Is it time to subscribe to a printer service from HP?

Ever since my dad brought home an...

What’s the best way of buying a phone today?

How did you buy your latest phone?...

MWC: What device highlights did you miss?

So, early last week I predicted that...

The sorry state of UK text service innovation

James posted a comment here about Broadtexter. He noted that they don’t currently provide service in the UK and asked if anyone would like to work on a similar concept with him.

Kudos to James.

He makes a key point. What are we playing at?

What happened to rapid, fun and innovating UK text mobile development? Where are all the new UK services? I reckon on balance I’ve written about more international mobile services than British ones.

We used to lord it over America with phrases like ‘ah yes, they’re about 2-3 years behind us’. No more. If anything, they’re way ahead.

We appear to be stagnating in the UK.

If you know better, send me details of new(ish) UK based mobile services and I’ll get the word out. I’m ewan@smstextnews.com.

1 COMMENT

  1. > not sure first one came through!

    Hi Ewan,

    I don’t think anyone ever ‘lorded’ it over the US market about innovation, it was more about carrier and service level capability. After all the US market has only has cross network SMS for about 3 or 4 years.

    Sure there are lots of ‘cool’ and ‘funky’ apps coming out of the US market right now, but realistically these are no ‘funkier’ relatively speaking than the raft of innovative services that the UK market has spawned over the past 5 years. Ultimately even simple 2-way SMS is pretty much new to the US market and as such they are several years behind us in terms of ‘throwing mud to see what sticks’ and creating tonnes of new services. Today’s media is better suited and hungrier (i cite you starting this blog) to innovation and todays US service is going to find it easier to gain traction than its UK counterpart of 3 years ago.

    Additional factors being the US’s relative size, and let’s not forget the ridiculous investment going around at the moment (I forget the name of the SMS reverse auction company in the US with oodles of funding, but it’s a little farcical). I could mention quite a few other services which you’ve celebrated on this site that (imho) won’t succeed (although will likely get funding – i guess it depends on your view of ‘succeed’ LOL).

    Today’s UK market is still more mature than the US, and it has the benefit of several years of hindsight and experience. There are many of today’s US services that many in the UK have already thought about, or trialled/launched with, but which they cannot see profit or success in hence not getting involved now. At the same time, what you will see are better, more involved, more eloquent and ultimately more high potential services being launched out of the UK (Shozu, MobyCards, 82ASK etc etc). From a VC perspective the Palo Alto and Boston collective could do very very well indeed to look a little further afield than californian bedrooms!

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Recently Published

Is it time to subscribe to a printer service from HP?

Ever since my dad brought home an HP LaserJet printer (version 3, if memory serves), I have been printing with an HP. Over the...

What’s the best way of buying a phone today?

How did you buy your latest phone? I'm asking because I'm thinking about what I should be doing. When I was living in Oman, I...

MWC: What device highlights did you miss?

So, early last week I predicted that next to nothing from Mobile World Congress would break through into the mainstream media. I was right,...

How Wireless Will Pave the Path to Neobank Profitability

I'm delighted to bring you an opinion piece from Rafa Plantier at Gigs.com. I think it's particularly relevant given the recent eSIM news from...

An end of an era: Vodafone UK turns off 3G services

I thought it was worthwhile highlighting this one from the Vodafone UK team. For so long - for what feels like years, seeing the...

Mobile World Congress: Did the mainstream media notice?

I resolved this year to make sure I wrote something - anything - about Mobile World Congress, the huge mobile industry trade show taking...