What Is A Mobile Message? Here’s What the Definition Of One Ought To Be
by Russell Shaw
OK, now it’s my turn to describe what a mobile message is. Or, at least my view of what a mobile message is.
I think the definition of a mobile message depends on how the message is sent and received than any characteristic of the message itself, or the device being used to send or receive said message (s).
This is real simple. If either the sender or receiver is in motion during the composition, transmission or arrival of this message, then we are talking about a mobile message.
If I am at my desktop, and I am texting your cellphone, that’s a mobile message. It doesn’t matter that I am at a fixed location. You’re not, so the message qualifies.
But what if I am at my desktop and text your cellphone while you too, are at home? It’s not a mobile message.
Why? After all, a growing legion of folks go without landlines and use their cell as their home phone as well.
If I am using my laptop’s WiFi capability from a Starbucks, to call up my Web-based email and send you an email to your home PC or your BlackBerry, well, that’s a mobile message. Why? Because I, the sender, am mobile even though you may or may not be.
But if I am using my laptop’s WiFi capability from my home or office network and send you an email, whether or not what I am sending you a mobile message or not depends on whether or not you are out and about or not.
What’s even trickier: what if the message-sender forwards a message from a stationary (i.e. non-mobile) location, and the recipient only gets the message when they turn on their cell, PDA, WiFi or EVDO-enabled laptop, etc.
It depends where they are when they retrieve and read the message. Out and about, it is a mobile message. When the recipient reads her or his message over a mobile device used from home, they are not being mobile when they read the message. So in cases such as I have just described, we’re not talking about a mobile message.
Let me be clear: as I see this “what is a mobile message” issue, I define it not by the devices being used to send or receive the message, and certainly not by the message’s contents.
IMHO to qualify as a mobile message, either the sender or recipient has to be mobile when the message is sent or received.
