Keynote Introduces Industry's First Benchmark on Performance of SMS Messages Addressed to Common Short Codes

Business Wire, June 25, 2008

* Keynote Common Short Code Study Includes Top Findings on Performance, Availability and Success Rates of SMS Messages Addressed to Common Short Codes (CSCs)

* New Study Sets Industry Standard and Competitive Benchmark for Measuring Reliability and Responsiveness of Common Short Codes

* CBS and Coca-Cola Rank First in Overall Reliability; Obopay Ranks First in Overall Responsiveness

SAN MATEO, Calif. -- Keynote Competitive Research, the industry analysis group of Keynote Systems (Nasdaq:KEYN), today announced the availability of the industry's first study on the performance, availability and success rates of SMS messages addressed to Common Short Codes (CSCs).

The Keynote Common Short Code Study is a first-of-its-kind study that compares the round-trip delivery time and average availability of SMS messages sent to 24 popular CSCs. Common Short Codes represent a fast-growing channel offering companies direct communication with millions of consumers through SMS. The Keynote study unveils significant reliability and variability issues for many CSCs and establishes the industry's first CSC benchmark.

Important highlights from the study include:

* Benchmark for Response Time: The study found that the industry average for a SMS response from a CSC was approximately 9 seconds. The fastest CSC responded in less than 6 seconds, while the slowest averaged more than 19 seconds.

* Reliability and Variability Issues Persist: Many of the CSCs monitored showed significant reliability issues; several reported more than 10 hours of outage while one reported more than 50 hours. Also of note, response times for some short codes degraded severely during the busiest hours of the day; one CSC showed a 60 percent peak-period slowdown every day, indicating a major capacity issue was present.

* Wireless Carriers Can Impact Performance: The study findings revealed that wireless carriers can have an impact on overall performance. In general, CDMA carriers had slower send times than GSM carriers, and for some short codes, response time was more than twice as slow via one carrier compared to another.

"Common Short Codes have become a vital channel of communication for companies using the mobile Web," explained Nisheeth Mohan, product manager of mobile at Keynote. "While it's surprising to see the performance issues revealed in this study, companies can take steps to optimize their service and minimize reliability and variability problems. For the industry to successfully leverage the lucrative CSC channel, competitive benchmarking and performance monitoring will be imperative to continuously improve the end user experience."

Common Short Codes are four-to-six digit numeric codes to which end users can send a text message for a host of applications such as accessing or buying mobile content (e.g. horoscopes, games, ring tones, coupons, etc.), voting for a favorite TV contest or participating in a poll. Common Short Codes can be leased by any company through the Common Short Code Administration.

The 24 popular common short codes monitored during the study include: 4Info, CBS (NYSE: CBS), Chase (AMEX: CCF), CNBC (NASDAQ: CNBC), Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), Cosmopolitan, Elle Girl, Fandango, Flycell, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), NBC (NYSE: GE), NY Times (NYSE: NYT), Obopay, Paypal, Pepsi (NYSE: PEP), Reuters (NYSE: TRI), Seventeen, Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX), Thumbplay, Universal Music Group, UPS (NYSE: UPS), USA Today, The Weather Channel, Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) and Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO).

The top five common short codes for overall reliability (i.e. availability and the number of outage hours) and overall responsiveness (i.e. average performance, carrier consistency, performance variability and load handling capability) are as follows:

      Overall Reliability
Rank         Site and CSC  Score
1             CBS (99888)   1000
1        Coca-Cola (2653)   1000
3           Chase (24273)    991
4       NY Times (698698)    988
4          Obopay (62729)    988
Overall Responsiveness
Rank                                   Site  Score
1                            Obopay (62729)    984
2                       Wells Fargo (93557)    938
3                         NY Times (698698)    924
4                         Thumbplay (48000)    895
5                             Chase (24273)    891

Methodology

The Keynote Common Short Code Study was compiled using Keynote Mobile Application Perspective [R], a commercially available SaaS (software-as-a-service) product. SMS messages were sent to each of the 24 common short code addresses every hour for a four-week time period. Measurements were taken from New York and San Francisco over AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon networks during the four-week time period. The round-trip delivery time was then calculated, replicating the end-user experience.

Availability and Pricing

The Keynote Common Short Code Study is available for purchase. For more information, please visit: http://www.keynote.com/keynote_competitive_research/industry_studies/m obile.html.