On Dec. 3, 1992, Matti Makkonen sent "Merry Christmas" from a computer to a cellphone for the first time ever. We've been typing away since, sending over eight trillion short mobile messages a year.
With that many texts floating around in the ether, there's bound to be some ROFLs, fails, and BFFs named Jill. We've rounded up some of the silliest memes born from the now-ubiquitous SMS, in honor of its 20th birthday.
Today rumors hit that Facebook and Skype will partner to create a communication platform that will integrate texting, voice calls, and Facebook Connect. This service will supposedly be available in a few weeks in the next version of Skype, 5.0, which is currently in beta.
The news at the moment is just rumblings on the web, but using Skype together with Facebook sounds like a great idea. With the new partnership you will be able to access Facebook friends in Skype to call and text, which seems not only a lot more convenient but also a natural progression as our online communication becomes more seamless (Facebook's response to Google Voice and Gmail?).
Both companies would benefit from the partnership, according to reports: Facebook would gain more popularity internationally through the European-based Skype's customer base, while Skype would gain access to Facebook's more than 500 million users. What do you think about the partnership? Will you be excited if this functionality is released?
Until now, if you wanted to "follow" a user on Twitter, but didn't have an account, you'd have to visit their Twitter user page directly, refreshing it to view new tweets. Now, a new SMS feature called Fast Follow from Twitter allows anyone in the US with a cell phone to "follow" certain users, receiving their Twitter updates as text messages in real time.
To use the service, text 40404 with the username you'd like to follow. For example, if you want to follow @geeksugar (recommended, of course!), text "follow geeksugar" to 40404. No need to include the @ symbol. This feature is only available to US customers, but Twitter is working to bring it to other countries.
This service is especially useful for following breaking news or local emergency news in your area; you don't have to check Twitter or rely on another news outlet for the information, it will come directly to your phone.
There's often times when my friends send me a SMS with really important info and I end up deleting it when I go on my SMS-deleting binges. Usually it's an address, phone number, or name of a store or restaurant that I wish I would have saved or at least emailed to myself. For iPhone owners, there's this fantastic site called You Archive It that will store all your SMS messages online, and for free! Their database is safe, encrypted (so no one can read your juicy SMSs), and you can access all your messages whenever from wherever. . . no more losing important texts!
Do you have a favorite website you want to share with us? Submit your faves to our Website of the Day group! To learn how, just read more
When we're out and about, my boyfriend is always telling me to remind him to add such and such movie to his Netflix queue or remember a product name to look up on Google later. Today I'm sending him a link to this article so I can retire from all my "remember this and that" duties. If you haven't heard of it already, Kwiry is the ultimate "free" service that will send you text messages of all the things you want to remember. Not only can you send yourself email reminders, add tasks to your calendar, add a feed to your RSS reader, but you can now add products to your Amazon wishlist and update your Netflix queue, all thanks to Kwiry.
Once you sign-up online, all you have to do is text a message to K-W-I-R-Y (59479) with the name of the service you want and then the name of the product, movie, etc., and Kwiry will do the rest of the work! The only thing I'm a tad skeptic about is providing a website with all of my passwords, but they swear everything is encrypted so I may just have to go with it.
