Following on from Carlo’s post yesterday about finding easy ways to transfer data from one phone to another (usually old phone to new phone), I thought I’d my Euro 1.64 to this one.
Carlo mainly focused on transferring contacts, which is a no brainer, as he suggests. But just as important are messages - sms mainly, as not many people send mms.
Many, many people, and especially kids, treasure some of the sms they receive, from friends and lovers alike. The idea of junking them with their old phone is pretty hard for them, as they’ll lose their "Sweeeeetie bunnikins luvs soosie xxxooo" messages that have a special place in their hearts.
Professor Richard Harper, who’s done a lot of observation analysis about how we use phones, was writing about this 4 years or so ago. Even then, many kids were citing not losing old sms as a real reason for not upgrading.
Since then, we’ve had at least one commercial service launched to provide this, Treasure My Text, that backed up centrally and subsequently, launched a product to save sms on your iPod. I haven’t heard how they’re doing, but my guess is that they’d be limited by finite marketing budgets from making the service a rip-roaring success. And also that many kids would resent paying for a service that they think the operator should be providing - and preferably free.
How difficult would it to automatically store the last 20 or so sms you sent, accessible via the web, giving you the option for longer storage if you want? It could even be a revenue source, but it’s far better looked at simply as a way of improving customer service for minimal investment.
As the industry gallops into commoditisation, such small things are going to make a big difference between success and failure for operators.
Why? Because, it’ll show who is customer-centric and listening to their customers and who’s paying lip service to their customers’ issues and continuing to focus of the technology and infrastructure - the key issues of the past.
The age of the customer is upon us - never have they been quite so powerful, had so much access to information and been capable of quickly self-organising into active and important communities if they’re not listened to.
Operators need to start taking this on board and looking at the minutae of their service and asking how they can make it better for their customers. This dies require a change in mindset in many case (in fairness, some have started to listen), but failing to do so means failing as a business in the longer term.
Russell,
I’m one of those people that saves sms. Two years ago, when the number of sms I had saved exceeded the capacity of my sim card I started looking for a better solution.
Russell,
(That was weird, the second half of my comment didn’t post…here is the whole thing again, please edit)
I’m one of those people that saves sms. Two years ago, when the number of sms I had saved exceeded the capacity of my sim card I started looking for a better solution.
(http://www.softandwireless.com) Soft and Wireless FZCO makes a product called SMS Folder Manger V.2 that allows you to create folders, manage messages, and export them into an XML File…I bet it could even be converted into an RSS feed so that you could actually have your SMS messages fed from your phone to a computer…that would be slick. Haven’t tried to do that, but if someone does please drop me a note to le t me know it worked. Anyway, this is a Symbian application, I use the SE UIQ interface.
-Oliver Starr “stitch”
‘Treasure My Test’
The look and feel of the site is good. The instructions are easy to follow and the sign up is painless. The inbound number used is issued by Guernsey Telecom, and therefore as well as the additional charges as mentioned for T-Mobile/Virgin users, Vodafone subscribers will i’m pretty sure pay the international rate of 24p.
Monetisation is by the looks of things advertising and cross selling outbound SMS. Outbound SMS delivery is UK routed and very quick.
I would like to have seen the site explain the benefit of saving the awkward virtual mobile number as a contact in your phones address book.
My test inbound SMS have not yet been received.
I’d agree with Russell. This is almost certainly not working due to lack of ad spend. It would make a nice service differentiator for a carrier, but perhaps an easier move for an MVNO.
I’ve seen at least half a dozen of these sites come and go over past 4 years. Unfortunately this site is going to go the same way.. Kisky the company behind the service have some interesting projects on the go and should however be worth keeping an eye on.
out
Thanks for the thoughtful comments, people.
Russell
Nokia’s Lifeblog already does this!
It allows you to sync and essentially backup your SMS and MMS messages to a ‘living timeline’ your PC, as well as your photos and videos. You have to have a supported Nokia Series 60 phone, mind.
http://www.nokia.com/lifeblog
Hi Russell,
Firstly thanks for writing about Treasuremytext and I hope I can offer some useful additional insights in response to this post and comments.
It is true that many people are looking for ways to save their contacts, messages, content away from their phone. A huge majority of our members save a lot of messages with Treasuremytext. In terms of reach, with further advertising investment the service would do even better.
Our many thousands of users tend to ‚Äòmanage their mobile content‚Äô on the bus or train on the way to school college or work, they ‚Äòtreasure texts‚Äô in bulk at these times of day. They also log on and spend hours viewing and organising (enjoying) their content. We have a massive conversion ratio of unique visitors to members ‚Äì 20% which indicates the need for this service. There is indeed a market for online SMS storage, and it is not necessarily all about backup; ‚Äòuseful‚Äô, or ‚Äòbusiness critical‚Äô data. Most of this is about throw away cutesy, needy, or sexually explicit messages that mean an awful lot to their recipients. The service is not intended to compete in the same space as Nokia‚Äôs Lifeblog application; Treasuremytext is about SMS and not about ‚Äòall your mobile content‚Äô, also it is for a very different audience. Most importantly we wanted to make something that frees people from the constraints of their handsets, not ties them into yet more apps, or ties them to one handset manufacturer. This is for instance why we have experimented with exporting SMS to iPod, and providing RSS feeds of messages. The ‘level of detail‚Äô, all the things people might want to do with their own content isn‚Äôt something they‚Äôre (currently) offered by network providers.
We’re interested in the idea that mobile can be more integrated with the web and that more can be done with mobile content in a web environment. I suppose in this respect our outlook is unique, we are not aiming to profit from data transfer or from premium content, rather by offering mobile consumers more control; more functionality. Treasuremytext was launched in 2003. It won a ‚ÄòBest use of Wireless‚Äô award in 2004 and since then we have improved the product, explored pricing models, and grown the membership. As a small company we are agile enough to refine and work with a service such as Treasuremytext both as a revenue generating product and as valuable R&D.
I hope Treasuremytext demonstrates smaller companies can enter the mobile space, can make successful mobile ‘services’ and are creating more user-centric products. After all, the service grew out of our own frustration that our handsets were not (and still aren’t) very good at managing, organising, viewing or letting us enjoy our SMS content!
We are continuing to work on our range of mobile ‘services’; in the mean time, if you know any forward thinking mobile carriers looking for a lovely online SMS storage service as a differentiator, let me know!
Best,
Katie