While I’m admittedly biased, and no friend of SMS costs going up (which would hurt us in the short term but not long term), this article from CTIA discussions pointedly confirms what a HUGE opportunity there is for Fanminder.

When everyone goes right, it pays to go left.

The article discusses the need to reduce costs for SMS advertising, focusing on big brands. When advertising generates fractions of penny as revenue per impression, there’s naturally a need to greatly reduce SMS costs. I’d be a huge fan of reducing SMS costs, but the panelists are thinking “ad revenues” when they should be thinking “susbcription revenues.”

Big difference. A function, frankly, of limited imagination and narrow perspectives.

Once again, the local merchant is ignored in this equation. Subscription services for local merchants are not even mentioned.

In addition, the article discusses how SMS “works best” when combined with other forms of marketing. Naturally, big companies spend big budgets on mixes of marketing types. The local merchants not so much, right? If you are a text messaging company living and breathing text messaging for local merchants, you would assume you’ll innovate your way to big success with text messaging simply because you’re “all in.” So watch the text companies like Fanminder for text innovations.

Overall, the smartest, most aggressive players have their attention elsewhere. Yahoo! We’re in this space all by ourselves.