Is the SMS vote of no confidence a smokescreen...?
12 September 2007
Many must have been surprised to see in the news that Channel 4 has dropped SMS voting. The original pioneer of text voting is no longer offering its viewers the chance to vote and take part in interactive TV shows (such as the eviction of Big Brother contestants) via SMS and only offers a phone-in voting mechanism via interactive voice recording (IVR).
The reason behind this is said to be the inability of mobile operators to process the messages quickly enough. But Steven van Zanen, VP Marketing, Intuitive Messaging, at Acision, the world leaders in mobile messaging believes that this is not the case:
“Carrier networks are incredibly resilient and can easily cater for the predictable peaks in demand caused by SMS voting, so it is unlikely that the problem lies with the operators. Both media companies and operators stand to loose a lot by ditching SMS voting so the decision to stop using it sounds more like a protest than a vote of no confidence.”
“At the moment there is huge variation across the industry in terms of price and service level, with different operators, interactivity suppliers, short-code providers and media companies all making different demands on one another. The entire value-chain needs to work together more closely, with common policies across the board. The opportunity afforded by SMS voting is substantial, benefiting all parties involved.
“It’s ludicrous that a lack of co-operation across the industry could jeopardise such a lucrative opportunity. Channel 4 is the first media company to go down this route, but if the industry doesn’t resolve this now, it’s unlikely that they’ll be the last, and how much do we all stand to loose?”