Among Text Messengers, New 'Slanguage' Crops Up, and Not Just With Teens

Business Wire, Sept 9, 2004

SEATTLE -- Tegic Communications

Free Slang Dictionary From Tegic Communications Helps TXTRS
                      Get Their Messages Out FSTR

   Tegic to Host Extreme Text Messaging Games Event at the Core Tour
        Sports & Music Festival In Huntington Beach, California
                           on September 12th

Text messaging and mobile instant messaging(1) are on the rise, experiencing an explosion in popularity across the nation. In fact, 2.6 billion text messages were sent and received in the first quarter of 2004, according to the Yankee Group, a leading research and consulting firm, up from 1.2 billion one year earlier. With the number of texters growing larger everyday, it was only inevitable that a new "slanguage" would come into existence.

AAMOF (as a matter of fact), trend-setting teens and young adults are at the forefront of this text messaging boom, and are rapidly developing a language of their own to communicate quickly while on-the-go. While half of teens (ages 12-19) own mobile phones, with 40 percent regularly sending text messages and mobile instant messages from school, according to Teen Research Unlimited, the use of a "slanguage" specific to text messaging is not limited to young people. In fact, text phrases such as GBTW, text slang for "get back to work," and IANAL, short for "I am not a lawyer but..." are becoming popular among frequent texters in the workforce.

Mobile messengers can be found everywhere you look - on campus, in the boardroom, at the football game and on the subway. In fact, 53 percent send mobile messages to keep from disturbing others in crowded restaurants and on public transportation, while 32 percent use mobile messaging to stay in touch with the office while on business travel, according to a recent study conducted by Opinion Research Corporation (ORC).

Planning activities with family and friends (70 percent), gossiping (28 percent), flirting (25 percent) and voting in radio and television contests (17 percent) are just a few of the uses mobile messengers find for their mobile phones and PDAs, says ORC.

"Text messaging on mobile phones and PDAs is quickly moving from a hot trend among teens to a mainstream means of communications used by business professionals, moms on-the-go and college students," said Craig Peddie, general manager, Tegic Communications. "With the evolution of text messaging, it came as no surprise that a new language has popped up, which will quickly become an official language of mobile communicators."

In light of this new "slanguage" that has cropped up among frequent texters, Tegic has put together the "T9(R) Dictionary," a resource to help texters stay on top of the latest slang terms. Available as a free download at www.t9.com/t9dictionary, expert texters and those new to sending messages from their mobile phones and PDAs alike can stay in the know.

Among the most popular words and phrases in this new texting "slanguage" are:

--AAMOF - As A Matter Of Fact

--C4N - Ciao For Now

--DIS N DAT - This And That

--FOCL - Falling Off Chair Laughing

--HHOK - Ha Ha Only Kidding

--L8R - Later

--REHI - Hello Again

--THKQ - Thank You

--XLNT - Excellent

--ZZZ - Sleeping

On Sunday, September 12th, Tegic will host the Text Games, an extreme text messaging challenge, at the Core Tour Sports & Music Festival in Huntington Beach, CA. The Text Games will pair event-goers with their favorite Core Tour athletes in a text-off competition for a chance to win a Hurricane II Pocket Bike and the opportunity to interview extreme athletes and musicians as the first-ever text messaging roving reporter at the Core Tour.

Event participants will use mobile phones equipped with T9, which makes it faster and easier to write and send text messages and mobile instant messages; their speed in entering a pre-selected text message will be timed. Next, each participant will choose one of the Core Tour athletes who will also compete in the Text Games, and the event-goer and athlete text-off times will be combined. Event-goers with the best joint times will have the chance to smash the current world text messaging record. More than 150,000 extreme sports enthusiasts are expected to attend the fourth annual Core Tour.

To learn how to use T9 Text Input, visit www.t9.com and click on "Play the Game" to play the fun T9(R) Trainer game to help sharpen your text entry skills.

About T9 Text Input

By incorporating T9 Text Input into mobile communications products, companies are solving the fundamental problem of how to quickly and easily type and send messages. Although each key on a telephone keypad can be interpreted in multiple ways-a single press on the "5" key could be "J," "K," or "L"-T9 Text Input uses an internal database to automatically scan possible variations to determine the correct word. For example, entering the word "call" into a mobile phone will take just four key presses with T9 Text Input rather than ten key presses required by conventional "multi-tap" text entry. In addition, T9 Text Input adapts to users by automatically capturing their unique text messaging language -- such as slang, abbreviations, symbols, mixed alpha-numerics, emoticons, URLs and e-mail addresses -- in its dictionary so that users need not multi-tap them with each use.