New message systems on the cheap for users
By Larry Magid, Digital Crossroads
Last week text messaging celebrated its 20th anniversary. It
was on Dec. 3, 1992, that British engineer Neil Papworth said “Merry Christmas”
to a Vodaphone employee via SMS (short message service).
Now, “texting” is the preferred method of communications for
a great many people, especially teens who, according to Pew Research Center,
prefer text messaging to all other forms of communications But recent data
suggest that text messaging may have peaked. In Sweden, where text messaging
has long been popular among adults as well as teens, the number of messages has
declined during the first half of 2012 from 9.2 billion to 8.1 billion. There
are similar declines in the United States and the United Kingdom.
In its place, people are using alternative messaging systems,
including services like Kik and WhatsApp that use the Internet instead of the
carriers’ SMS systems. With these services, users avoid having to pay carrier
text messaging fees and have a wider choice of devices, including tablets, the
iPod touch and — in some cases — PCs. Google’s free Google Voice service allows
you to send and receive text messages via the Web or through a smartphone app
using your phone’s data plan instead of via the SMS system.
Last week Facebook jumped on the SMS bandwagon with a new
Android app that will initially be available only in India, Argentina,
Australia, Indonesia, South Africa and Venezuela. Facebook’s new Messenger app
lets users send messages to friends via SMS for free through their data plan
whether or not the friend is using the app and even if their friends don’t have
a smartphone. An old-fashioned “feature phone” will do.
What’s particularly interesting about this new product is
that users don’t need a Facebook account. You don’t even need an email address.
Instead, you can sign up with a phone number. This is an
important point for many people in the developing world who have phones but no
access to a computer. And the service dovetails nicely with another Facebook
product, “Facebook for Every Phone,” that the company rolled out last summer.
That app, which works with more than 2,500 feature phones, allows users to
access their friends’ News Feed, their Inbox and even to view and share photos
and find friends from their phone’s contacts.
Facebook, which already has more than a billion users
worldwide, is anxious to expand its reach even further. When I was in Kenya
last year, I learned that people in that country can access Facebook from their
mobile devices without having to pay data charges. Most Kenyans have pay as you
go plans that require them to pay for data by the megabyte, so being able to
“reverse the charges” when it comes to data enables them to participate in what
would otherwise be a cost-prohibitive service.
The roll out of this messenger product is part of Facebook’s
commitment to mobile. In its third quarter earnings release in October,
Facebook disclosed that 604 million “monthly active users” were accessing the
service via mobile devices, a 61 percent increase over the previous year. About
14 percent of Facebook’s third quarter income (about $150 million) came from
mobile.
The company recently revamped its iOS and Android apps, and
just last week unveiled a new photo sync service that automatically uploads
photos from a smartphone to a private holding area that users can access via
the Web. The service is off by default, but once you enable it in the app, any
photo you take via the Facebook app (plus the last 20, you’ve already taken) is
automatically synchronized to your account.
But don’t worry about accidentally posting embarrassing
photos. Even though the photos are synced, they are invisible to all but
yourself until you decide to share them. If you do share them, you can select
the audience, which can range from the “public” to friends of friend, friends
only, specific friends or lists or even “only me.”
Despite these safeguards, some privacy advocates worry that
it will vastly increase Facebook’s access to photos of users and their friends,
which often contain location information.
There are also concerns that Facebook could use facial
recognition technology to identify people in the pictures, even if users don’t
tag them with the names of their friends. Facebook has policies in place to
safeguard this data, but there is always the possibility it can be misused in
the future either by the company, by governments or by hackers.
Given the vast amounts of other information stored about us
by banks, insurance companies, airlines, phone companies, governments and other
institutions, I’m not especially concerned about this. But it’s one more aspect
of “big data” that consumers and policy-makers need to think about as we move
forward.
Disclosure: Larry Magid is co-director ConnectSafely.org , a
nonprofit Internet safety organization that receives financial support from
Facebook. Contact Larry Magid at larry@larrymagid.com
Listen for his
technology chats on KCBS-AM (740) weekdays at 3:50 p.m.
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