The following is a guest post by Derek Johnson, Founder & CEO of  Tatango, an SMS provider.  You can find him on Twitter @thederekjohnson.

Yesterday we broke the news on our blog about CallFire acquiring EzTexting, but there was still the lingering question as to why CallFire was keeping their acquisition such a secret. While there may be many reasons why CallFire wants to keep the acquisition a secret, there’s one that if exposed would most certainly impact the value of their acquisition of EzTexting.

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The other day, a colleague and I were defending our thoughts on the most influential and disruptive technologies of this century.  The usual suspects came and went very quickly and with little debate.  TIVO … duh.  Touch screens … well it was actually invented in 1965 but it really became a staple of consumer devices in this century so maybe.  IPhone… well revolutionary yes, however, it was derivative of many personal data assistants that came before it.  It laid the foundation for the next generation of telephony and basically killed the non-Smartphone market.  Ask Motorola, Ericsson and Nokia, if they think it was disruptive.

If the Smartphone killed the mobile phone, then what will kill the Smartphone?  What is the next round of disruption to this industry?  Why exactly is the Smartphone dead?

To develop disruption, the first step is to identify the pain points within the existing process.  For telephony it’s actually pretty easy.

1. Smartphones need to have big screen sizes.  Practically, there is only so far a screen can grow and still be portable.  Current phone sizes can range up past 5 inches; however, no one thinks a 7 inch screen is practical for daily communication purposes.  However, increasingly the gap between tablet, Smartphone and computer is shrinking.  We must find a way to execute more with less space or fundamentally change the equation.
2. Touch screens aren’t that practical.  Finger prints drive us all crazy.  Screen protectors are just painful and steal the vibrancy away from today’s high res screens.  Cursor positioning on a Smartphone is a labor in futility and don’t get me started on why iOS won’t add the cursor arrows to their keyboards.  Touch screens also require you to be looking down or at them to engage.  How many times have you almost walked into a pole, while texting or surfing on your phone?
3. Does anyone like earpieces?  Both Bluetooth and wired have fundamental issues and limitations.  Tangled cords, poor sound transmission, poor amplification, noise cancellation that baffles both the user and party on the other line.  Do you walk around all day with an ear piece on or put it in your pocket until needed.  You need to charge it with a separate charger than your phone (generally) and how often does either your phone or earpiece run out of power when you need it most?  The underlying problem is that flat, rectangular phones are a flawed shape for telephony.  Great for data, poor for conducting a conversation.
4. Where do you put your phone when you aren’t using it?  Nomophobia is the fear of losing your phone.  We can all agree that it is a well founded fear and most of us have misplaced, lost or dropped a phone.  With phone prices rising, it’s easy to understand how this has become a condition.  The bigger phones get, coupled with the more power needed to support the larger and higher resolution screens, the harder it is to comfortably walk around with a phone in your pocket.  Form and function are again at odds.

So what does my crystal ball say as to the future evolution of personal computing, communication and telephony.  It actually takes a page directly out of Apple’s own playbook.  Identify a form factor that can be stylish, trendsetting and leverages existing capabilities in a way that provides a differential experience.  Take technologies that are already there and combine them in a way that hasn’t been thought of yet.

Welcome to, iGlasses 2018.  Not the currently interpreted view of what Google’s Project Glass and Apple’s existing iGlasses initiative represent but the real world and disruptive application of that vision.  Imagine a set of eye glasses, with thousands of frame choices for you to make, that integrates hard- wired ear buds (think of a better version of what Oakley makes) and battery and charging systems to make them a completely integrated system.  Utilize induction to charge the whole thing up and slim connectors, Bluetooth or wireless to upload and download data.

Like the existing Google Project Glass and Apple iGlasses initiatives these transparent and head mounted displays would replace traditional lenses in the frames permitting the wearer to view and interact with content through a much, much larger perspective.  Imagine how you would interact with a 50 inch screen in front of you?  Don’t worry about walking into a pole because you can see right through the data and you have your head up all the time.

Now how would you interact with the data?  On a Smartphone you touch, tap and drag.  Using iGlasses, you could use four different data input methods.

