SMS is dead was controversial which was not a big surprise. It was called stupid and many other things.

Here are some random "SMS is dead" related thoughts:

  1. IP always wins. SMS is not over IP and so it will lose once we have affordable mobile internet which we is at least 5 years away. But it's coming!
  2. My post was not the clearest piece I have ever written. I should have titled it "SMS is dead - Twitter is proof" instead of "SMS is dead - Twitter killed it".
  3. Ken Camp: If SMS is not losing May 16, 2012 and we can mutually decide on what that means, I'll grill you a dinner of your choice. No obligation on your side should I be right! As a Canadian of Filipino heritage, I am an expert at grilling pork :-) but you can decide.
  4. Same offer to you Ewan (update: same offer to Ian Dykes who's also in the UK and to Pat Phelan in Ireland - except it would be Guinness in Ireland since it's sooooo great there) except since you are in the UK how about a pint or two of your favourite beverage. I like Guinness and English real ales and it would be my pleasure to buy you a few some day in the unlikely :-) event we agree I am losing on May 16, 2012
  5. Of course I'll probably lose the above 2 bets since I always overestimate how fast things die but in the long run it will happen. I've seen it happen with X.400, Usenet, Profs email, Bulletin Board Systems and many many other pre-IP systems that made lots of money back in the day and it will happen with SMS.
  6. In Canada to run an SMS shortcode it costs $1000 a month plus per message costs. I know it's apples and oranges but how much traffic and messages could you store and send on an Amazon EC2 and S3 system for that much? And probably more importantly what kind of cool money making apps and services could you provide if there was affordable mobile internet like there will be in the future?
  7. Ken is right, SMS is marginal in North America but important and useful elsewhere.
  8. Unfortunately after working at Nortel for over 10 years, I am far too well acquainted with how today's so-called 'mobile internet' works and how closed it is.

Leave a comment on github