenomenal response of the audience to these campaigns not only help popularize the medium, they provide a fillip to the manufacturers to come up with more and more new products. SMS software adaptations include delivery of coupons, coupon codes, rewards and prizes directly to consumers’ mobile phone and direct them to a nearby rewards point to redeem them.
One sweet and cute use of the medium is the provision of gift coupons through mobiles, enabling direct receipts and cost effective usage for easy redemption at select stores. SMS software also enables provision of mobile tickets for sports, pop concerts, theaters and movies as well as bar codes for fraud proof distribution.