If you live in Blackhawk, Iowa and find yourself in the midst of an emergency, you now have an alternative to calling 911. You can send a text message instead.

The FCC announced today that it is considering overhauling the 911 system, a project dubbed “NG 9-1-1 What’s Next” – or Next Gen 9-1-1 – to accept not only text messages, but video and photos, too. Blackhawk, Iowa seems to be the first pilot location in this process.

In a press release quoted by Wired magazine, the FCC cites scenarios surrounding the shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007:

“During the 2007 Virginia Tech campus shooting, students and witnesses desperately tried to send texts to 9-1-1 that local dispatchers never received. If these messages had gone through, first responders may have arrived on the scene faster with firsthand intelligence about the life-threatening situation that was unfolding.”

Other use-cases come immediately to mind as well, such as emergencies involving deaf people or someone with a speech impediment that may make it hard to communicate with their voice, among many others.

But don’t go texting 9-1-1 in an emergency just yet. As with anything at this scale, lots of testing is involved, and according to the NG 9-1-1 What’s Next Project description (pdf) published at 911.gov, we’ll still be at the whitepaper stage as of February of 2011, and presumably roll out will be phased over the next year or more.

For details, up-to-date information, and to share your input on the project, bookmark this Transporation Safety Advancement Group page on the NG 9-1-1 What’s Next Project.

The Pushr team is very excited to announce that anyone can now register to start using the Pushr SMS Communication System. Every new account gets a 14-day FREE trial that comes with 50 free messages, so you can actually take the system for a spin.

FREE Trial – Sign up now!

What is an SMS Communication System?

An SMS Communication System is a web-based tool that allows you to send SMS text messages to your audience (e.g. customers, prospects, fans, members, constituents, etc.) en masse.

What can I do with an SMS Communication System?

The question is, what can’t you do with an SMS Communication System?

• Send SMS text messages instantly to groups of people (customers, team members, faculty, etc)
• Easily manage your subscribers, create contact groups to segment your lists
• Allow anyone to subscribe to receive your messages via their mobile phone (e.g. Text “VIP” to 202-555-0100 to receive weekly deals and special discounts!”)

Here’s some more information on Pushr’s features:

• Two-way Messaging
  Survey your customers to collect valuable real-time feedback or demographic data. See all responses in real-time.
• On-demand and Scheduled Messages
  Send messages immediately or schedule messages to be delivered at a certain time.
• Message Subscriptions
  Schedule a series of messages to be sent daily or weekly to easily maintain customer engagement and keep your brand top-of-mind.
• Web-based Control Panel
  Easily manage your contacts, send and schedule messages, and view reports.
• Dedicated Local Phone Number
  Establish trust with your clients while avoiding the high fees of using a shortcode.

Who can use an SMS Communication System?

Pushr’s SMS Communication System can be used by any group or business to reach their  their customers, members, etc. Below are a few specific examples, but if you’re not on this list, don’t worry. Pushr is extremely flexible, and these are just examples.

• Personal Trainers & Gyms
• Bands, Promoters, Clubs
• Doctors, Dentists, & Chiropractors
• Hairstylists & Salons

Here are some other examples of how certain types of businesses can use Pushr. Just imagine the possibilities!

• If you’re an appointment-based business, imagine sending your customers a text message to remind them about their appointment and what this could mean to your revenue.
• If you’re a band, imagine mobilizing your street team instantly.
• If you’re a restaurant, imagine being able to let your most loyal customers know about last minute open tables or drink specials?
• If you’re a retail shop, imagine sending your own deals directly to your customers (no need to give a cut to Groupon!).
• If you’re a sports league, imagine letting your team captains know about field changes instantly.
• If you’re a non-profit, imagine being able to organize all your volunteers with a click of a button.

Is Pushr easy to use?

You bet. We took a look at handfuls of competing products, and our head was spinning we were so confused. If these confused us, we knew we couldn’t be the only ones. So, we built a tool that’s simple and easy to use. Not convinced? Check out our how it works page for details and screenshots.

What’s the difference between an SMS Communication System and an SMS Marketing System?

You can certainly use Pushr to send marketing messages, but we want you to look at the broader uses of SMS to add value and increase customer engagement, not just blast your audience with marketing drivel. We don’t want you to “market” to your customers, we want you to communicate with them. It’s just one word, but there’s a big difference.

