I for one was surprised by the initial uproar at the lack of MMS (Multimedia Message Service) on the iPhone, then bewildered by the levels of excitement when MMS was finally released by AT&T yesterday.
Surely, no one actually uses it any more do they? I had a tough time finding any actual statistics but my plan is to email a few telephone companies to see if I can get my hands of some concrete stats. When introduced, MMS was somehow envisioned to replace SMS. “Same as SMS…but with pictures”. Only it never has. Actually, MMS traffic volume has been ridiculously low in comparison to the volume of SMS traffic. From time to time the discussion of whether MMS is a thing of the past crops up, one example being when Apple excluded MMS from the device. Here I am stirring up the MMS discussion pot again.
With email built into most modern phones, MMS feels very inadequate to me. The only two advantages I can see that MMS has over email is that you only need to know someone’s phone number to send an MMS, whereas email obviously requires an email address. Email is the new phone number anyway isn’t it? Secondly, when you or the recipient doesn’t have a data connection.
I posed the question on Friendfeed earlier this month, and I think the majority of responses speak for themselves. That said, it is a very geeky early adopter community, most will own devices with solid email integration, like iPhones or Blackberry’s. Then again, when I didn’t own an email supported device, I never used MMS either. When multimedia messaging first launched, I do remember a few months of frequent (often rude) messages arriving in my inbox, but that declined fast and quite frankly I don’t even remember the last time I received one. Do you?
If you’re a frequent MMS user, I’d love to know what you use it for.
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MMS came too late to the US, that’s your problem. When first cameraphones came to Venezuela with Digitel TIM (subsidiary of Telecom Italia Mobile) MMS was a big thing even at the high rates. The phones were expensive (around 400 bucks) and MMS itself was kinda expensive too, like 0.5 per message which could include text, audio, video (up to 200kb) or photo (up to 200kb also but that was not a problem given the QVGA or VGA camera)
So, 5 years ago we could sms or mms with people form this carrier and/or some carriers on europe and THAT was cool. you being in the middle of nowhere, snap a picture and send it to your friends, girlfriend or else for half a dollar was really cool. It was 2004.
The year now, 2009, Gmail releases push, is easy to confifure exchange, apple has gmail on iphone 2g since its release… it makes no sense the sms thing. Besides iPhone the United States is WAAYYY behind mobile technology mostly because of the carriers but also because of the non savvy consumer, who doesnt know what’s best for them. Example: you could get a Nokia E71 on AT&T for 100 dollars after a two year contract of 69.99 (same as iphone) but you would be attached to AT%T for that, same as iphone. If regular consumers were smart they would go for the Nokia E63 (E71s little brother) which does the same sans the GPS and costs 200 bucks free of contract (I got mine for 149.00 after $50 rebate on amazon) and go to ANY carrier you want. You could even get a prepaid SIM or phone at AT&T or Tmobile, pay for the calls you make, nothing for the calls you receive and do the rest on WiFi, use Skype, Fring or Gizmo Project for calls. That means that after the two year contract you ended up paying only like 700 bucks instead of +1800 you do on current plans and rates.
Not everybody has an iPhone, and before I got one I used mms all the time. The fact that the iPhone is finally catching up to the standards of what other phones could do in 2003 is very telling, I think.
Also, no, email is not a replacement for MMS. When I want to send something to somebody and have them see it *right now*, then email is a piss poor way to attempt to do that. I frequently don’t check email at all on weekends, and many people I know are the same in this respect. “Push” email is NOT a replacement for instant messaging.
Coincidentally, I sent an MMS on Sunday evening, but this is admittedly the exception rather than the rule. The person who received the MMS will be away from a computer for a week. The person does not have a top-of-the-line super cool phone. The phone has WAP web access, but it’s a pain to get to. If I want this person to see a picture, MMS is by far the best solution.
In fact, it’s possible that late adopters may be rejoicing over the availability of MMS on the iPhone now, and may plan to use it. Then again, I’m not sure how many late adopters have iPhones.
Not a regular user of MMS but maybe once per month. Loads of my friends and my wife only have ‘regular’ phones so email isn’t an option. I think opinion on MMS depends on which crowd you’re in; the author, Zee, even admitted that he only asked ‘a very geeky early adopter community’. Well, if I wanted to prove that all men had beards I would go to the National Beard Convention and survey them to prove a point – do you see the flaw?! :D
This article would greatly benefit from some actual statistics about the adoption of MMS. Does somebody have these?
On a personal note, I’ve never used MMS. The phones I previously owned (including smartphones) did not have the proper settings to receive MMS. I would receive a SMS with a link to watch the MMS online.. not very user friendly. I heard a lot of people with this complaint here in the Netherlands.
I am a regular mms user, and I use it to show friends something cool that I happen to see. It also allows me to share pictures and videos with friends who do not have email on their phones. I do have an iPhone and I love the fact that I have this capability on a phone again. As the saying goes…”a picture is worth 1000 words.”. That’s 1000 less words I have to type.
I manage a website for personal mobile subscription plan advice and we deliberately excluded MMS from the advice. We did this for three reasons:
One, sending MMS messages is expensive, one message costs about 50 euro cents in the Netherlands.
Two, providers hardly compete on this area. All providers charge the same.
And, three, empirical evidence showed that a very insignificant portion of the mobile phone users actually use MMS.
Personally I believe that MMS is soon replaced by (push) email. Most phones in the near future will support email and I just don’t see the benefit of a 50 cent MMS over a free email.
This is way too american point of view. And actually, as far as we know at 3fs, MMS is picking up again due to direct upload to facebook and other social networks.
Smart phones still do not represent a significant market share from a worldwide point of view. So, MMS to mail is still a very realistic way of uploading from a feature phone story. Phone to phone is another story though.