Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012

SMS AppsMobile Computing

Unless otherwise stated, images are from android sdk

Change of the decade

Ten years ago mobile was for phone calls

Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012

Now mainly used for SMS

Growing percentage use mobile mainly for SMS and not voice

SMS more profitable than apps

SMS represent 40% of all data traffic revenues

Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012

SMS + MMS represent over 50% of data traffic revenues

Apps covered 0.3% of data revenue

For 2010:

More mobiles use SMS than Internet

4 billion active SMS accounts in 2010, over half world’s population

Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012

1.8 billion active Internet accounts, and not all use email

SMS applications should not be overlooked

Cheaper and faster to develop than GUI apps

Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012

Available to all handsets for wider usage

Faster to market for specific events

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

Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012

http://www.textsmsmarketing.com/sms-text-marketing-case-studies.php

Also other usual contests, etc

• 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

Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012

http://www.spotlightideas.co.uk/?p=4582

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

Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012

http://www.developershome.com/sms/

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/

Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012

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.

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

Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012

http://www.mobiledatanow.com/product

Gather data via SMS or forms

Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012http://www.frontlinesms.com/

Crowdsource your news

Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012http://ushahidi.com/

Amazon Web Services now provide SMS service too

Use AWS Simple Notification Service to integrate SMS into cloud hosted applications

Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012

http://aws.amazon.com/sns/

Inexpensive, and 100 SMS free each month

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

Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012

http://jana.com/marketing/

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

Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012http://jana.com/

Deconstruct tasks for greater speed and security

Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012Old link: http://txteagle.com/?q=technology

Old background technology

Txteagle changes lives

Bruce Scharlau, University of Aberdeen, 2012

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