How much does it cost?

Check out the pricing page for all the details, but here are the basics of our three packages:

• Starter Package – $19/mo
  • 225 messages included
  • Additional msgs $0.09 each
  • Email support
• Standard Package – $49/mo
  • 650 messages included
  • Additional msgs $0.08 each
  • Email & phone support
• Premium Package – $99/mo
  • 1500 messages included
  • Additional msgs $0.07 each
  • Email & phone support

Every new account gets a 14-day FREE trial that comes with 50 free messages.

What do I do now?

FREE Trial – Sign up now!

Photo credit: *L*u*z*A*

CTIA, the international association of the wireless industry, releases data on wireless usage. As you might expect, the numbers they quote are staggering.

The most staggering is 1.5 trillion – with a T – SMS text messages were sent in 2009, just in the United States. That’s a lot no matter how you slice it, but let’s slice it to make it a bit easier to grasp.

What is 1.5 trillion?

First of all, let’s write that number out: 1,500,000,000,000. Not helpful? Ok, so let’s break down 1.5 trillion text messages a year into smaller bits.

• 4.1 billion text messages every day
• 171 million text messages every hour
• 2.8 million text messages every minute
• 47, 564 text messages every second
• 4,918 text messages for every man, woman, and child in the United States

But what about the trends?! I’ve trained you well. The trend is staggering as well. In 2008, “just” one trillion SMS text messages were sent, so 1.5 trillion in 2009 represents a 50% increase. If that happens again in 2010, and there’s no reason to think it won’t, the number will be at 2.25 trillion!

Photo credit: woodleywonderworks

1: Open the “Messages” app, and select the conversation that contains the SMS you’d like to forward.

2: Tap the Edit button in the upper right.

3: Next, select the particular SMS message (you can even forward multiple messages at once) you’d like to forward and tap the Forward button at the bottom right of the screen.

4: Select the recipients as normal, and send away!

No, this isn’t a post about sexting. Sorry to disappoint you. I’m talking about being so attached to your phone that you keep it with you even when you go to bed. Don’t feel bad if you do, because you’re not alone.

According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, fully two-thirds – 65% – of American adults take their phone to bed with them. Just to make sure this is clear, we’re not taking into account teens in this number. 65% of Americans over 18 sleep with their cell phone.

Sure, the 18-29 age group pushes the average upwards, with 90%+ having ever slept with their cell phones near or in the bed with them. But I count myself among the 70%+ in the 30-49 year-old demographic who have done this.

The point is, if you think it’s just teens who are practically surgically attached to their cell phones, it’s time to adjust your perspective.

Photo credit: Like Mad

Brand awareness and customer engagement are buzzwords you hear a lot these days. Subscriptions are a unique feature that we have baked into Pushr that gives our clients a tool to keep their brand top-of-mind for their customers.

What are Subscriptions?

Subscriptions allow you to schedule a series of messages to be automagically sent to your subscribers on a daily or weekly basis. This lets you engage your customers regularly with valuable content without having to login to your account every day to manually send a message.

How does it work?

Subscriptions consist of two parts: Message Groups and the actual Subscription Schedule.

Message Groups

Message Groups, as the name implies, are collections of multiple messages. You fill a Message Group with any number of messages. You can have as many Message Groups as you like.

Subscription Schedule

Once you have a Message Group, you can then subscribe all of a subset of your contact list to a message group. Simply select which users should be subscribed, then specify how frequently the messages should be delivered – weekly or daily – and exactly what time of day to deliver the messages.

Examples

Weekly/Daily Deal: Schedule a weekly or daily special offer to be sent to all your contacts. Who needs Groupon?

Personal Trainers: Set up a Subscription with a set of inspirational quotes to keep your clients motivated.

Doctors, Dentists, & Chiropractors: Subscribe your contacts to a “Daily Health Tip” that will keep them on the straight and narrow.

Bands: Send out a weekly trivia question to keep your fans engaged and give them something to talk about.

Photo credit: Andreanna Moya Photography

Smartphone apps are cool, no doubt. Apple’s “there’s an app for that” commercials have driven that home. But according to Nielsen, as of Q4 2009, iPhone, Android, Blackberry and other smartphones only represented 21% of the American wireless market. Put another way, 79% of your customers have a phone that can’t run any apps, much less cool ones.

