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While SMS has already become one of the most important forms of communication in many parts of the world, the U.S. is only catching up to this trend slowly. Part of the reason for this is the high cost of using SMS, not just for users, but also for developers who want to use SMS for their applications. In contrast to other SMS service providers, Zeep Mobile offers developers a free SMS API without volume restrictions, though in order to monetize the service, it will insert ads into the SMS messages.

When Twitter announced they were killing SMS for anyone located outside the U.S., Canada, or India for financial reasons, many Twitter SMS users were upset as they had come to rely on that aspect of the service to send and receive tweets. However, in only a matter of days, numerous services sprung up to fill the void, including sites like TweetSMS, TwitSMS, and ZygoTweet. Today, you can add one more to that list: 3jam.

You know it's a new era when a US Presidential candidate plans to make a major announcement using a new technology. The campaign of Barack Obama has announced on the blog for its social network that it will be announcing Obama's Vice Presidential running mate first by mobile text message and email. John McCain doesn't even know how to use a computer.

There are several different social media message-sending apps out there, but arguably, HelloTxt is one of the most well-known and most often utilized thanks to its support for a wide array of the most popular social sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, bebo, Pownce, Jaiku, Brightkite, and Plurk. They even support sending updates via SMS and email. However, one area where HelloTxt falls short is message scheduling. This is where services like Tweetlater help fill the void. But now there's a new app that lets you schedule social media messages, and not just tweets: Sendible.

The basic concept of location-based mobile phone messaging is that you can send a text message to someone's cell phone and they will receive the SMS message only when they enter into the exact location you specify. How can this be useful? Let's say you're up really late working and you want your co-worker to pick up some donuts in the morning on their way to the office.

Using a service called JotYou, you can send a message to your friend's cell phone and have them receive it just before they get to the donut shop.