billion in lost SMS revenue last year. In South Korea, for example, the staggering popularity of social messaging services such as KakaoTalk and Daum’s MyPeople have driven down SK Telecom’s SMS traffic considerably. Put another way, mobile operators may be losing SMS revenues, but they are also gaining smartphone subscribers and the data plans that come as part of the package. Informa is still forecasting that SMS will remain a multi-billion dollar industry for mobile operators through 2016, with global SMS revenues rising from US$114.9 In a word: buoyant. MORE >>

From a business perspective, only SMS – a form of communications universally accepted and understood — delivers real reach. According to the latest forecasts from Informa Telecoms & Media , “humble SMS will remain a significant source of revenues and traffic for mobile operators on a global basis until at least 2015.&# Global SMS revenues are forecast to rise to $136.9 billion in 2010, as global SMS traffic increases from five trillion messages in 2010 to a whopping 8.7 And we increasingly use SMS to speak with and listen to the world around us. MORE >>

During the same week that SMS officially turned 18, we read a provocative post suggesting that SMS may not be around to celebrate its 19th year thanks to Apple’s newly-introduced iMessage. Apple took the wraps off its plans for iMessage on Monday. Shortly after that, MG Siegler over at Techcruch claimed that iMessage will spell the end of SMS. “iMessages will do this by replacing SMS with a service that Apple is in control of across all of their iOS devices. But as Apple announced today, there are over 200 million iOS devices out there now. MORE >>

Advertising:  networks,  SMS, display, search, premium. Smartphones: Apple, Apps, iPhone, Google, Android. Tags: Apple Trend Spots Trend Spotting Behavior Trend Spotting Tools Trend Targets & Groups Trends Review TrendsSpotting's presentations advertising applications consumer behavior focus group influencers information internet behavior mobile mobile web navigation prediction “2010 Mobile Influencers” is the sixth and last report from the series “ 2010 Influencers Series: Trend Predictions in 140 Characters “. GPS      # Location      # Augmented Reality. 2010 Mobile. MORE >>

Image: We Love Apple. One-to one interaction between individuals connecting via Facebook, SMS, or Twitter, irrespective of time, distance, or delay. Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians, many wearing bandages from from days of street fighting, turned out in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday for what they are calling the ‘Day of Departure’ , a nationwide call for the immediate removal and prosecution of Hosni Mubarak who has ruled the country for 30 years. Which side do u wanna take?  jan25. Please. They did it before the Internet came along. MORE >>