Is texting obsolete?

[trendie]

Recently upgraded my phone.
Part of the package is deciding how many texts per month you want on the bundle.

Got me thinking. What with instant-messengers and what-not, isn't texting essentially obsolete with smart-phones?

What advantages are there for texting over IMs?
The only advantage I can see is if the person you're texting is a one-off, and you are unsure of that persons IM platform.

How many of you still text with friends and business friends?

How many have you moved onto IMs for friends and business?

Which IM platforms do you use?

thanks

 

[Jack o'Clubs]

Yes, it's obsolete. Have a look at the KPN share price and correlate with news on SMS cannibalisation. A big problem for the telcos when SMS is north of 10pc of revenues and 90pc margin...

I use Blackberry Messenger, but then Blackberry likely to be obsolete soon too....

 

[brewski1984]

I still use texts a lot. I have all the IM ones, the IPhone messenger, msn kik etc but still send text mainly.

 

[wackypete2]

At the height of my texting mania I think I sent about 3 per month on average. I don't respond to texts except from my family and sometimes not then either. A 2 minute phone conversation take 15 minutes of texting. The only way I'd get a smart phone is when they no longer offer the cheap cell phone(s) I use. I simply don't feel the urge to be doing something I don't need to on a cell phone.

Peter

 

[piggybridges]

I still text. I only buy fairly cheap phones 'cos I cant be trusted with expensive ones, as has been proven multiple times in the past.
I don't even know how instant messaging works on these new fancy phones, lol. I take it it's not free to do??

 

[neil]

I got my Vodaphone for a tenner (splashed out and also bought my wife one):innocent:
I rarely text-preferring to phone. My phone only makes/receives calls or creates/receives texts. So, no camera, navigator, games, etc.
Use Skype to speak to my sons (means I can also see live picture of grandson).
Amazes me how many people wander about, or even whilst in the classroom, stare at or fidget with their mobiles, play games or become victims of advertising looking at latest fads like games, porn or idle gossip. Surprisingly no one has yet been born with a phone incorporated in their ear
But it is amusing, when on the bus, to listen to a group of Chavs engage in inane and pointless chatter postering with another, distant, group of like minded ("mind" used loosely here) chavs. :cheesy:
Having said that, I have an elderly sister who has a mobile phone but never switches it on unless she wants to make a call. Amusingly she complains that no-one rings her mobile.:whistling
Wicked as I am, I often leave messages on her mobile answerphone specifically stating the date and time I called
In short the mobile phone marketing aim is to convince you that you have a need for the apps. on a phone; that you cannot live without it. It's all about creating a need. It must work because people change phones as the fashion (brainwashed)conscious change clothes - and fashion is only what a marketeer decides you should have -aspirational need.
Well, you can see I have time on my hands. The sun is out so I shall switch off the computer and go for a nice walk in the countryside but will take my phone with me since even I have an irrational need to keep the thing with me (well-maybe someone will ring me regarding a sure fire way of making ten pips a day or wants to sell their system because a voice told them to share their Midas gift)