The MoPR Blog

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

• Users are sending more than 2 trillion mobile messages per day globally as of the end of 2008.
• In-Stat consumer surveys showed that consumers who use mobile messaging also use significantly more voice minutes than overall survey respondents.
• In addition to paying more for value-added services, US mobile messengers are also more likely to pay up to 25% more for their handsets than all survey respondents.

The research report, titled “Worldwide Application Series: Mobile Messaging Still Profitable,” concluded that the most profitable data service is still text messaging.

This report is right in line with the October report from Osterman Research that revealed an overwhelming percentage of mobile messaging users admit to engaging in inappropriate or even dangerous behavior to access and respond to email and text messages during off hours.

The Osterman study found that 94 percent of respondents use their phones to send email or text messages during work nights or on weekends, and nearly 96 percent never leave their phones at home, even on vacation. This mobile email / text messaging addiction has driven 79 percent of respondents to send messages from their phones while in the bathroom (ew!). Another 71 percent admitted to texting behind the wheel of a moving automobile (gasp!), and 41 percent said they’ve texted on commercial flights while the plane was in mid-air (shame on you!).

So get out and do your part. How many of those 2 trillion messages will you be responsible for sending today?

IA Technology, a UK company known to develop ejector seats and other protection equipment for the military, invited a camera crew from the BBC in to its “top secret” facility where 40 employees were shown working away on likewise top secret technologies. The crew was there to get the scoop on what IA Technology is calling “the world’s first truly hands-free mobile phone.”

Watch the BBC video report where the reporter details the top secret mobile phone. She says she can’t show us how it works (that part is still a secret) but she can tell us about it.”

The device is called the Zumba, and the Hereford-based technology company believes it will fully revolutionize the mobile industry.

According to the IA site, “Zumba connects people by fusing the worlds of telephony and web-based networking, and presents a potent combination of consumer benefits with true mass-market potential.”

The hands-free design for the Zumba is based around what IA calls the “world’s first fully accurate voice recognition system for mobile phones.” The device is the size of a credit card with an earpiece that pops off to fit over your ear.

To place calls or send a text, one simply touches a button on the earpiece, which calls up a secure website portal – called Zumba Lumba (seriously, that is what they are calling it) – where your contacts are listed and allows you to place the call or text using only your voice to navigate. According to the IA site, “ZumbaLumba is a ‘Natural Connections’ website that taps into our real life circle of contacts held on our phones and allows us to interact with them in new and purposeful ways. It allows users to manage their contacts, availability and communication, whilst enabling closer connections. ZumbaLumba ‘Natural Connections’ brings the virtual world of networking into the real world of connecting to solve real problems that affect all of us.”