Michael Pousti is chairman and chief executive officer of San Diego-based SMS.ac, which operates an international system for text and multimedia mobile-phone messaging and billing. Before SMS.ac, Pousti co-founded CollegeClub.com, which later was acquired by Alloy Inc. He also was a co-founder and chief executive officer of Productivity Solutions Corp., a software company acquired by Unisys Corp.
How does your technology work?
When you go to a Web site, you expect to be able to read the page no matter what type of computer you're using, no matter who your Internet provider is. The challenge is to do the same thing in the mobile world, where everyone is using different technologies and carriers are using different billing software and dealing with different currencies. Our technology, MMSbox, unifies different mobile-phone standards to allow text and multimedia messaging around the globe. It also unifies different currencies for billing purposes.
Who pays whom?
Ultimately, the consumer pays. We have a revenue-sharing arrangement with the carriers. Most of our services are more of a premium type, not basic peer-to-peer messages. Consumers are willing to pay for premium services such as smsFlirt, our dating service, or our smsClassmates service. In the U.S., the typical charge is 25 cents per message. You're not paying for the message as much as you're paying for the premium service, such as an introduction to another person with the Flirt service.
Is text messaging catching on in the U.S.?
It's catching on in the U.S. in a big way. In June 2001, there were a total of about 30,000 messages sent in the U.S. At that time, there was no interoperability. Most people in the U.S. have friends on other (cell phone) carriers. In June 2004, there were 2.8 billion messages sent in the U.S. The numbers speak for themselves.
Who is sending those messages?
Most of those messages are coming from early adopters, generally under the age of 30. You may not see a lot of people sending text messages, but you will soon. It's starting with the youth and will spread to older groups. Two years ago, only 8 percent of text messagers were older than 25. Today, 40 percent are.
Is there any technology you couldn't live without?
I don't think I could live without my mobile phone. I'd rather lose my car than lose my phone. I live and work downtown, so I could get to work without a car, but I'd have to stop everything and go out and get another one if I lost my phone. I travel a lot. My tri-mode BlackBerry works anywhere in the world.
About SMS.ac
SMS.ac, Inc. is a mobile data communications company whose proprietary MMSbox platform enables the interoperable exchange of mobile multimedia (MMS and SMS) and micro-transaction billing across all mobile standards, protocols and the Internet. A demonstration of the MMSbox platform is available at www.sms.ac.
With tens of millions of self-registered mobile consumers in 170 countries, and connectivity to more than 400 mobile operators worldwide, SMS.ac is host to the largest community of mobile phone users in the world. Through its global initiatives, SMS.ac is igniting the widespread adoption and use of wireless data. To view the SMS.ac corporate web site, visit www.sms.ac/corporate.
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