Forty-eight percent of consumers ages 18-24 say that a conversation relayed over SMS is just as meaningful as a phone call, according to a new study from Experian Marketing Services.

“Usage has become a primary mode of communications amongst younger consumers, with more than 48 percent of 18-24 year olds indicating that texting is as meaningful as a traditional telephone conversation,” said Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Experian Marketing Services, Costa Mesa, CA

Read more @ Mobile Marketer!

You can read the entire interview at the BBC.

FYI – Your Keyword Autoresponses are unaffected by this feature. If someone joins your list by texting in your Keyword, we’ll always immediately send your customized response. Of course you could connect that Keyword and the Drip Campaign to the same Group, which would allow you to send a series of texts to that new opt-in over the course of the following days and weeks.

You can login to your Group Texting account right now to setup your first Drip Campaign!

You can create as many folders as you like, and you can move messages between them using our web app or even via the API (docs coming soon!). To see your upgraded Inbox in action, login to your Group Texting account now and head to https://app.grouptexting.com/incoming-messages

In August, U.S. smartphone owners visited Instagram from their smartphones more frequently and for longer periods of time than they visited Twitter.

That data comes from comScore, via a new mobile measurement report: It says that throughout August, Instagram had an average of 7.3 million daily active users — or DAUs, in Facebook parlance. That tops of Twitter’s 6.868 million DAUs over the same period of time.

What’s more, the average Instagram user spent 257 minutes accessing the photo-sharing site via mobile device in August, the data claims, while the average Twitter user over the same period spent 169.9 minutes viewing.

What makes it even more interesting is the fact that Twitter has a lot more mobile users to begin with:

This is the case despite the fact that Twitter had approximately 29 million unique U.S. smartphone-based visitors in August, while Instagram had just under 22 million (comScore measured usage across iOS, Android and BlackBerry OS devices that accessed both sites via native application as well as through the mobile Web browser). This stems from the roughly 110 million smartphone owners that live in the U.S.

As an added bonus don’t miss the final few paragraphs as the WSJ cannot help but turn this interesting data point into yet another dig at Facebook.

Read the entire article @ WSJ

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When Harris Interactive and Placecast asked what types of products, sales and/or promotions would interest parents enough to receive text alerts, 50% of parents with children under 6 years old reported being at least somewhat interested in receiving text alerts about coffee and beverage promotions, compared to 34% of parents with children aged 6-12. The numbers skewed higher in receptiveness for all types of offers among parents of younger children, including for beauty and fashion promotions (38% vs. 34%), travel services and promotions (35% vs. 26%), bar and nightclub promotions (31% vs. 20%), and health-related offers (24% vs. 20%).

Why would new parents be so receptive to text message alerts and coupons? Consider how little time new parents have and the appeal of short, sweet text message alerts really makes a lot of sense.

Read more at MarketingCharts.

So what can the new widgets do?

• Connect to multiple Groups
• Allow you or your visitors to choose which Group(s) they join.
• Automatic resizing for mobile phones and tablets
• Automatic Short Links for Twitter and other social sharing.
• Automatic QR Code generation
• Ultrafast hosting on Amazon’s cloud servers

What about Facebook? We know the old Facebook widget could be a bit difficult to configure, so we’ve given that widget a top-to-bottom overhaul. Check out the new simpler Facebook signup widget getting started guide to learn more.

Want to try the new widgets yourself? Login to your Group Texting account now!

Mobile phones are establishing themselves as an important way for retailers to connect with consumers and entice them into purchases, according to a pair of studies released in May 2012. Data from an Ipsos survey finds that within the US, roughly one-quarter of consumers have opened a retail email on their mobile phone, with that proportion rising to 37% among consumers aged under 35, 32% among business owners, and 31% among those with high educational levels of attainment. Beyond opening emails, mobile owners are also interested in receiving vouchers: according to an eDigitalResearch survey, more than half of smartphone owners would be fairly or very interested in receiving vouchers sent to their devices.

And an interesting chart:

Read more here.