Suggestion: Don't Text Message Your Boss While On The Witness Stand

from the that-would-be-a-mistrial dept

We recently wrote about a trial where there were concerns that a jury member was sending Twitter messages during the trial, but that's nothing compared to text messaging while on the witness stand. Yes, apparently a guy who was being questioned as a witness, used a break in the action (as the judge spoke to the lawyers in the case) to text message with his boss, who was also in the court room and at the plaintiff table. After being alerted to this by a "courtroom spectator," the judge declared a mistrial:

"Let me be really frank about this," the judge said. "I never had this happen before. This is completely outrageous, absolutely outrageous."

Toledano responded, "It was on a break."

Silverman shot back: "It doesn't matter. You are communicating about the case and the subject matter of the case with a witness who is currently under oath and before the jury,"

Toledano said, "I'm sorry, after we took the break, it's not in the middle."

The judge explained himself again.

"It's a problem on your communicating with the witness about his testimony whether it's before the break, after the break and during the break while he's testifying," he said. "This is outrageous."

These stories of technology in the courtroom seem to be coming up more and more frequently. It seems as though very few people have really thought through the implications of the many channels of communication that every individual now has with them, and how that changes common assumptions about how people can and will communicate, even in "constrained" areas.

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Random Facts: Why SMS Is Only 160 Characters

from the that's-a-bit-refreshing dept

The LA Times has tracked down the reasoning for why SMS text messaging is limited to 160 characters. Basically, one guy working on the project figured that was plenty after typing a bunch of sentences out and noticing that most were less than 160 characters. There was no serious additional research done on it. It just sorta stuck once implemented. In an age where so many things are user-tested to death, it's kind of nice to know this was almost an accident of history, based on the reasoning of one guy.

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If Text Messaging Is Too Expensive, Why Are More And More People Using It?

from the trumped-up-controversy dept

Earlier this week, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, Senator Herb Kohl, made a bunch of news for questioning why text message rates have become so high. He implies that because the number of national wireless carriers has shrunk from six to four thanks to mergers, that the four major carriers have too much market power. That sounds great, but is highly misleading -- as evidenced by a new report that notes that the number of text messages being sent is growing rapidly. If the price were such a huge problem, wouldn't that not be the case?

Part of the problem is that the Senator seems to only be looking at the a la carte pricing for text messaging. However, these days, most folks who use text messaging on a regular basis have signed up for some sort of bulk texting plan, that allows them to send hundreds of messages for a set price. The a la carte text message pricing is really only for those who rarely, if ever, use text messaging. Furthermore, if the mobile operators really are constraining the market and push things too far by driving the price even higher, then there are many alternatives that will quickly show up. As we've discussed in the past, it's only a matter of time until other options for messaging become popular on phones, such as instant messaging clients -- which can provide service for free. Once again, it seems like the gov't is stepping in and complaining where there's no real problem.

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Instant Messaging Eating Into SMS Text Messaging

from the but-of-course... dept

The old "accepted wisdom" was that folks in Europe communicated via SMS text messaging, while folks in the US were mainly doing internet-based instant messaging. There were a variety of reasons for why things developed this way, but it was a generally accurate statement for a while. However, even early on, some of us began wondering what would happen as the two worlds started to merge. That is, as mobile phones became more powerful and acted more like handheld computers, wouldn't users start to realize that instant messaging would save them a lot of money in terms of data costs. Especially with advanced phones like the iPhone, it seemed inevitable that "expensive" SMS would start to run into trouble. And, in fact, that appears to be happening. A new study in the UK (where SMS text messaging is huge) has shown that, as people start using instant messaging applications, their use of SMS text messaging drops significantly. The one exception, by the way, is with older users, who are comfortable enough with SMS and don't seem as interested in using IM on their phones. Either way, this has to be a concern for mobile operators who have a tendency to assume that high-priced services will always remain high-priced and in high demand.

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Doctor Claims That Sending Too Many Text Messages Is A Sign Of Mental Problems

from the oh-please dept

Remember the doctor pushing to add internet addiction as an official mental disorder? In a recent journal article, he's now saying that one sign of such a disorder would be people who send lots of text messages. Of course, as MobHappy puts it: "maybe they just like to chat to their friends?" Remember kids, too much communication = mental illness.

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Facebook Settles Text Messaging Suit Even If It Probably Didn't Need To

from the less-of-a-hassle dept

Back in October we pointed to a totally pointless lawsuit against Facebook from a woman who blamed the company because her mobile phone was getting text messages from Facebook against her wishes. The problem with the lawsuit, however, was that it wasn't Facebook's fault, as the reason the woman was getting the errant text messages was because she had received a new phone number. The previous owner of the number had signed up to receive the text messages, and they carried over to the new subscriber. There's no doubt that this could be quite annoying and upsetting to the woman, but it's hard to see how Facebook really should have known about it or could be seen as the party liable here -- so it appeared to be yet another lawsuit where someone targets a hot company just because it's a hot company. In this case, though, it appears to have worked. Facebook has agreed to settle the lawsuit and pay the legal fees of the plaintiff, while also agreeing to make it easier to stop such text messages and working with mobile operators to learn about recycled numbers. While Facebook probably had a decent chance of winning the case, from a PR/user relations standpoint it probably made sense to settle and do everything possible to make this less of a problem.

