Submitted by Igor Faletski on March 3, 2007 - 3:59pm.
Invented only a decade ago, text messaging quickly evolved into a major source of income for telecommunication companies. It is said that it has the best dollar-per-megabyte ratio of all existing forms of data transmission. Several factors contributed to its success - low consumer cost (combined with high telco profits), its asynchronous and non-intrusive nature as well as the sheer efficiency of "impulse-driven" knowledge exchange. While it's far from perfect, SMS continues its triumph worldwide.
Simultaneously with text messaging, another form of communication was stirring a revolution. E-mail maintains double-digit growth rates years after it was introduced (admittedly, spam is responsible for a big part of it). Nowadays, e-mail provides a reliable way to exchange all kinds of media (and text of course) with peers all over the world. Best of all, it's free (not including the cost of internet access).