1. Voice.  Clearly Siri and voice technology is only improving.  It won’t be long for you to be able to guide your experience through voice alone.  Siri, pull up today’s calendar.  Siri, call my brother.  That works already, however it would become cumbersome on its own for repetitive navigation commands.
2. Eye tracking.  The frames of the glasses could have sensors that track the movements of your eye to reference where on the virtual screen you are looking at.  Currently, there are dozens of practical applications using eye tracking as a computer interface.  It simply needs to be miniaturized to fit this application.
3. Hand/finger tracking.  Kinect and other gesture control technologies are exploding right now.  Unlike eye tracking, imagine the sensor is on the other side of the rim tracking your hand/finger movements to position the cursor on the virtual screen.  Look anywhere and virtually type in the air to compose your next email.
4. Lastly, and certainly not as far off as you think is mind control.  No really!  Check out this TED video to see how a small number of strategically positioned electrodes can enable anyone to move cursors and 3D renderings with their mind.  Imagine that the eyeglass’ rim, temple and earpiece have sensors that detect your unique brainwave pattern.  Instead of reading how to click and swipe in the instruction manual, it’ll teach you how to calibrate the sensors to read your thoughts.

Am I serious?  Absolutely!  Is it disruptive?  You tell me.  While you think about, it, I’m placing my advanced order.

The following is a guest post by Derek Johnson, Founder & CEO of SMS provider Tatango.  You can reach him by phone at (206) 334-4012 or via email.

Have you noticed recently the abundance of QR code marketing hate out there? Don’t get me wrong, there has always been QR code haters, but recently it seems like these numbers are starting to multiply at an alarming rate. I can understand the hate towards the design aspects (design is always subjective), but you’ve gotta be stupid to think that marketing through QR codes isn’t here to stay, in a big way.

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The mobile industry is buzzing today over the DOJ’s decision to block the proposed AT&T acquisition of T-Mobile.  There’s been split reaction since the merger was proposed, and opinions are flying around hot and heavy since the latest news broke early this morning.

AT&T was quick to issue a statement regarding the decision, saying they were “surprised and disappointed by today’s action,” especially since they’d met with the DOJ repeatedly and had no indication that such an action was being contemplated.  ”We plan to ask for an expedited hearing so the enormous benefits of this merger can be fully reviewed,” explained Wayne Watts, AT&T senior executive VP and general counsel in a prepared statement.  ”The DOJ has the burden of proving alleged anti-competitive affects and we intend to vigorously contest this matter in court.”

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Group Texting, a company that does exactly what its name implies, published an interesting blog post recently entitled “The Death of the Short Code” in which it details the many disadvantages of short codes and how “long codes” — or so-called “virtual phone numbers” — overcome many of the barriers short codes present.

“The major wireless carriers came together in 2003 to create short codes to allow marketers to easily communicate with consumers. Since then text messaging has exploded in popularity. Short codes haven’t seen growth to match. Why? A long, opaque and expensive setup process prevents all but the largest brands from marketing to their customers with text messages,” the company explained in its post.  ”Enter the long code: instant setup, affordable transparent pricing, and no one standing between your company and your customers. Short codes were supposed to bring mobile marketing to the masses. Long codes, virtual mobile phone numbers that can send and receive text messages stand ready to finally fulfill that promise.”

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As the saga of T-Mobile’s SMS price hike continues, ChaCha CEO Scott Jones has been one of the most vocal personalities against the concept, saying ChaCha will completely stop its service over the T-Mobile network if and when the rate increase commences.  Add to it a lawsuit filed on Friday against T-Mobile by EZ Texting for blocking it’s short code, and the issue of net neutrality becomes all to relevant.

In an open letter guest post published on TechCrunch this weekend, Jones describes the need for net neutrality to apply to mobile platforms as well, offering several examples of carriers be selective in the mobile services they allow consumers, with the aforementioned situations surrounding T-Mobile being the most recent.

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ChaCha CEO Scott Jones is throwing his hat into the ring of mobile service providers who feel T-Mobile’s proposed SMS price hike is bad for nearly every link in the mobile services value-chain.  Below is his position statement in its entirety;

“If T-Mobile moves forward with its “twitter tax” that is rumored to begin on Oct 1^st, ChaCha absolutely will drop T-Mobile from our service.  T-Mobile is a carrier that doesn’t understand the realities of content businesses including Facebook, Twitter, ESPN, and ChaCha.  ChaCha has more than 15 million monthly unique users for whom we answer over 2 million questions every day. The vast majority of these answers are delivered by SMS text. T-Mobile is already getting paid by subscribers for these texts and they are paid something already by aggregators/publishers.  Now, they plan to impose an egregious and unacceptable tax.

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