Actually, IÌm going to claim the idea of thinking up the need for, and then employing the worldÌs first, SMS copywriter. Back in the old days of 2000, I gave a job to Brad Arnold, now a DJ in Australia Ò can anyone beat that?
But the Chinese have taken it one step further as this article in China View describes. After outlining the explosive growth of SMS, they write:
“Like Hallmark Cards, Inc, some telecom and Internet firms in China have hired professional writers to churn out more polished messages that fit a variety of moods and occasions.
It is estimated that Beijing has over 100 short message writers, the highest number of wordsmiths for this particular purpose, and Shanghai has about half of that.
Some of them are full-time employees, but most are “special contributors” who are paid by how much they can write and how popular their messages turn out to be.
For example, anyone can join Sohu’s short message scribe club. After paying 2.5 yuan, or 30 US cents, to register, one gets a personal code and can post his or her contributions.
Whenever a message is “bought,” the writer gets a quarter of the proceeds, presumably 2.5 RMB cents on average. Multiply 2.5 cents by thousands and you’ve got a pretty well-paid job going.
Some companies have designed very complicated pay scales, with the writer’s take varying according to different brackets of user popularity for each message. Overall, media experts put the monthly income of a full-time short message writer at 4,000-5,000 yuan (US$483-604). Some star writers earn much more because their compositions tend to attract the highest number of customers.
They also call SMS Ïthe fifth mediumÓ which is a new one on me. China View speculates that itÌs fifth after TV, Print, Radio and the Web.
I wonder if the expression will take off, inaccurate though it is Ò after all mobile will be the FIRST medium.
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