Portable Message Formats
by Imran Ali
Standardised messaging formats such as MMS and SMS do a great job in delivering messages between devices from various manufacturers, carriers, applications and operating systems.
However, each time I upgrade my mobile handset - there are few consistent mechanisms for me to migrate the messages held within my phone. Sure, I can fire VCards and VCals between phones, but why no format for transferring my messages?
Texts, photomessages and voicemails are the bearers of the emotional bits that matter to us and yet we risk losing them each time we change handsets.
Perhaps we need a VInbox format, that can help us to move our messages - intact and whole . Technologies such as RSS and IMAP can provide some such capability, but I want to be able to move that precious last voicemail from a dying relative to my Gmail account for safekeeping; I want the intimate, playful texts from a girlfriend to stay with me whenever I upgrade phones.
Emotional bits matter, they’re important, valuable - and billable. The Web 2.0 industry gets this, but why don’t carriers and handset manufacturers? Answer - carriers want to make the network valuable and the handset a commodity…handset guys want the opposite.
Users will be left to construct their own solutions - and when they do, the incumbents will wonder why they didn’t think of it first…
