February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The sounds have been called “audicons,” after the long-established emoticons used to express moods in emails, such as the smiley face, :-).
Thus a congratulatory text message would arrive in a person’s cell phone with the sound of cheering.
Text messages sent each month worldwide has skyrocketed from four billion in mid-2000, to an estimated current monthly rate of about 30 billion. Most of the revenues have gone to the mobile operators.
“Our consumer research suggests that most people will use it the same way that they use mobile-to-mobile messaging now: quite happily and in great volumes,” claimed Audrey McCallum, business development director and head of 2PM Technologies UK office. “The only pre-condition for these applications becoming reality is for the fixed-line operators to recognize the revenue opportunity it opens up to them.”
2PM employs around 45 and has offices in Athlone and Plymouth. The company has received investments from Enterprise Ireland and ICC Venture Capital.