Ken Young reports R ed Message is a Swedish company that lets companies transmit information direct to any mobile phone. This is an interesting approach when most offerings currently available are targeted at individual mobile phone networks. Users visiting the Red Message site are invited to select what information they would like to be sent to their phone from a selection of companies currently using the service. The benefits of the service are that it does not require users to have anything more than a GSM phone and no charges are levied.
Users are also able to send messages to other mobile phones for a small fee.
The company believes that typical applications will be for estate agents sending out house details, airlines sending out flight-ticket information or job agencies keeping prospective candidates informed of vacancies. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of such messages is that they could be tailored to be sent only if they match certain criteria. For example, a user could request only data about flight tickets on a certain route at a certain cost. Eighteen million UK phone users can currently receive SMS messages. Yurisich believes that the well-known operators will not have the flexibility to go into niche sectors in the same way as Red Message, which has so far signed deals with employment agency Reed, travel information firm ATG, parenting site WebBaby and, most recently, Arsenal Football Club.