Drewbot • AT&T Prepares for the Post-SMS Future

AT&T Prepares for the Post-SMS Future

AT&T is responding to a BBM/iMessage/Facebook Messanger/Twitter world:

AT&T is going to make its new customers choose between unlimited SMS messages for $20 per month or metered SMS messages for $0.20 each, Engadget reports. In other words, it’s getting rid of any plans in between, such as $10 per month for 1,000 SMS messages. (It will have an unlimited-SMS family plan for $30 per month.)

Two point here:

Companies responding to the growing digital divide with contextual pay structures and rules are only going to strengthen the divide. Especially with youth: when I worked on Boost Mobile we’d see adoption in packs over a short period of time thanks to the push-to-talk feature, which only worked on that network. If we establish contractual structures around a messaging system as ubiquitous as text we risk dividing the world into two stark socioeconomic classes based on smartphone ownership. Given the recent trends in the economy, this sort of structural encouragement can’t be good*.
That being said: I can’t help but be impressed with the implementation of iMessage. Add a contact to a text message and if they’re on iOS the color scheme changes. No checking, no new numbers, no adding email. It’s slick.

(Via Splat-F)

* This is exactly why I can’t stand Instagram.