I’m biased, of course, but SMS text messaging is still the true killer app in mobile marketing and communication, and that will be the case for years to come.

As I said in my last post, trends matter more than raw numbers. So, let’s take a look at that side, too.

I know what you’re thinking, this chart clearly blows my point out of the water. Feature phones are dead (or dying). Long-live smartphones! Look at the writing on the wall!

Not so fast.

While the trends undoubtedly point to rapid adoption of smartphones amongst US wireless subscribers, take a look at a year from now. Fully half of all your customers will still be using phones where SMS is the only meaningful “app” for mobile marketing communications.

While the chart seems to show the inevitable death of feature phones (somewhere around late 2014), that’s not actually the case. At some point, these lines will level off. Smartphones will never reach 100% penetration, and certain segments of the population, either by choice or by financial reality, will choose to use a feature phone.

Smartphones and apps get a lot of attention. Rightly so, they are very cool. As an iPhone owner myself, I follow along raptly. But as business people and marketers, we have to all make sure to look at market reach and bang for our buck. The point being, no matter which way the lines continue to go, the one thing we know will always work on 100% of phones is SMS text messaging.

Photo credit: Rodrigo Senna

Question: How many text messages do teens send a month?

Answer: A lot.

It’s not news that teens send a lot of text messages, but a new Nielsen study finally lets us define exactly how many “a lot” is. Apparently, it’s 3,339 and getting bigger, up 8% over last year. But it seems the guys are pulling down that average, since teen girls exchange a whopping 4,050 SMS messages a month!

But before you go thinking texting is just a kids game, take a look at this chart:

It seems 25-34 year-olds are doing their part to clog the cell towers, sending just under 1,000 texts a month. And even us old fogies in the 35-44 range are sending over 500 a month on average. That sounds more like news to me.

The thing is, when analyzing data like this, it’s not the raw numbers but the trends that are most important. Across the board in every age group, from teenager to baby boomer, we are all using text messaging more.

Photo credit: Derek Olson

Today we launched a new motivational and self-improvement content distribution product called Pooshr. In short, Pooshr allows people to sign up to receive high quality motivational and self-improvement content on their cell phones as SMS text messages. It went from idea to launch in about two months, but that is misleading, because the idea incubated inside my head for about a month of that time. This is the story of Pooshr…

Near the end of May, while doing research for my other company, FitFeud, I came across an interesting article at the Wall Street Journal that talked about the efficacy of receiving phone calls that reminded people to go to the gym. A simple phone call was driving people to increase their amount of exercise 78%!

So, this idea stayed in the back of my mind, frequently pushing its way up to the front, causing me to leap from bed in the middle of the night to jot down notes and ideas. This was when I knew I had to do something.

In early July, while having a breakfast meeting with my developer, Aaron, I casually mentioned this idea of using automated texts and voice calls to motivate people. Having worked on FitFeud, which is essentially a motivational engine itself, he immediately got the concept. We didn’t really talk about building anything, just kicked around ideas about possible markets, use cases, etc.

Two days later, in typical Aaron form, I wake up to an email with the subject, “Surprise!” Lo and behold, Aaron had done a quick and dirty prototype. Just like that (well sort of), we were off and running.

Being a lean startup devotee (or at least, wanting to be one), while Aaron started to code some of the core back-end stuff, I started calling and emailing people to see what they thought of the idea. Interest was enthusiastic and initial thoughts on features were coming together.

A week later, after some help from our friend Andy on some content and Mary coming in in a flash on the design, we had our initial proof of concept.

POC in hand, I “got out of the building” as the lean startup folks like to say, and showed it to more people for feedback. Our initial pricing model was confusing and didn’t really hold up to how people might actually use the product, so we did changed that – a pivot in lean startup language. We also altered our home page drastically to change the sign up process to push more information about the content and assuage people’s fears about how many text messages we’d send them and what we’d do with their cell phone number (the answer: We will never give your cell phone number to any third part unless you give us explicit permission to do so or we’re legally required to do so because you got in trouble with the law, say.).

Two weeks after the initial POC went up, we’ve now re-launched the latest iteration of Pooshr at www.pooshr.com. Stick around to see what the next month or two holds, it should be exciting. And if you try it out, let us know what you think of it and how we can improve it. We’re definitely listening.

Photo credit: Ardyiii