Happy bday txt msg! :D
ON DECEMBER 3rd 1992 a young Vodafone engineer wished his boss "Merry Christmas"
by SMS (short message service). This is widely regarded as the first ever text.
(Tapping out 07734 on a calculator, turning it upside down and handing it to
someone does not count.) Since then, texting has become a global phenomenon,
growing particularly rapidly in the early-noughties when America finally
embraced the medium and Chinese mobile subscriptions took off. According to
Portio Research, a market-research firm, 7.8 trillion text
messages were sent in 2011 and the number is expected to increase. The growth of
social networks in recent years such as Facebook and Twitter (based on the SMS
format) and services such as BlackBerry Messenger and WhatsApp (which offer free
or cheap texts) are seen to herald the death of SMS. Portio predicts a decline
in texting around 2016 as the mobile market reaches saturation and rival systems
become more popular. Yet for the moment, people's thumbs continue to peck at the
fingerpad to send texts, as the number of mobile subscribers worldwide continues
to grow.
