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SOCIETY AND TRENDS: SMS
SMS Becomes Lifeline
Romantic
rendezvous can also be fixed when one is in a classroom-an advantage students
have been quick to discover. As Raj Barua, 24, studying in Delhi University,
points out: "It gives you the freedom to fix up dates more easily."
Or buy CDs more easily. Lakshmi Iyer is studying in Glasgow. When her
fiancee went to buy classical music CDs but wasn't sure what to get, she
took him through the process of choosing the ragas in real time.
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ASEEM MERCHANT, MODEL
SMS
is a handy tool for flirting and romance, he says. He uses it to
send "sweet, poetic messages to melt a woman's heart".
R
U OK? (Are you okay?)
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"SMS is my lifeline," says Delhi-based
designer Vandana Mehta, "but it can be very addictive." She
got hooked to the messaging bug because of a her friend Amit who is in
the US-they wanted dearly to keep in touch, and SMS was "the only
way ... it's almost like being there." Now she finds herself messaging
whenever she is free. She even accesses her e-mail from her phone. "I
don't have a computer," she says, "so I use SMS." One side
effect of this could be a squint: "Friends say I'm always staring
cross-eyed at the mobile phone."
The marketing strategy that hooks users is simple.
SMS usually begins as a cheaply priced "value added service"
in markets across the world. It provides only 1-2 per cent of the total
revenue at the outset. As the number of users and messaging frequency
increases, prices are hiked marginally, but not enough to be a disincentive
to users. SMS' share of total revenue invariably goes up. Eventually it
can reach a figure as high as 30 per cent as it has in the case of a leading
service provider in the Philippines. Indian operators are already dreaming
of figures in the vicinity of 15 per cent.
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VANDANA MEHTA, DESIGNER
Says
SMS is her lifeline, but an addictive one. She uses the service
to keep in touch with a friend in the US and to check e-mail.
UTLKIN2ME?
(You talking to me?)
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By the time things come to such a pass a lot
of the messages have become what they are on the Internet. SMS, for better
or worse, supports forwards. The jokes and advertisements you dread-and
love-can blink surreptitiously at midnight on the screen of your cell
phone. They don't have to be sent from a mobile phone; it is possible
to message cell phones from computers. Maria Rego, 24, is a copy writer
who uses websites like mtnsms.com and airtelworld.com to contact friends
on their phones. There is a hitch: anyone wanting to reply from phone
to computer must pay Rs 1-10 for a call within India.
The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM)
wireless networks carried 15 billion SMS messages in December 2000. By
December this year the SMS volume is expected to reach the 25 billion
per month mark-and the number of messages double on occasions like New
Year's Day. Over 15 lakh Indians are already hooked on it, and concensus
is growing that SMS is a GR8 way 2 communica8. And yes, BD spllng wrks.
The emoticons (word icons representing emotions) the service providers
resemble right now are the happy ones called smileys :-).
-with Anshul
Avijit, Labonita Ghosh, Stephen David and Samrat Choudhury
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