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Email Is For Old People?

from the get-with-the-program dept

A few years ago, we pointed to a report in Asia, where kids were saying that email was for old people, and they were more focused on things like text messaging. This may have just been foreshadowing a larger trend, highlight by an article in Slate about how, just as older generations have embraced emails, kids have moved on to many different forms of communication from instant messaging to text messaging to private messaging through social networks to broadcast messaging through Twitter and Facebook news feeds. And, while it worries the reporter a bit, he's come to accept it and realize that kids are simply figuring out the best, most efficient way to communicate different messages -- where email as a one-size-fits-all communication system is a bit clunky. That's not to say that email is going away any time soon -- but that it's not nearly as important a communication tool as many "older" people seem to assume it is.

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131 Companies Sued Over Global Text Messaging Patent

from the couldn't-find-anyone-else? dept

The anonymous Patent Troll Tracker points us to a new patent case that appears to involve an astounding 131 defendants, including T-Mobile, Vodafone, China Resources Peoples Telephone Company Ltd, AT&T, Samsung, Palm, Microsoft, and Yahoo!, all concerning patents related to sending text messages internationally, using the internet for part of the trip. Not surprisingly, the patent in question is a continuation patent, which even the USPTO is trying to cut back on, after seeing them abused too often. The patent was just granted last month. Shouldn't it make someone scratch their head to wonder how 131 different companies could all be infringing on a patent just issued? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the idea is fairly obvious and never should have received a patent. Now, obviously, you can go back to 1996, when the original patent was filed, but again, the concept seems like the natural progression of the space, which is perhaps why so many companies use it in some way or another.

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And Now It's Time For The Bogus Class Action Lawsuits Against Facebook

from the pick-your-popular-company-and-sue dept

At this point, it's just an unfortunate fact of life that as a company becomes more well known it will soon be targeted by totally random lawsuits. We've already seen all sorts of random people suing to take credit for the idea of Facebook (all of whom ignored that Facebook's success had nothing to do with the idea and everything to do with the execution). Now it's time for random users and their lawyers to come up with all sorts of odd lawsuit ideas. For example, we've now got a woman and her lawyer trying to create a class action lawsuit against Facebook because the woman got a new mobile phone number, and that number is receiving too many unwanted text messages that were sent through Facebook and intended for the previous owner of the number. Why is this Facebook's fault? That's not clear, but it's a hot company worth billions, so might as well sue and hope to get some cash out of it. This is a problem that plenty of people face if they get a new phone number that's been "recycled" but it's hardly the fault of the companies who are simply forwarding the messages as directed.

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Musicians Leveraging Mobile Phones To Communicate With Fans... But Need To Be Careful With Ads

from the communication,-not-advertising dept

The most powerful uses of new technologies are when they allow someone to do something that couldn't have been done before, rather than just doing the same old thing in a different way. That's why it's interesting to see how some musicians are embracing the fact that nearly everyone these days has a mobile phone by offering mobile-based services that increase the value of attending concerts. The article includes examples of a text message to Lollapalooza attendees offering them a chance to enter a guitar-playing contest that gave the winner a new guitar and a chance to play on stage with a band. Some musicians have competitions where they can win better seats via a text message. Prince asked fans leaving a concert to send a text message to his website, where the messages were displayed.

The article then goes on to talk about the marketing potential of all of this -- where these musicians can supposedly now market to these fans, but that's the wrong way to look at it. Fortunately, even those marketers quoted in the article admit that they need to tread carefully when it comes to marketing, admitting that the mobile phone is "sacred." However, the temptation will probably be too strong for some to overcome -- and that's going to be risky. Those who are embracing text messaging with those attending concerts should recognize that text messaging is simply a completely new way to communicate and interact with fans -- rather than just a one-way street to pitch them. The good news is that many of the experiments described recognize exactly that. However, the musicians should realize that this increased communication will pay benefits in a different way -- making more loyal fans, more willing to go to more shows (and potentially even pay more for those shows). Greedily spamming someone's phone with a pitch risks losing all of that benefit, for a very minor short-term return.

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Suddenly, Mobile Phone Operators Are Big Supporters Of Smoking Bans...

from the smexting? dept

If you suddenly start hearing stories about mobile phone operators being big supporters of bans on smoking, perhaps a new report is the reason why. Apparently, telcos in the UK are noticing a recent surge in text messaging, which they attribute to a new ban on smoking in confined spaces. The working theory is that smokers need something to do with their hands to keep them busy, and that texting is taking up that free time, now that they can't smoke. It's as good a theory as any, but it seems unlikely to have a very longterm impact.

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