We speak to Nathan Eagle about how his company, TxtEagle, is tapping into the rise of text messaging in emerging markets to crowdsource data-gathering tasks.

In all the hullaballoo about smartphones and the app generation, it’s often forgotten that there are some basic functions which a phone needs to perform: calls and messages. The smartphone should’ve raised the bar – not just maintained it. There are many features of other text based channels (email, IM) which were not achievable on phones of five years ago but, with the screen real estate and UX sophistication of today’s devices, these features should be creeping into text messaging.

English National Opera (ENO), based at the London Coliseum in the heart of London's West-End, is one of the world's largest opera companies, providing an annual programme of opera, from popular classics, and operetta, through to more contemporary work and rarely-performed musicals.

To boost attendance at its shows, ENO wanted to communicate last-minute ticket offers. To do so, it turned to Txtlocal’s simple online service to text customers with offers and information about forthcoming performances. “We were looking to mitigate any short-term sales downturn by maximising the value from unsold ticket inventory,” says ENO marketing manager, Jonathan Broad.

Cell-phone texting has become the preferred channel of basic communication between teens and their friends, although calling is a close second: 54% of teens say they sent and received text messages daily in September 2009, up from the 38% some 18 months earlier, according to a survey from Pew.

Three-quarters of teens age 12-17 (75%) say they own a cell phone, including 58% of those age 12,  73% of those age 13, and 83% of those age 17.

Among teens who own a cell phone, 88% say they send and receive text messages, a sharp increase from the 51% of teens who were texters in 2006.

Among those texters today:

• 47% send 50+ text messages a day, or more than 1,500 messages a month.
• 31% send 100+ text messages a day, or more than 3,000 a month.
• 15% of teens who are texters send more than 200 texts a day, or more than 6,000 a month.