The news of Steve Jobs’ death has hit harder than anyone could have imagined – not just throughout the tech industry, but with the public at large. Ironically, the new Apple service iMessage that was introduced this fall failed to receive much buzz – even at a time when rumors of an iPhone 5 had Apple devotees salivating.
In his capacity as a Los Angeles Times intern, Salvador Rodriguez observed that iMessage deserved more acclaim than it initially got. “In that moment, everyone missed the impact of what it was,” Salvador says. “It will enable hundreds of millions of devices to message each other.”
Because the iMessage may cut down on cell phone costs for users, it could potentially stand to become more popular than texting – at least for iPhone users. It should catch on, Rodriguez surmises, because its function is “enabling the millions of iPhone and iPad owners to send messages to one another over the Internet at no cost.”
To locate information sources for his article, Salvador, then a student at Arizona State University, took to social media sites, in search of Facebook posts and Tweets for “iMessage” and “texting.” At the time, Salvador had no idea how much news he’d gather through these channels, but the information paid off with a front page story and a valuable lesson about the power in being a savy Los Angeles social mediadiscussion influencer.
His reporting on threats to texting – an activity that creates a $21 billion revenue stream for cell phone companies – landed Rodriguez a front page Times article in August. His reporting revealed that along with iMessage, other threats to the viability of texting include Facebook Messenger, which is also a free service to users of the host platform.
According to , there are feasible threats to texting that should have cell phone companies worried. However, the demand for mobile Web marketing has never been greater. For more information about services geared towards marketing to mobile users, contact our Los Angeles social media firm.
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