What is a communicative society in a world of 160 … no, make that 140 – characters or less?

In 1985 Freidhelm Hildebrandt sat at home on his typewriter and typed out a random

series of short questions and answers between individuals he perceived to be commonly used. Counting the number of characters for each side of the message between him and his colleagues, he arrived at a "perfectly sufficient" number of 160. Twenty four years ago the team of engineers was working on a protocol to enter and transmit short messages between cellular telephones. The cell phone industry itself was in its infancy at the time and a low-tech alternative to poor quality calls and spotty service area coverage seemed attractive. Bandwidth was expensive back then as was the infrastructure needed to expand cellular coverage beyond urban areas. Text messaging might possibly help bridge the gap until while supply and demand could catch up. Little did Hildebrandt know that he and his cohorts were about to establish the Short Message Service (SMS) standards upon which an entire generation of Americans would communicate electronically.

Partly due to fact that the United States fell behind many countries in broadband deployment, the second quarter of 2008 marked an epiphany of sorts in communication technology. While the US now ranks 20th in broadband penetration worldwide, for the first time ever Americans text messaged more often than they placed or received cell phone calls. That June, American cell phone users irked out nearly 75 billion text messages on their tiny keyboards whilst sitting in the park, walking to work, or driving down the street. That staggering figure represents 246 messages of 160 characters or less for every man, woman, and child in the United States.

Not to be outdone, web-based texting on social network sites like Twitter exploded onto the scene and limited that ceiling to 140 characters. The media, politicians, and Hollywood suddenly became enamored with Twitter in 2009. While it took "google" nearly a decade to become a verb, Twitter and a "tweet" became common in the American language as a verb practically overnight. Some would argue that this evolution in technology is more like de-evolution in communications. Regardless, short messaging (SM) is here to stay and has fundamentally changed how we communicate to friends and colleagues.

Or has it? Social networking is surely one of the Utopian applications envisioned by Internet pioneers. Year over year growth of visits to popular sites like MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Digg and Twitter far outpace other categories on the World Wide Web. The rapid growth of social networking as a routine way to meet online friends, reconnect with old acquaintances, and stay in touch with distant friends and family is well documented. However, the social impact is little understood, as researchers struggle to keep pace with evolving technology and its applications.

Even less understood is SMS' potential impact on the workplace. When is an Instant Message (IM) to your boss appropriate? Should you "tweet" frustration about your job to your online social network? In November 2008, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh set a new standard for open SM communication by "tweeting" his thoughts about a major layoff at his company, arguably one of the most successful online shoe and specialty retailer companies on the Internet (www.zappos.com). He did it again when Amazon acquired the company in July 2009. In this profound series of SMS' and accompanying blog, corporate America witnessed firsthand how social networking might changes the rules of corporate America. Mr. Hsieh kept a dialogue going for weeks with employees and open to all others who cared to follow him on Twitter. He remains a prolific tweeter today. Contrast this new economy leader's outreach style with the recent bankruptcy of General Motors. It is difficult to imagine GM's CEO explaining the auto giant's demise and restructuring plans on such a personal level. Rather, shortly after that historic press release GM broke onto YouTube with an expensive and professionally produced image management campaign quite the opposite approach of home grown video on that social networking site.

Little did Freidhelm Hildebrandt know or could have possibly conceived what his perfectly sufficient text messaging service would influence the 21st Century society. As we have seen in the past, the Internet has a way of drastically testing the status quo. Many workplaces are still sorting through the challenges of email and Internet access. Most are not ready to contend with the instant-communication-through-social-networks era. Likewise instant messaging and social media challenge the way we live, learn, and communicate. SMS and social networking planning is becoming a cottage industry itself as people and companies try to figure out how to capitalize on the phenomenon. The only certainty is that the future captains of industry will have grown up very comfortably in this uber-connected environment. They will decide what is a "perfectly sufficient" way to communicate for future generations.

References:

Reardon, Marguerite. (2008). Americans text more than they talk.

Mark Milian. (2009). Why text messages are limited to 160 characters.

Anderson, Nate. (2009). US 20th in broadband penetration, trails S. Korea, Estonia.

Wilson, David R. (2009). Top 25 Social Networking Sites Feb 2009.

Baker, Stephen. (2009). Putting a price on social connections.

GM. (2009). GM reinvention commercial. Available:

What is a communicative society in a world of 160 no, make that 140 characters or less?

By: Ronald Gdovic

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