SMS Apps
Mobile Computing
Unless otherwise stated, images are from android sdk
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012
Change of the decade
Ten years ago mobile was for phone calls
Now mainly used for SMS
Growing percentage use mobile
mainly for SMS and not voice
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012
SMS more profitable than apps
For 2010:
SMS represent 40% of all data traffic revenues
SMS + MMS represent over 50% of
data traffic revenues
Apps covered 0.3% of data revenue
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012
More mobiles use SMS than
Internet
4 billion active SMS accounts in 2010, over
half world’s population
1.8 billion active Internet accounts, and not
all use email
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012
SMS applications should not be
overlooked
Cheaper and faster to develop than GUI apps
Available to all handsets for wider usage
Faster to market for specific events
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012
First SMS app in 1995
• Finnish bank sent text alerts for balances,
then Philippines had full banking SMS
apps several years later
• 1996 Finnish newspaper offered headlines
via SMS
• 1998 Finnish SMS vending machines
available, and ‘premium’ app with ringtone
sales
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012
SMS advertising is pervasive
• 74% of mobile subscribers in India receive
SMS advertising
• 66% of all messages sent in India are
premium: content, advertising, or votes for
reality TV, etc
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012
SMS will wake you up
• Only SMS will wake you for emergency,
ok, email to mobile will too
• SMS reach larger
• Most people sleep with mobile next to
them – use as alarm, etc
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012
There are wide variety of SMS
apps
• Notify customers that meal, prescription,
etc is available for collection
• Medical, dentist, etc appointment
reminders to prevent no-shows
• Order prescription refills, meals, special
offers – Hilton Hotels even do this
• Also use SMS to drive traffic to mobile
sites and increase customer sales
http://www.textsmsmarketing.com/sms-text-marketing-case-studies.php
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012
Also other usual contests, etc
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SMS voting contests
Send photo to win prizes contests
Communicate with call centres via SMS
Query and reserve products via SMS
Scheduled SMS sending to coordinate
with other actions for business and
students
• Many more too
http://www.spotlightideas.co.uk/?p=4582
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012
SMS apps reach many people
• SMS is reliable and can be sent any time
• Supported by ALL mobile phones – can
reach about 50% of population, ie 3.5 bn
• Supports reverse billing – thus customer
pays for receiving new ringtone, etc that is
sent from you to them
http://www.developershome.com/sms/
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012
Mobile banking developed most
in developing markets
• Right were banking didn’t have vested
interests in established practices (leapfrog)
• WAP experiments in 90s not go anywhere
• Czech Republic and S Africa – SMS alert
when money being withdrawn from ATM –
then nationally in Philippines
• Phone wallets in Japan in early 2000s
• Still developed catching up with developing
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012
SMS saves long walks
Remote control water pump stations for
farmers http://www.nanoganesh.com/
A farmer can control the pumps from any distance.
He can check an availability of power supply at the pump end.
He can acknowledge the on / off status of the water pump.
In some models, a farmer gets an alert call if there is a theft attempt
of the cable or
pump.
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012
SMS apps can be easy to build
• The components are free to set up and
develop
• SMPPsim for simulating SMS center and
responses http://www.seleniumsoftware.com/downloads.html
• Use SMPP API for communicating with
SMS center http://smppapi.sourceforge.net/
• http://www.kannel.org/ provides an SMS
gateway for WAP and SMS apps
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012
SMS to database queries
http://www.mobiledatanow.com/product
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012
Gather data via SMS or forms
http://www.frontlinesms.com/
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012
Crowdsource your news
http://ushahidi.com/
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012
Amazon Web Services now
provide SMS service too
Use AWS Simple Notification Service to
integrate SMS into cloud hosted applications
Inexpensive, and 100 SMS free each month
http://aws.amazon.com/sns/
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012
Some examples are online
• Developers Home provides details about
SMS and low level tutorial
http://www.developershome.com/sms/
• O’Reilly have Java tutorial too
http://tim.oreilly.com/pub/a/onjava/2004/06/09/sms.html?page=1
• http://www.esendex.co.uk/ provide API to run
SMS apps – free developer period
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012
Jana offers reach to 3.48 billion
http://jana.com/marketing/
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012
Jana outsources work to everyone
• Break work into useful chunks anyone can
do via text
• SMS surveys with airtime compensation
• Train workers so know reliability
http://jana.com/
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012
Deconstruct tasks for greater
speed and security
Old background technology
Old link: http://txteagle.com/?q=technology
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012
Txteagle changes lives
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBsLAecq6Jw -short version – 6 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ivz2foChQYU -long version – 40 minutes
http://txteagle.com/?q=workforce/geographies
Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012