China Digital Times

Stories tagged with: SMS (40)

• Free Speech In China? Text Me

  

  From NPR:

  If Romeo and Juliet lived in modern China, their dialogue would probably be in 70-character text messages. That’s how college student Wong Lei’s boyfriend courted her.

  “He told me his experiences from the time he was born through college, all in text messages,” says Wong, a college student.

  Text messaging is the most popular form of communication in China. Six hundred million Chinese have cell phones — that’s twice the population of the United States and three times the number of Chinese with Internet access.

  Text messages are cheaper than a phone call by about half. No one in China has voice mail, so it’s the surest way to get a message to someone.

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  • July 6, 2008 9:36 PM

• China’s Mobile Revolution: The Rise of 3G Technology

  

  The Times looks at the role on mobile technologies in helping survivors of the Wenchuan earthquake:

  The mobile phone came of age in China last month when a devastating earthquake ripped through Sichuan province. Its vital role showed why the Chinese government has recently ordered a radical restructuring of the telecoms industry to prepare for the next generation of technology.

  Victims used their phones to call for rescue, soldiers used civilian networks to organise supplies, families used text messages to exchange news of survival or loss and an increasingly angry group of citizens spread word of protests against corruption and lax building standards. The national conversation kept going thanks to a military-style logistics operation by the rival phone companies.

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  • June 10, 2008 1:20 PM

• The Great Sichuan Earthquake

  

  In the Far Eastern Economic Review, Michael Zhao reports on the role of information technology in spreading breaking news about the earthquake:

  In the moments following the quake, the world’s source of breaking news on the disaster was neither the Chinese government nor the Western media. As the first wave of shocks receded, Chinese and foreign residents across the country reached for the closest broadcast tools at hand, their cell phones and computers. Providing first-hand accounts of the earthquake and its immediate effects were thousands of “tweets”—blog entries posted to the Internet via text message. On QQ and MSN, two massively popular instant message services in China, friends traded second-by-second updates.

  Minutes before the U.S. Geological Survey reported the quake on their home site and hours before media outlets ran their first stories, technology blogger Robert Scoble was publishing reactions to the quake from Chengdu to Beijing, giving voice to a corps of citizen journalists. With telecommunications severed, and more than 2,300 cell phone towers in the region toppled, news teams remained hours away.

  Show on map

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  • May 15, 2008 10:39 PM

• Beijing Investigates Spam Attack

  

  From BBC News:

  China is investigating a spam attack after almost half of China’s mobile phone users received unwanted text messages from advertisers.

  Text messages were sent to more than 200 million mobile phone users through China Mobile and its smaller rival China Unicom . China’s authorities said the spammers must “correct their wrongdoing”. China Mobile earlier apologised for loopholes that allowed the spread of spam text messages.

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  • March 24, 2008 10:54 AM

• Chinese Love Letters Over a Half Century

  

  A comparison of Chinese love letters from the 1950’s with a series of brief SMS love messages posted this week on Sina reveals just how far the concept of love has traveled in the reform era. Translated by CDT:

  (A typical marriage photo in 1950’s)

  Dear Brother Cheng:

  Examining our love, under the guidance of three red flags–the general line, the Great Leap Forward, and the people’s communes–in the past year (our relationship) has been following a healthy, intimate, friendly road to flourishing. The main performance is: over the past year, we wrote 95 letters, an average of 3.8 days per letter. I wrote to you 55 times, 58% of the total letters; you wrote to me 40 times, 42%. The longest among the letters was about 3,000 words, the shortest letter was more than 1,200 characters……

  Over the past year, we have dated about 58 times, on average once a week. I invited you 38 times, 66% of the total dates; you invited me 20 times, accounting for 34% of the dates. The average time for each appointment was three hours. The longest was five hours, while the shortest was about one hour…

  Over the past year, I visited your parents 38 times, an average of 9.6 days. You came to my home to visit my parents 36 times, an average of 10.1 days…

  All the above interaction sufficiently shows: We care for each other, love each other, help each other. We are equal and we love each other with a positive attitude. Viewing this in the “divided into two” point, there are also shortcomings and deficiencies. From the data perspective, the development of (our) love for each other is uneven, and we must redouble our efforts in the future. With the pace of the Great Leap Forward, we also need to strengthen our feelings day by day.

