Over the last few months, ChatGPT has dominated the AI headlines as well as mainstream headlines. As ChatGPT put it when I asked how it might play a role in the mobile industry: “As a language model developed by OpenAI, ChatGPT itself is not directly involved in the mobile industry. However, its technology and capabilities have the potential to contribute to the development of new applications and services in the mobile industry.” That said, I think ChatGPT (and Google’s Bard) may actually help enhance engagement through mobile devices. With Google Bard, consider that this could play a role in RCS-based chatbots, through an API to enhance interactions. Generative AI is getting very good; however, it does have limitations and I think the noisy hype will decline by the 2nd half of 2023, but also look for the beginning of some interesting integrations into useful applications through mobile apps and even messaging.
SMS
Consent in messaging is extremely important. But consent doesn’t just apply to political texting, but to also those who send business texts. More and more, carriers are requiring that any non-person-to-person texting requires explicit consent. This means business texting as well as political and non-profit.
SMS messaging has been going strong for nearly 30 years. Today, application to person (or A2P SMS) as well as person-to-person (or P2P SMS) enjoys a 98% open rate within the first few minutes of receipt. That’s what makes it so popular with businesses and end-users alike. Sadly this beloved reputation has led fraudsters to take advantage of SMS. They use it to send dishonest, abusive, and unwanted messages – messages that threaten to disrupt the clean and feature-rich capabilities of SMS we’ve all come to rely on.
Over the last decade, texting has become a key channel for political candidates, as well as PACs, committees, and other political organizations to reach constituents, voters, donors, volunteers and more. Now, more than ever, mobile messaging is playing a central role in spending campaign funds, as our economy is now, more than ever, mobile centric. The 2020 US presidential elections resulted in over 2.126 billion political text messages through 20 November 2020, per statistics from RoboKiller. And why not? With open rates around 95%, text messaging has always been a key channel for businesses and brands to reach consumers. Political campaigns and related organizations want to leverage this type of efficacy as much as possible.
Now the European Union recently announced a rule in the Digital Markets Act (DMA) to require messaging app developers to enable their apps to interoperate – that is, to make them work together. For example, if I’m a WhatsApp user, my message might be received by an iMessage user, if that user does not use WhatsApp. Additionally, if I’m an Android user with RCS, my message could be received by a Telegram user or even an iMessage user. There could be endless combinations.
As we’ve done for the past years, I am happy to offer my 2022 mobile industry predictions along with a somewhat objective (or subjective in that I wrote them!) assessment of the previous years’ projections for this dynamic industry. Here we are once again. This year will be my 15th consecutive year of predictions and assessments.
Text messaging through Short Message Service (SMS) is now ubiquitous and universal. Today, virtually every subscriber in the world has access to simple text messaging. Some say that it is old and out of date, but this simple messaging concept has been and still is the most widely penetrated medium in the history of humankind.
There has been some industry pushback to stronger privacy policies, with some noting the potential of fluctuating ad delivery. There could be a decrease in addressable audiences since – let’s face it – many customers might opt-out of app tracking.
That said, there are better, more creative ways for businesses and brands to engage audiences than tracking, anyway – options that can also help you you differentiate yourself from your competition!
Recently, I sat down with Pat Flynn and recorded an GBU Innovation podcast with him. This was posted […]
If you have a business, brand, or enterprise, large or small, you’ve probably considered using (or have already used) SMS to reach your customers, partners, or employees. Text messaging has been one of the most utilized communications media ever in terms of reach. The ability to send business text messages using long codes or “regular phone numbers” (e.g., 10DLCs) opens this media up for many, many more businesses and is becoming a new messaging revolution in the United States.
Mobility, Messaging, and More 