Text Messaging May Be Way to Reach Young Readers
By Jennifer Saba
Published: May 27, 2004 12:30 PM EST
NEW YORK Newspapers have been crying in their beer over the loss of young adult readers. So in an effort to grab that ever-elusive demographic, one newspaper decided to stop sobbing and go where the young and hip go. Last week, The Boston Phoenix rolled out a program with two lures sure to snag the under-30 set: chat, and the chance for romance.
Called txt2flirt, it's essentially a text-messaging application. The alternative weekly runs ads in sections like horoscopes, weather or lottery results, enticing readers to sign up for txt2flirt. A person then registers by phone or the Web by entering information like age, sex, zip code and desired content.
Once in the database, the person can ask to be matched with someone else who is in the area. The application can even drill down to a specific place, like Bob's Bar, for example.
It's double-blind though, and completely opt-in, meaning a person reveals their name and identity only if they choose to do so.
"This is a big opportunity to start a database around a younger demographic," said Monte Burris, director of business development for g8wave, the company that develops and handles the technology. (It's also a division of Phoenix Media Communications Group, which owns The Phoenix.)
And the application is more than just a cool thing. It also brings in revenue. Unlike the Internet, where there is an expectation that content should be free, people using text messaging pay for the service. In this case, each text message sent and received costs 50 cents. After the carrier gets its cut (which varies from carrier to carrier), the revenues are split 50/50 between the paper and g8wave.
Text messaging can also be used in other areas, like circulation promotion. g8wave is about to roll out an application called live-text, which can be used around promotional campaigns. It allows a paper to start a marketing campaign around a prize or giveaway that will require readers to pick up the paper and enter a special code via text message. The paper can then push content and alert the reader if they win.
Though popular in Europe and Asia, text messaging has been slow to catch on here in the United States, mainly because carriers couldn't talk to one another. That changed a year and a half ago. The next sticking point was finding a way to charge for content. Since January, all carriers can now track micro-payments. David Dinnage, president of g8wave, says that at a minimum text messages cost 30 cents each.
Dinnage was in Europe when text messaging was just about to take off. "I'm guessing
it was in 1997 or 1998, and by that measure we're five years behind Europe. However,
if you look at the adoption rate, compared with Europe and Asia, the U.S. is
matching that curve," he noted. The company rolled out a similar program for a paper in the U.K. three years ago. Now 75 million messages a year are sent through the application, said Dinnage.