There are still a lot of innovations you can make here without replacing the SMS backbone wholesale.
For example, users interact with user interfaces, not messaging layers. If you can get people using your interface, you can switch the messaging layer where appropriate. Notice Google now sending IM to SMS?
At my startup, Borange, we send group SMS for free on the iPhone, and are working with metadata and a user interface to innovate around sharing social availability and impromptu invitations, one of SMS's big use cases. When the time is right (read PUSH for iPhone?), we'll migrate users to a modern mobile messaging layer, and keep our backwards compatibility with free SMS for interacting with the rest of the world.
Check us out, by the way. We just launched our iPhone app and are looking for investors and partners who believe in the Matrix and major change in the communications space. http://www.borange.com.
You mean like 3jam, Limbo, sms.ac, Zemble, Google's Dodgeball, Yahoo's ill-fated "Mixd," and a dozen others who are no longer around and I forgot about?
Jeez, I truly do wish you guys luck, but group/social SMS is a pretty tough nut to crack.
(I used to cover the mobile industry for a trade publication.)
Well not exactly... The work we are doing at Borange is more concerned with scheduling and availability than sending group SMS, and my main point was that there are possible strategies for migrating people off of SMS by including SMS compatibility. It's the lowest common denominator in mobile messaging, and you really can't afford not to include it to some degree for moving forward.
Yeah, crazy dead heap there, though! How long until SMS joins it? :)
