SMS and its importance in China

It is clear, across many bloggers, and users of SMS, that blogs and SMS are important to transmit news and events out of countries that are not necessarily the most easiest going with contents in their legalised pubications.

It has now been shown that an increasing number of youth in the US consume news and comments of events from late night shows. As sad as it is those don't necessarily exist in countries across Asia, or if they exist, they are pretty tame and stricly follow official lines. However, nobody can beat technology and the improvement in technology that it has brought about.

There is now a new study about the usage of SMS in China (http://www.chinaview.cn ) that indicates that more and more users in China get their daily dose of satirical humour via SMS. Or, to put it in numbers - 51% of respondents in a study received jokes - 66% get greetings, 60% chat, and 59% talk serious business. WoW - and the total? A total of 150-200 billion messages were send in 2003, up from 1 billion in 2000, 18.9 billion in 2001, and 90 bilion in 2002 - talk about growth!!

But creativity is not necessarily in demand as one respondent stated that he received 200 messages for New Year, but all of them were identical. Interesting findings, don't you think?