Friday, November 28, 2008

Text Messages and Holidays

I got a couple dozen texts wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving, what nice people out there. I began to realize every holiday I get dozens of texts and I rarely reply. The main reason I never reply is because of the impersonal text. There are two sides to this, it would take way too long for all my friends to send out individual texts and I understand the easiness of doing it all at once. But I also understand that it feels so impersonal because it really isn't to me. I thank all those people who feel compelled to text me, don't stop, I just may not return the favor ;). Maybe I am selfish, maybe I am not.

Think about how this applies to business advertising or church advertising and marketing. We pump so much information to people who don't necessarily want it. TV commercials use interruption advertising. Many feeds are opt-in advertising which is one of the best kinds, it allows the user to opt-in and opt-out whenever they want to. The television programmers don't care if you are into the show or not. Why do we pay for cable if we are still forced to watch commercials. Doesn't commercials pay for the TV show? Then again if I am paying for cable television should't that opt me out of commercials?

I love all you text messagers who take the time to send me a text on the holidays and forgive me for not texting back. Am I alone in this? What do you feel?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think everyone but me feels the same way as you do. Sending/getting texts for holidays makes me feel special and happy. I sent the "Happy Thanksgiving" texts to everyone in my phone that was a cell number and not one reply. Even if you don't really mean it, it's still nice to know someone hit "ok" when selecting my number.