The new Google Hangouts brings together all of Google’s messaging services and will soon see SMS integration. So where does this leave Google Voice in the big picture? Read more »
According to analysts at Informa, IP-based platforms such as WhatsApp now carry more messages than SMS infrastructure does. However, we should be cautious about how we interpret the figures. Read more »
Expense management is crucial for companies who wish to install successful, safe BYOD programs. Here’s a look at the ways in which enterprises can monitor costs when it comes to their employees’ personal mobile devices. Read more »
The mobile platform wars heated up in a big way as 2012 came to a close. Among other trends, Microsoft launched Windows Phone 8, Android’s dominant market share grew, and mobile commerce reached record highs during the holidays. Read more »
The mobile-messaging value chain is changing as OTT players upend mobile operators’ SMS business. There will be 27.7 trillion messages by 2016, and most of the growth in traffic will come from IP-based services. Successful carriers will use this new technology to extend reliability and scalability. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Identity fraud, hanging chads, voter list purges: such analog issues don’t belong in the digital age. Ori Eisen of online security firm 41st Parameter says we can cure those ills and increase voter turnouts, too, by dragging our voting system into the 21st century. Read more »
Text messaging. It’s one of the few functions of a feature phone that graduated to today’s smartphones and continues to be used heavily by people all around the world. Now, in three African countries, it can even be used for Gmail at no extra charge. Read more »
Twilio, a cloud communication platform, is finally offering its most requested feature: global SMS support. Now, developers will be able to enable their apps and services to send and receive SMS text messages from the U.S. and Canada to more than 150 countries around the world. Read more »
MightyText has taken the beta wraps off of its over-the-top messaging service, which extends an Android phone’s SMS capabilities to PCs and tablets. Using the same phone number, a MightyText user can send and receive text messages from a PC or tablet browser. Read more »
In this busy new world of multiple social networks and recommendations tools, the discovery process itself is being disrupted by innovation and by the changing ways in which consumers now interact online. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The humble text message turned 20 years old this weekend, and other than an excuse for cake, the birthday is a great chance to look at how carriers innovate and why they are getting crushed by over the top services now that times have changed. Read more »
The rise of smartphones is bringing about massive changes in the mobile industry, according to data collected by researchers. Data revenues are moving on up and data usage is zooming at a time when voice and messaging sales have stalled for carriers. Read more »
Sybase 365, one of the largest providers of SMS and MMS messaging, is getting into the push notification business through a partnership with Urban Airship. Sybase 365 will be able to offer enterprise customers app-based push messaging that should help them continue to engage their consumers. Read more »
Smartphone sales surged both in the U.S. and worldwide, carriers struggled to cope with the ever-increasing consumption of mobile data, and the fight for spectrum remained front and center in the first quarter. Our latest quarterly wrap-up analyzes these trends and more. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
While carriers may fret about the impact of messaging apps like WhatsApp on SMS revenue, they should really be worried abvout the continued erosion of voice revenue as people talk less, message more and turn to IP services, even those within mobile apps. Read more »
Martin Geddes thinks the telecom industry has reached its peak. As he explains, telecom is like the railroad business at the height of the railroad barons. It has acquired its maximum share of the economy, and the only way now is down. Read more »
SMS is getting a facelift at Mobile World Congress. Mavenir Systems is launching a messaging platform that could turn carriers’ staid old SMS into a much more vibrant platform on par with Apple’s iMessage. But most importantly, the technology preserves SMS’s most valuable asset: its ubiquity. Read more »
Viber. WhatsApp. Google Voice. These services are alternative ways to send IMs or speak across mobile platforms and are challenging the mobile carriers at their own game. In the last year, these apps and more familiar services helped cut $13.9 billion in operator revenue. Read more »
It was only a matter of time before a major operator abandoned its territorial notions about mobile voice and adopted a true ‘softphone’ service, and that operator appears to be Rogers Communications. It’s severing the bond between the mobile phone number and the mobile phone. Read more »