  Therefore, in the future, we should strive to focus on the word “love,” pay close attention to the word “pro-,” and implement the word “competent,” push our love to new heights, do a good job in our positions, and complete the party’s various tasks for our younger generation. During the Great Leap Forward years, we depend on the party’s leadership to create conditions for the success of our marriage and the establishment of happy families. Finally, the New Year and Spring Festival is approaching, I wish you advanced thoughts, good health, and happiness!

  Your loved sister

  Running hand on December 27, 1958

  Here are some examples from the 21st century:

  » Read more
  • February 17, 2008 4:17 PM

• Chinese Expected to Send 17 Bln Text Messages During Spring Festival

  

  With nearly half of the Chinese population owning mobile phones, sending text messages has become a popular ways for people in China to exchange greetings during the Lunar New Year festival. It’s estimated that about 2 billion text messages will be sent daily in the country during the festival. From Xinhua News Agency:

  Chinese mobile phone operators will benefit from the country’s tradition of exchanging greetings during Lunar New Year as more than 17 billion text messages are expected to be sent during the holiday season, a possible new record, according to the Ministry of Information Industry (MII)…

  The ministry attributed the drastic rise to rapid expansion of mobile phone users which totaled 547 million by the end of 2007, about 41.6 percent of the total population.

  MII statistics showed the Chinese cell phone users have sent 592.1 billion text messages last year, with a daily volume of more than 1.6 billion.

  Read also a related story on how some people in China make a living by writing formalized text messages:
  Text Message Writers Earn Remarkable Profits

  » Read more
  • February 9, 2008 11:29 PM

• OMG! LOL! PRC! - Peter Winter

  

  

  Peter Winter is a junior majoring in International Relations and East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern California. He published this article in last month’s US_China Today website:

  Text messages pass along more than just knock-knock jokes in China; to the displeasure of some leaders, they are also a popular way to express public opinion.

  While American politicians worry about their political gaffes becoming fodder for countless blogs, Chinese officials are doing more than watching anxiously; they are cracking down. The fight, however, has been more difficult than anticipated. Why? Because these dissidents have a weapon even the Chinese government has trouble with: text messages — and often humorous ones at that.

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  • December 18, 2007 10:45 PM

• Chinese Get The Message On Texting - Dawn C. Chmielewski

  

  From Los Angeles Times:

  Real estate agent Xu Jianzhong is wired — but in a way that few in the e-mail addicted, BlackBerry-packing West would understand.

  The 20-year-old from China’s rural Henan province doesn’t own a computer. He visits the local Internet cafe to check his e-mail every couple of weeks.

  That’s not to say Xu is out of touch. He just prefers tapping out text messages to his friends on his Lenovo cellphone — the most expensive piece of electronics gear he owns — over typing an e-mail on a computer keyboard. [Full Text]

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  • October 31, 2007 9:24 AM

• For China’s Censors, Electronic Offenders Are the New Frontier - Edward Cody

  

  The Washington Post reports on the challenges faced by the country’s censors as they confront new technologies:

  More than a quarter-century after Deng Xiaoping launched the country on a course of drastic reforms, the party at all levels has clung to rigid censorship over information and art — including folk songs in a dialect only the locals understand.

  But party censors are now turning to China’s booming Internet and cellphone networks with particular vigor. Given the easy access to technologies such as text messaging, censors have found it difficult to keep a grip on information.

  It hasn’t been for lack of trying. [Full text]

  » Read more
  • September 9, 2007 9:55 PM

• Tom Group Registers Heavy Loss in First Half - Zhou Qiong

  

  From Caijing.com.cn:

  TOM Group (2383.HK) , a media controlled by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, reported a net loss of 72.35 million Hong Kong dollars, and saw its total revenue fall to HK＄1.347 billion, 8.6% lower from a year earlier. The company posted its interim report on August 21, pointing to Tom Online as the principal culprit.

