Recently, there’s been considerable buzz surrounding the VP selection of Democratic Presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama, and the nearly 3 million text messages that were sent out to break the news that Senator Joe Biden would join him on the ticket.
The campaign’s choice to use SMS to notify its supporters reinforces what we already know: wireless is a personal, individual medium. According to Harris Interactive, more than 20% of Americans feel that wireless is a “more personal” connection that wired phone service.
Perhaps it’s because of wireless’ very nature – its mobility – that our device feels so much like an extension of ourselves. We take it with us everywhere, and it allows constant communication with those most important to us.
Personally, wireless is fundamentally changing the way we interact with one another. There is now an expectation of connectivity , and the technology is providing opportunities to build stronger, and certainly different, social communities. It's hard to put a value on that. But we can see with the number of wireless subscribers continuing to grow, and increases in the types of traffic we're experiencing that wireless communication is a critically important part of everyday American life. Here at CTIA we're actually in the final stages of number crunching for our semi-annual survey, and although I can't pass along any of the specifics yet (they'll come at CTIA WIRELESS I.T. & Entertainment 2008® in San Francisco, Sept. 10-12), I can tell you there are some incredible metrics that are going to blow you away!
In terms of how we're using wireless on the job, the technology has been credited with increasing productivity and allowing the American employee to work on the go. According to some estimates, wireless will generate productivity gains upwards of $860 billion over the next ten years – that’s more than 4 times the size of the domestic pharmaceutical industry.
What we sometimes forget is that wireless is still a relatively new technology. The 25th anniversary of the first commercial cellular call is coming up next month. That's right...it was just 25 years ago, and now here we are in the midst of one of the greatest communications revolutions of all time! There's still so much more opportunity, so much more room to grow. And as Senator Obama showed us with his campaign's creative use of the technology, there are fantastic possibilities coming that will make wireless an even more vital part of our lives. Anyone second that motion?
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