Idolizing AT&T Wireless<< VERY Personal Technology | Main | All Wired Up And No PlayStation To Go >> Joseph Laszlo | April 17, 2003, 02:14 PM AT&T Wireless has announced that it's hit over a million SMS votes in its promotion of text messaging on Fox's "American Idol." I've observed, and AWS agrees, that this sort of pop culture phenomenon is a great way to boost awareness of the technology. Cingular's followed suit with a promotion on ABC's "All American Girl," too. A million votes via SMS is great. But it also underscores how much further SMS has to go. "Idol" has gotten quite decent ratings yet again. About 12m households tune in for each episode, and there have been a little over 20 of them since voting began. So assuming very conservatively that there's only one viewer per household, there have been roughly speaking 240m potential votes in the course of the show. Of which 1m have been by SMS. Whether that's a big number or a small number, it is great that AT&T's research suggests that 1/3 of those voters are using SMS for the first time. The next milestone to watch for will be the major media event that accepts SMS interaction from anyone, regardless which wireless carrier they happen to use. If the industry can get itself together and offer cross-carrier shortcodes [Verizon press release], it'll happen in time for the end of summer reruns. |
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