Wireless cos chat up teens, young adults

Kenneth Li

NEW YORK: The wireless industry, not content with getting corporate executives addicted to e-mail on the go, is setting its sights on the instant messaging generation.

Companies are gearing up to make it easier for teens and young adults to exchange textual banter without a computer or, in some cases, a cell phone.

AT&T Wireless Services Inc., Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile USA unit and Motorola Inc. have all tried to tap into the youth market's dependence on instant messaging and e-mail with a new generation of moderately priced devices that feature miniature keyboards.

Ninety percent of all teens and young adults surveyed by America Online in August said they swap at least one instant message a day. Nearly half of those users said they prefer the rapid-fire repartee of instant messaging over the delayed interchange of e-mail.

But until recently, the chatter slowed considerably when they stepped away from their desks. Without a keyboard, wireless phone users have had difficulty pecking out messages quickly enough to spread gossip or flirt.

"The experience is greatly lacking," said IDC analyst Alex Slawsby, since most phones are designed primarily for voice and their numeric keypads are not that good at sending text messages.

But wireless companies are looking at delivering PC-like keyboards so that young people can instant-message anywhere, Slawsby added.

That's the motivating force behind the Ogo, AT&T Wireless' new wireless handheld gadget, company spokesman Jeremy Pemble said. Launched in September, the plastic clamshell device resembles an oversized pager with a chicklet-style keyboard.

With a teen-friendly price of $99 after a $30 rebate, the Ogo lets users fire off instant messages from all three big service providers -- AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo -- as well as access personal e-mail.

AT&T Wireless left out the Web browser after the company's studies showed teens didn't care much for it. In the process, it also nixed the phone.

"We didn't want to create a Swiss Army knife of mobile devices," Pemble said. "We wanted to do one thing and one thing well: instant messaging."

Pemble said teens and young adults, who are likely to own a mobile phone already, would be attracted to the Ogo. Service costs about $18 a month and doesn't require a contract.

The Ogo may sound novel, but the concept of a dedicated text messengers dates back to another era, when mobile workers all carried pagers.

Motorola, the world's second-largest cell phone maker, popularized the concept of chicklet keyboards back in 1996, with its popular line of two-way pagers.

The device, which spread across entertainment industry circles, made phrases like "Hit me on the two-way" almost as commonplace in Hollywood and recording studios as "Have your people call my people."

But the pager's popularity waned when wireless phone service rates took a dive in the late '90s. Soon nearly everyone, from CEOs to children, carried a cell phone.

Now Motorola hopes to entice young adults back into its fold with a compact, conventionally styled phone that snaps open to reveal a keyboard. The company plans to launch the $300 A630 in coming weeks.

While the A630 will let users more easily tap out instant messages, take snapshots and download e-mail, "people still view it as their phone," said James Burke, Motorola's senior director of North American product operations.

As a result, he said, the product has more sales potential than those devices that combine myriad bells and whistles, such as the ability to surf the Internet, play music and snap pictures.

The A630, which actually looks like a regular phone when the lid is snapped shut, "will appeal to people more broadly than say, a Sidekick," Burke said.

Burke was referring to T-Mobile USA's recently launched update to its teen-friendly Sidekick, a soap-bar shaped phone with a fancy swiveling screen that snaps open to reveal a keyboard.

The Sidekick II, designed by Silicon Valley start-up Danger Inc., now sports a built-in digital camera and flash, a speakerphone and much improved wireless reception. Older features return, including the ability to surf the Web, send instant messages from AOL and Yahoo, send and receive e-mails with attachments, and play video games.

In previous incarnations, Sidekick users had to place the hard plastic corner of the unit up to their ears to make a phone call. For the latest version, the designers came up with a thinner, slightly wider design to make the device a more comfortable handset.

That is, if anyone bothers to use it as a phone at all.