  Tom Online was separated from the Tom group, and listed on the Hong Kong and NASDAQ markets in 2004 with Tom Group holding a 65.73% controlling stake. The loss partly came down to a change in policy from China Mobile (0941.HK), which hurt the company’s internet service profits. In July 2006, China Mobile launched a new policy, which sees all new customers for internet companies first enjoy a free month-long trial, and with SMS confirmation needed before charges are levied. [Full Text]

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  • August 22, 2007 9:46 AM

• China Cracks Down On ‘Rumour-Spreading’ - Reuters

  

  From Reuters via iol.co.za:

  Police in east China have arrested or warned 60 people for spreading rumours by SMS or on the Internet so far this year and specified the threat of modern communications to society, state media said on Tuesday.

  China has an army of cyber-police who patrol the Internet for unfavourable content, but their targets are more often politically sensitive subjects than pornography. Xia Cunxi, a public security spokesperson in the eastern province of Jiangsu , said 60 were accused of spreading rumours, lies or offensive messages, the official China Daily said in its online edition. [Full Text]

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  • August 22, 2007 9:13 AM

• Text Messages Giving Voice to Chinese - Edward Cody

  

  Let’s revisit the Xiamen PX event again. “It was a dramatic illustration of the potential of technology — particularly cellphones and the Internet — to challenge the rigorous censorship and political controls through which the party maintains its monopoly on power over China’s 1.4 billion people.” From The Washington Post:

  By the hundreds of thousands, the urgent text messages ricocheted around cellphones in Xiamen, warning of a catastrophe that would spoil the city’s beautiful seaside environment and foul its sweet-smelling tropical breezes.

  By promoting the construction of a giant chemical factory among the suburban palm trees, the local government was “setting off an atomic bomb in all of Xiamen,” the massive message sprays charged, predicting that the plant would cause “leukemia and deformed babies” among the 2 million-plus residents of this city on China’s southern rim, just opposite Taiwan.

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  • June 27, 2007 9:23 PM

• Expression of Popular Opinion in the New Media Era - Xie Liangbing

  

  Danwei has translated a report from China Newsweek about the use of SMS in the Xiamen PX protests:

  The last issue of China Newsweek (11 June) featured in-depth reports on a number of major events related to government transparency and crisis management - the Xiamen PX demonstrations, the Taihu Lake pollution affair, and the cause of this year’s high pork prices.

  The cover feature looked at the role of mobile and online media in the 1 June demonstration against Xiamen’s PX chemical plant. [Full text]

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  • June 18, 2007 9:23 AM

• Chinese Activists Turn To Cellphones - Mitchell Landsberg

  

  From Los Angeles Times:

  In the cat-and-mouse game that characterizes political protest in China, the mice won a round this week. They did it by finding a new way to use a familiar technology.

  Opponents of a chemical plant being built in the coastal city of Xiamen used cellphone text messaging to distribute widely their warning of dire consequences if the factory opened.

  “Once this extremely poisonous chemical is produced, it means an atomic bomb will have been placed in Xiamen,” the text message said in Chinese. “The people of Xiamen will have to live with leukemia and deformed babies. We want our lives and health!” [Full Text]

  See also ‘Green’ Protests Derail by Chinese Chemical Plant by Shai Oster.

  » Read more
  • June 2, 2007 4:53 AM

• SMS Messages From Public Security Police Border Defense Unit of Tibet - Woeser (ÂîØËâ≤)

  

  This short post is written by Woeser, a Tibetan author who is currently living in Beijing. From Boxun.com, translated by CDT:

  These two SMS messages are almost identical, they both came from the Tibet Public Security Border Defense Unit (西藏公安边防总队), sent to all mobile phone users in Tibet through Tibet Telecom.

  I have heard not only that all Tibetan mobile phone users have received this kind of SMS message, but also more than once.

  When I was in Lhasa, I saw them on the cell phones of two of my friends. I copied them down here:
  
  

  » Read more
  • May 2, 2007 7:59 PM