2 teach the world 2 txt

It hit me while firing away on Chikka’s two-way, PC-to-mobile "Txt Messenger" one afternoon – truly mobile Instant Messaging could only have been born in the Philippines!

Consider only two million Internet users in the Philippines but well over 10 million mobile subscribers representing what must be the most advanced text-ing culture in the world.

The product dubbed Chikka (loosely translated: small talk) Txt Messenger is actually a mobile version of popular Instant Messengers (IMs) already being used by millions of PC users worldwide as a "real-time" communications medium. On the other hand, SMS (Short Message Service) or "texting" is Instant Messaging’s counterpart in the GSM world and the most successful of wireless data services ever launched. The principle is the same: Real-time messaging between online recipients, through a computer or a cellular phone.

Chikka’s idea was to marry these two "killer apps" from the PC and the mobile world and to launch it in the most demanding SMS market in the world – the Philippines.

But the guys at Chikka like to say they’re on a mission: "to teach the world to text." I am not surprised to learn that the downloadable version is now being used by PC buddies in more than 50 countries all around the world from war-torn Afghanistan and tumultuous Argentina to New Zealand and of course, the United States with early adopters led by Fil-Americans who are not to be left out in this Philippine texting revolution.

Texting is now nothing short of a way of life in the Philippines. Want anyone’s attention here, whether they’re in a jeepney or in a boardroom? "I-text mo na lang." The world soon realizes this.

While the Philippines is definitely and consistently an outlier in all surveys of daily SMS production, the world is now also seeing the explosion of texting with Europeans and Asians leading the way. The global SMS industry is now estimated at some US$19 billion. Two hundred billion SMS messages were sent worldwide in 2001.

In fact (and this may be unknown to many), the race to build the first "mobile instant messenger" was actually a worldwide one that counted among its participants, some of the world’s most important software developers, network engineers and telecommunications equipment manufacturers and infrastructure builders. They had come from all over the US, Europe and of course, Scandinavia.

It is in this respect that Chikka makes us Filipinos particularly proud, not only to lead in the "consumption" of SMS worldwide, but to establish the country as the center for the development of wireless applications and services that are changing the way people do (and say) things all around the world.

Col me. Txt me. BTW, do u SMS? "I-chikka" mo na lang. ;)

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On the move, I get ChikkaTXT messages on my mobile from friends based in the States and almost always online through their PCs. It’s really remarkable how the messages appear on the phone as ordinary text, and how replying is as simple as that, "replying," or as we say around here, "txt-ing back!" We take for granted that the message had actually whizzed though the Internet and that days, perhaps months, of programming had actually gone into an application only so that we mobile users do not become lost in the unfamiliar.

Chikka CEO Dennis Mendiola says that their breakthrough has, in fact, been in their simplicity. Chikka is as intuitive as texting and texting back, and has thus captured what is truly already second nature to Filipinos.

From the mobile phone, Chikka can be accessed with one text message sent to an access code. This returns a "menu" on the mobile phone. The user then replies with A, B, C or D corresponding to the feature of his choice; whether that’s to ADD a BUDDY, to VIEW who’s ONLINE via their PCs, to access "HELP" or even to create groups for Chikka’s GROUP CHAT (a truly mobile version of IRC or Internet Related Chat).

In fact, this unique SMS-based menu system to navigate SMS applications and services is the subject of global patents already filed by Chikka and affiliate companies. The menu system, accessed simply by texting, can be used on any text-enabled legacy GSM phone and does not require WAP, GPRS or 3G data technology. The patents highlight the SMS-savvy of the company and their profound understanding of the market.

A Merrill Lynch study noted that: "SMS in the Philippines has clearly penetrated the mass market and exemplifies the power of the network effect." The same study stated that "among Asian countries those with the highest market potential for wireless data services are China, South Korea, the Philippines and Singapore."

That is Chikka’s realm and the company seems to be "in the right place at the right time." Since when did anyone make us Filipinos feel like that?

Check out www.chikka.com now or send "I-chat" to 277 from Smart mobile phones. Consult the site for info on connectivity with other mobile carriers.

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Patrick Garcia is managing director of Bidshot Wireless Services. For comments or suggestions, e-mail [email protected].