There was a time when text messages weren't popular. But then it became obvious that for most things, texts were way better than voice messages.
Sometimes it takes society a while to catch up.
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I was in the, ‘thats for 14 year olds camp’, until I got a one word answer to a question from a guy who’d normally have talked to me for 30 minutes. Priceless.
In the late 90s texts took longer to send than a phone call , I know I was there 🤙
Scheduled text messages are very nice. Especially sending a birthday wish exactly 1 minute into their birth date.
They tried charging 10 cents for every text. It made more sense to use AIM or ICQ. Today, it’s still better to use a messaging app. If I get an actual sms or phone, I cringe. They’re mostly scams. I’d gladly carry a phone without a number if it ever caught on.
I remember playing for Whatsapp back in the days, damn it was good.
Yahoo messenger without buzz.
Back in the year 2000, I moved to Japan. All we did was text. It was easy and didn't cost anything extra. I could also get some internet access to news services and games like poker on a Sanyo phone. Blackberries weren't really much of a thing for normal people, just business.
The Hiptop Sidekick wasn't introduced until 2002 in the US and I'd wager that that was what kicked off the texting trend in North America. Well, really just the US because Canada didn't get it and they then really pushed the Blackberry for consumers.
It's crazy when you see how quickly things progressed in a few short years with BB, WinCE, and then iOS. Seems like so much development in a short 5 years from Hiptop to iPhone. Like 5 years ago was 2020 and what has been the great development? Not much. Just refinement, I guess.
Different across countries - Australia adopted text culture much earlier than the USA…….. lived there in the early 2000s and no one used text, was normal practise in 🇦🇺
Excellent illustration! I recall thinking it was stupid, but came onboard quickly.
Reminds me of Windows vs Linux wars back in the 90s when Microsoft claimed no one will use CLI anymore in the future.
Linux terminal is making a nice resurgence due to chatGPT. There is no substitute for accuracy when using AI assisted command entry. (If Linux is your thing)
I think this was an American thing. In Germany at least, people had been using SMS for a while before it caught on in America.
Slowly then suddenly