Month: August 2011

AT&T’s New Text Messaging Pricing  →

Starting Sunday, all new customers to AT&T will have a new pricing structure for their text-messaging plans: unlimited or pay-per-text.

Starting August 21, we’re streamlining our text messaging plans for new customers and will offer an unlimited plan for individuals for $20 per month and an unlimited plan for families of up to five lines for $30 per month. The vast majority of our messaging customers prefer unlimited plans and with text messaging growth stronger than ever, that number continues to climb among new customers. Existing customers don’t have to change any messaging plan they have today, even when changing handsets.

The cost will still be $20 for the unlimited plan (and $30 for family) just like it is but that’s the only text messaging plan that will be available. If you don’t go with a plan then you’ll pay $0.20/SMS and $0.30/MMS.

This is a smart move by AT&T. If you send more than 3 text messages a day then it’s cheaper to get the unlimited plan. The vast majority of new customers will go with the unlimited plan. Especially any and all new customers who may be switching to AT&T later this fall due to a certain new phone and a certain new OS.

With the previous plan option of $10/1,000 you could send 32 text messages a day before the unlimited plan became cheaper. And with iMessage rolling out this fall it means new (and current customers) on iPhones who likely would have gone with the $10/1,000 plan will instead go for the $20 unlimited plan.

But I think it’s silly to say that this move is solely in response to iMessage. AT&T has nearly 100 million wireless subscribers. And the total install base of American smartphone users are still outnumbered by non-smartphone users 2 to 1. Put another way: there are a lot of AT&T customers who don’t use an iPhone.

On a personal note, Anna and I will be sticking with our unlimited family messaging plan. At $0.20 per text we could only send 150 text messages per month before the $30 plan got cheaper. We each send close to 150 texts in just one week. And, except for one cousin on my mom’s side, not a single person our entire family owns an iPhone. Thus, iMessage won’t be incredibly helpful to us.

AT&T’s New Text Messaging Pricing

Mused  →

Sean Sperte’s take on Adobe Muse:

If Adobe really wants to help print designers break into the web, they need to focus their efforts on actually teaching print designers how to design for the web — which requires knowing code.

Mused

TThor  →

A free, weekly email newsletter from Tory Briggs that’s aimed at nerds. It’s basically a list of cool stuff that happened during the past week related to design, development, photography, and other nerdery. I’ve been getting it since it debuted about a month ago and find something worthwhile in it every Sunday.

TThor

Bypassing the Leap  →

Speaking of misunderstanding yet trying to emulate the success of others, here is Seth Godin on the matter:

It’s not enough to be aware of the domain you’re working in, you need to understand it. Noticing things and being curious about how they work is the single most common trait I see in creative people. Once you can break the components down, you can put them back together into something brand new.

Bypassing the Leap

Misunderstanding Apple’s Success  →

Kyle Baxter:

We can’t make superficial analysis of other people’s success and expect to have their success, too. It won’t happen. You’ll fail every time. You have to understand the deeper reasons for it—market trends they’re taking advantage of, changes in society, their deeper strategy. And then you have to go beyond what they’ve accomplished, because there’s no point in merely reaching parity with your competitors. While you’re busy getting to where they are now, they’ll move even farther forward, and you’ll be perpetually chasing their taillights.

Misunderstanding Apple’s Success

The Perils of Licensing to Your Competitors  →

Horace Dediu on Google’s acquisition of Motorola, and the unintended consequences that will come from what is now a classic channel conflict.

In short, when the supplier of a license is also a competitor of others who use that license, then the other competitors get uncomfortable.

HTC, Samsung, LG, Sony, and Motorlola all license Android for use in their handsets. Now, part of the competition (Motorola) is owned by the company that everyone licenses from (Google).

Fortunately for HTC, Samsung, LG, and Sony, Google promises that “Motorola will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open”, and that they “will run Motorola as a separate business.”

For one, I don’t think too many people believe that Google will leave Motorola as a separate business and solely use its patents as a defense against Microsoft and Apple. And secondly, if Google were to leave Motorola as a separate business then it would be a massively missed opportunity for Google.

The Perils of Licensing to Your Competitors

“Protecting the Ecosystem”  →

Smart piece from Ben Brooks on the naive and ironic (or hypocritical) differences between Google’s actions and their words.

Also, in an aside, Ben hits on another byproduct of the acquisition: modems:

Motorola has long made the best modems a consumer can buy for their home DSL/Cable connections — Google now owns that. That prospect scares me as the last thing I want is a party with a vested interest in what, where, and how I browse the Internet to be standing between me and the Internet. Google is now that party — of course they may never leverage it, but do you really believe that?

“Protecting the Ecosystem”