Phone Talk

Updated 4:39 PM Wednesday

By Bonnie Optekman, VP NBC News Technology

I feel vindicated.

The last time I blogged about cell phone texting (SMS) for the NBC Nightly News blog I talked about my feeling that the cell phone is quickly becoming the "second" screen to TV's "first" screen and that the PC is really the "third" screen. Well, sitting in the audience for the Bill Gates keynote speech on Sunday night, I heard the man say that phones outsell PCs by four to one. Four to one!

And at CNET's "Next Big Thing" session, I heard that one billion people will access the internet from their phone instead of their computer.

Now, I'm certainly not saying that we can do away with our desktops and laptops. But I am saying that the phone is always with us and the more our technology focuses on social interaction and keeping people connected, the more we will use our phones for phone calls - the ultimate social network - and more.

Here's some quick stats:

  • Americans sent 240 billion text messages in 2007 as of December 18th, which is five times more than they sent in 2005. This is per CTIA, The Wireless Association.

  • According to the MMA, 3 of 4 mobile phone users text message at least occasionally.

  • Texting is at least a weekly event for half of all mobile phone users. And yes, full disclosure - some of those text messages are coming to NBC News.


Pardon? You want to know more?

  • Well, if you text the word "first" to 622639 (NBCNEW) you will receive text messages that directly from NBC News' political director, Chuck Todd, keeping you up to the minute with what's happening on the campaign trail. Chuck sends these out at the same time he writes his First Read column for firstread.msnbc.com.

  • And you can text to the same number with following: NN, TODAY, MTP, DL, to find out what we're working on for our broadcasts.

  • You can also text "buzz" to 46833 for breaking entertainment news from NBC Mobile's and NBC2GO's own Seth Goldman. You can catch Seth's video BUZZ and other news and features on msnbc.com and right on your cell phone too at nbcmobile.com.

Oops - I think I have to say somewhere here that standard text message rates apply.

Texting is all about being personal and, for us, letting people in on what we're doing. During MNSBC's October political debate, we did a text survey and Chris Matthews talked up the results with Chuck Todd and others.

Check it out...

I'm about to get thrown off the blogging station by Jonathan so let me take a break. I'll get back to you with another post tomorrow.


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