Once considered a teenage fad, text messaging popularity in the United States is rising dramatically. According to The Wall Street Journal, 4.7 billion text messages were sent in the USA in December, 2004 compared to 2.1 billion in December, 2003.

In fact, text messaging is entering all aspects of our society, even relationships. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that nine percent of singles have even admitted to breaking up with their significant others via text message. Thirty percent of text users said that they've continued an argument by text message; probably part of the same group that ultimately contributed to the break ups.

The applications for text messaging promotions are also increasing just as quickly. Major League Baseball offers a text message service that enables its fans to catch up on the latest news and results of their favorite team. There are also custom cell phone wallpapers of team logos and unique actual game recorded play-by-play ringtones in the professional baseball offering. Live 8, which sponsored the single biggest text messaging promotion in history, garnered 26 million texts last month supporting increased government aid to poor African countries. The opportunities for promoters appear to only be limited by one's imagination.

One of the more interesting applications that we've seen is one being sold to radio stations by Chicago-based Spark Network Services. Spark, which got its start by offering 900-number based radio voice personal datelines, is now selling a suite of text messaging products called PromoTXTRadio. The text messaging products allow radio stations to offer votelines, sweepstakes, song dedications, station play lists, traffic reports, and breaking news via text message. It even allows radio stations to offer their station jingles to be played as cell phone ringtones.

Still, Americans have a long way to go to catch their Asian brethren when it comes to the growing phenomenon of text messaging. CTIA-The Wireless Association, estimates that the average Chinese cell phone user sent 651 text messages last year compared to just 203 for US wireless users.

C U L8r.

Bob Bentz is the editor of the Cool Ringtones Blog-a blog that reports on cell phone ringtones, text messaging, and the mobile data content industry. He is also an avid text messaging user and claims to easily be outdistancing the average Chinese user.