IMon phones: Coming fast

I have to admit I wasn't sure what the difference was between texting on phones and IM-ing on phones. In its report about 15 mobile-phone giants agreeing to enable instant-messaging across their networks, the BBC cleared it up for me: "IM conversations typically involve more back and forth than text message chats and it ensures that the experience is similar to that enjoyed online." The 15 companies, representing a staggering 700 million customers, include Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile, and China Mobile, according to the BBC, and they stand to make a ton of money by making those customers' experience easy and the technology invisible. When it happens in the US, fluent IMers and texters like our children will wonder what the big deal is – why wouldn't IM-ing be the same on computers, phones, whatever. Let's see how long it'll be before this happens in the US. We're only just starting to have interoperable IM-ing (between AIM and MSN Messenger users, for example), and we're way behind Europe and Asia in texting, though catching up fast.