Obama’s inauguration likely to break text-messaging records

Industry insiders say Barack Obama’s inauguration today is likely to spark record-high SMS usage among U.S. mobile consumers. But the event may also serve as a kind of coming-out party for SMS as an interactive communications channel in the United States.
VeriSign Inc. saw a record 803 million messages on its network during Election Day in November as Obama – whose campaign deftly leveraged text-messaging as a communications tool – was voted into office. But that mark will “fall handily” this week, the messaging infrastructure firm said, as mobile users send an expected 1.4 billion messages nationwide on inauguration day.
“Messaging numbers are continuously on the rise, and we expect to see single-day records being shattered as the year progresses,” Michael Campbell, SVP of worldwide sales and marketing for VeriSign Messaging and Mobile Media, said in a prepared statement. “On inauguration day, we foresee the potential to set another single-day record.”
Indeed, text messaging has exploded among U.S. consumers in the past 18 months. The average American mobile subscriber sends or receives roughly 350 text messages each month, as opposed to making or receiving 200 phone calls, Nielsen Mobile reported recently. And U.S. users sent 75 billion text messages in June 2008, according to the most recent data from CTIA, marking a 160% increase over the previous year.
But while much of the growth has been person-to-person communications and promotional campaigns like “American Idol’s” voting, Obama’s inauguration will see some impressive efforts that leverage the platform as an interactive media channel:
–The Presidential Inaugural Committee has established a service that allows users to text one of several words to 56333 to receive information on weather updates in Washington, mass-transportation alerts, free inaugural events and breaking news and schedule changes.
–The Washington Post is delivering “Survival Alerts” for those attending the festivities in Washington, offering information on traffic jams, street closures and other event-related information. Users can opt in to receive as many as 30 messages on inauguration day and are encouraged to send a text to the newspaper with updates and highlights from the scene.
–A host of media outlets from the traditional (Chicago Tribune, New York Times) to new media (MSNBC.com, Salon.com) will use Twitter to offer updates and opinions from Washington (140 characters at a time, of course), and countless bloggers and pundits will weigh in via the white-hot microblogging site. Twitter executives have said they’re working to double their through-put capacity to handle the increased activity.
And there are plenty of other ways to stay in the inauguration loop via mobile, of course: MobiTV, which enjoyed impressive traffic during campaign-related events last year, will deliver broadcasts from ABC News Now, CNBC, CSpan, Fox News and MSNBC; the law firm Patton Boggs has partnered with Qorvis Communications to offer a downloadable application to help iPhone and BlackBerry users navigate the city during the event.
Mobile network operators have bulked up their Beltway infrastructure to handle traffic at the event itself, of course, but even the carriers are requesting users limit their phone calls and delay sending photos to ease network issues. So while users may experience delays with SMS, texting may be the most practical way for many of the estimated 2 million inauguration attendees to stay in touch.
“Think of SMS as the next generation of the Emergency Broadcasting System,” said Jay Emmet, general manager of OpenMarket Inc., via e-mail. “Mobile is becoming another necessary channel of any integrated marketing campaign and a critical piece of a holistic communications strategy.”
Obama’s campaign played a major role in moving SMS marketing into the mainstream last year, alerting mobile users about nearby whistle-stops and encouraging them to tune into debates and volunteer for the campaign. That effort demonstrated not just that people are willing to receive information on their phones via text, according to Emmet, but that the medium can be used to motivate and engage voters.
“We see SMS having a place in national, state and local politics in the future,” Emmet observed. “And we know that SMS is going mainstream across many industries, not just in politics. Some examples of this are airline status alerts, mobile banking and account balance updates, and retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy offering coupons, rebates and contest information to consumers.”