SMS, There it Is.

Joseph Laszlo | January 16, 2003, 05:25 PM

I've been quipping for a while that we'd be able to tell SMS had hit the US mainstream when you could vote in a reality series via the channel.

Sure enough viewers of the new go-round of Fox's American Idol will be able to cast votes for the next singing sensation via AT&T Wireless's SMS service.

What's missing here? Oh, yeah, Verizon, T-Mobile, Cingular, and Nextel (and SprintPCS, if only they had SMS). AT&T gets to do this because it's a sponsor of the series, and created a special short code (an abbreviated number to send an SMS to) that will work only on AT&T phones. Still it's a step, and what differentiates one carrier this go-round may quickly become a standard way of interacting with the tube by the next (God forbid) iteration of the show. By then we really may see SMS usage in the States begin to converge with usage levels in Western Europe [Jupiter European mobile messaging forecasts]

On a related note, my favorite irony of the day is the Superbowl, featuring the AT&T Wireless Halftime Show at Qualcomm Stadium. It's funny, trust me. At least if you're a wireless geek.