Happy Birthday to SMS (Text Messaging), 20 Years Old Today
From The Telegraph (UK):
On December 3 1992, engineer Neil Papworth sent the first SMS message to Richard Jarvis of Vodafone. It simply read “Merry Christmas,” and Jarvis had no way of replying.
The idea of sending short messages via mobile phone only became a focus for telecoms companies in the UK years later, though the first commercial SMS service was launched in Sweden in 1993 by Telia.
Most companies in 1994 were investing heavily in pagers, but consumers’ enthusiasm for texts, which did not require the intermediary of an operator, meant a change of tack from from the mid-1990s onwards.
Vodafone in the UK launched text messaging in 1994. At that time texts were completely free but could be sent only to people on the same network. The medium gained instant popularity among students, who soon began shortening words into “text speak.”
Read the Complete Article
See Also: Happy bday! SMS txt msgs turn 20 (via Computerworld)
See Also: SMS Celebrates 20th Anniversary (via WSJ.com)
See Also: 15 years of text messages, a ‘cultural phenomenon’ (New York Times; December 5, 2007)
Filed under: News
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.