Remember Crazy Frog? The bike-riding amphibian and his irritating, ubiquitous song symbolized the premium ringtone market a few years ago, before fading into obscurity. The frog has disappeared, but one startup thinks it has found a way to evolve the idea for the modern mobile user. Read more »
At the Super Bowl AT&T’s networks carried 215 GB of traffic, placed 74,204 phone calls and transmitted 722,296 SMS messages. AT&T reported no problems in handling the traffic and had, but in what is now becoming a common refrain, it used the event to lobby for more spectrum. Read more »
Much has been made of the mobile risks that Facebook laid out in its S-1 IPO filing earlier this week. Essentially, it’s seeing/pushing mass… Read more at paidContent »
This year’s CES was the biggest in the show’s 44-year history. It boasted 15 miles of exhibit hall aisles, 3,100 booths and 153,000 attendees. It is easy to be jaded by the endlessly repetitive products, but the thousands of innovations point toward a future of connectivity. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
When Free.fr launched its revolutionary new wireless service last week, it put French mobile operators on notice, and they have all responded. The problem is they’ve come nowhere near close to matching the deep data and voice discounts Free is offering. Read more »
IAC-owned video site Vimeo is going mobile in a big way, with the release of apps for Android, the Kindle Fire and Windows Phone marketplaces. Those new apps are designed to let users upload, share and view videos on their mobile devices. Read more »
Sandvine has some interesting New Year’s predictions about how tablets will intersect with the wacky world of mobile broadband. While new family data plans will encourage more consumers to connect their tablets to 3G and 4G networks, they will be awfully careful with their usage. Read more »
Operators may be using Wi-Fi to move data packets off of their 3G and 4G networks, but they could be shipping all kinds of mobile traffic via Wi-Fi. Kineto’s new smartphone software makes the world of Wi-Fi hotspots one big off-ramp for voice, SMS and MMS Read more »
Though most U.S. operators use Carrier IQ’s handset monitoring software in some form, they’re not all using it to the same degrees. Sprint turns out to be Carrier IQ’s biggest fan, installing its software on half of all devices while AT&T uses it much more sparingly. Read more »
Its 2011 LTE build goal already complete, AT&T is expanding the new super-high-speed network into more markets in the remaining days of the year, starting with New York City. AT&T’s CFO says the expansion is being driven by ever-increasing mobile broadband demand. Read more »
Twilio, a cloud communication platform powering a wide array of apps, is capping off a huge year of growth with $17 million in Series funding from existing investors Union Square Ventures and Bessemer Ventures. The new money will be used to continue Twilio’s worldwide expansion. Read more »
As more detail unfolds of companies swearing off any involvement with Carrier IQ (and some admitting using it for diagnostics) amid allegati… Read more at paidContent »
With 550,000 activations per day, and 200 million activations to-date, Android is fast shaping up to be the world’s biggest OS, but that gro… Read more at paidContent »
So a changing of the guard at mobile ad company 4INFO, which announced a funding round of $14 million just last month: Zaw Thet, the company… Read more at paidContent »
The carrier cash cow of SMS text messaging is on the wane, driven by third-party messaging apps that include BlackBerry Messenger, iMessage, Skype and others. So what will carriers do to replace it? Look for pricing changes and a focus on M2M. Read more »
More VC money getting invested into one more independent mobile ad network: 4INFO has raised $14 million in funding in a round led by Paul A… Read more at paidContent »
Normally, if you ask Siri to tweet for you, it’ll say it can’t help with Twitter. If you ask about Facebook, you’ll get even less of a response. However, using both these social networks’ SMS features, you can get Siri to update Twitter and Facebook indirectly. Read more »
Most of the entrepreneurial pitches this week at MIT’s Emtech 2011 focused on elevating high-tech for markets that are already pretty tech saturated. Folks talked about smart vehicular networks that will allow cars to share information. Two entrepreneurs went the other way. Read more »
Millions of people are embracing free mobile messaging services like WhatsApp and Kik as a way to avoid outrageous carrier charges for texti… Read more at paidContent »
Hundreds of millions of handset owners worldwide without data plans have a new way to access Facebook while mobile thanks to Gemalto. The Amsterdam-based company has a SIM card that uses SMS to provide Facebook access for Personal Argentina’s 17.4 million customers; no data plan required. Read more »
Facebook’s annual conference, F8, was pretty thin on mobile news, but a news item today demonstrates how it’s not far out of Facebook’s site… Read more at paidContent »
