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Enterprises followed the surging interest in text messaging in 2008, jumping considerably this year as the total number of enterprise messages delivered rose from 129 million to 227 million. Overall, according to VeriSign, combined mobile messaging networks have delivered 153 billion total messages since the beginning of 2008.
In addition to the explosion in enterprise messaging, VeriSign said the overall growth in mobile messaging was primarily driven by the use of messaging for social and political change and marketing, as evidenced by President-elect Barack Obama’s successful mobile campaign and the use of mobile messaging for charitable donations.
“Mobile messaging isn’t just a technology, it’s a behavior-a cultural shift,” said Charles Landry, vice president and general manager of products and innovation for VeriSign’s Messaging and Mobile Media division. “It has become an instrument of social and political change, philanthropy, and, to a growing extent, a great business practice for reaching out to customers.”
According to Landry, as SMS (Short Message Service) continues to mature into the preferred medium for mobile banking, VeriSign’s mobile banking platform has seen a 35 percent increase in messaging traffic from the second to the third quarter of 2008.
VeriSign said application-to-person and peer-to-peer communications such as enterprise messages sent to mobile users, news alerts, ring tones and promotional video clips also rose sharply in the third quarter, edging close to a 10 percent increase.
In addition, law enforcement organizations continue to promote text messaging programs as a way for the public to more easily report crimes.