Good afternoon, everyone!

I just read an interesting article on RCR Wireless about the class-action antitrust lawsuit filed against the top four US carriers, which alleges that the carriers have “conspired to fix, raise, maintain or stabilize prices of text-messaging services.”

According to the article, the lawsuit questions the rise of the text messaging costs which doubled from 10 cents to 20 in just a few years.

But what I found most interesting was the article’s conclusion, which provided a juicy mobile statistic:

According to mid-year figures by industry association CTIA, 75 billion text messages are sent every month. Overall, CTIA said wireless operators generate $27.5 billion a year from wireless data, a big chunk of which is generated by text messages.

75 billion messages–that’s a lot texting. I think my sister is responsible for at least a 800 of those.

The key to a good mobile campaign is to offer the user something that they can only get through mobile. Whether that be a coupon or an exclusive alert, the user should feel like they gained something of value.

The reason I bring this up is because I received another text message from the Barack Obama campaign yesterday evening (in fact, it was 6:53pm ET, which is a little late in my mind, but I’ll save that discussion for another day).

Here’s the value that the message offered:

Barack will announce his
VP candidate choice
through txt msg between
now & the Conv. Tell
everyone to text VP to
62262 to be the first to
know! Please forward.

That seemed pretty cool and valuable to me. The Obama campaign is giving its opted-in users something that no one else will get, or at least it’s giving them something before everyone else will get it: information. (more…)

According to Nielsen Mobile, 9.2 million US mobile subscribers have purchased goods or services using their handset, and one-half of all mobile data users expect to do so in the future.

Nielsen also reported that 6.5 million US mobile consumers had used text messaging to make a purchase.

Read more at eMarketer.

Hello everyone. Miss Mobile here. Sorry I haven’t written before now. I’ve been busy saving people from spending too much on their car insurance. No, wait. That’s that other cartoon girl.

So, I’ve been mulling over something all weekend.

I read an article on eMarketer last week entitled, “Young Adults Influenced by Mobile Ads.” Here’s what caught my attention:

Many mobile marketers are still struggling to influence consumers, judging by an analysis of BIGresearch’s “Simultaneous Media Usage Study.”

Only 6.9% of adults surveyed said that video on mobile phones influenced them to purchase electronics; 6.4% said text messaging did the same.

However, mobile media was twice as effective among young consumers, with 14.2% of 18 to 24 year-olds saying that mobile video influenced them and 15.9% saying text messaging did. (more…)

For each Ask The Expert column, we consult a different industry expert, depending on the nature of the question. Today’s expert is Dale Gonzalez, Air2Web’s CTO. Have a question for the Expert or want to submit someone to be the Expert? Submit it here.

Q: What is a double opt-in? When is it necessary to use? As a content provider, what do I have to do to create it?

A: Great question. I’ll answer it in parts. What is a double opt-in? A double opt-in is a process that ensures that a user wants to participate in your mobile campaign. Usually this is done through text messaging, but it could also be initiated through other channels. Here’s the basic idea… (more…)