Manufacturers of wireless communications devices and services can read research. They’re flocking to offer products to this tech-loving generation, some 31 million in the United States. It’s Marketing 101: hook them early. Just as important, companies are latching on to teens because they’ve earned a reputation for discovering hot new trends long before they hit the mainstream. They were among the first to spot the appeal of AOL’s Instant Messenger service, for example. And teens touched off the peer-to-peer file-sharing revolution, through Napster and streaming digital music.
Today the mobile phone is the must-have gadget–according to TRU, 37 percent of kids 12 to 19 use one, putting it right up there with handheld videogame players. Parents are giving phones to their kids in order to keep tabs on them; teens, in turn, use their mobile phones to plan parties on the fly and buy tickets for “American Pie 2” over the Web. The next trend in Teenville: text appeal. Already a runaway hit among teenagers in Europe and Asia, the habit of sending bursts of text from phone to phone is starting to catch on here.
Motorola tested a hunch by bringing out a cheap device last year that allows two-way text messaging over the rudimentary wireless networks used for pagers. The Talkabout T900 caught on “like wildfire” among younger users, according to Motorola’s Allan Spiro, marketing manager for the wireless-messaging division. The company sponsored a demo booth at an X Games event earlier this year. The teens who attended, says Spiro, “were quoting our commercials to us. They knew everything about it.” To date, Motorola has sold more than a million T900s, and it believes this kind of device will take off as mobile-phone service providers improve their text-messaging products.
The appeal of “texting” is that it’s cheaper than voice calls over a mobile phone and, for teens, just as effective. “When teens say, ‘I’m going to call my friends,’ they actually send an IM,” says Spiro, referring to AOL’s Instant Messenger service, which lets you send quick notes to friends who are also online. As Internet connectivity moves to the wireless world, device manufacturers and service providers are eager to put popular PC applications like IM on mobile phones. In November, handset maker Nokia is shipping its 3390 model, which includes an AOL IM interface built directly into the phone. Most of the major wireless service providers, including Sprint PCS , VoiceStream and Verizon Wireless, offer some form of text messaging or support phone-to-phone IM.
Teens, naturally, have developed a new shorthand for their text habit. “See you later” becomes “C U L8R,” and “Get a life” is rendered simply as “GAL.” Feeling behind the curve already? Nuff Z (enough said).
