Devoted to technical writing and technical writers

The gradual loss of the written word as an art form could be seen once instruments such as typewriters and computers replaced the once mighty pen as the chosen mode for getting things done. The penultimate blow – I hesitate to use the word “ultimate” for fear that some other instrument may yet make its entry and further revolutionize writing – may have been struck by the entry of TEXT MESSAGING as a mode of communication. In certain countries, cellphone users prefer to use voice rather than the more tedious task of texting one’s thoughts. But in countries where the cost of a call is much more than that of sending a text message, the obvious solution is to send as many texts as one can afford to do so.

The is acknowledged by Nokia as the “Texting Capital of the World”, with tens of millions of text messages sent each day by happy users. Since voice and text messages supposedly use different protocols, it is said that countries like the have to invest more in hardware that allows for the throughput of such huge text traffic. Certainly, the last thing a telephone company would like to do would be to store these messages for long in their respective data banks.

Since cellphones are portable, it makes more sense to send text messages than to sit in front of a computer and communicate through Yahoo Messenger or equivalent. It may not be long before the reality of test messaging sets in the its costs go down as more and more people use it to contact each other all over the globe.