People want more messages on their cellphones, and will gladly opt in to receive marketing messages -- even if thay have to pay for the privilege:

BusinessWeek

[from A Marketer's Dream: Your Cell Phone]

According to a survey by Enpocket, a London-based mobile-marketing company, customers aged 16 to 25 actually want their phone to beep with a message an average of 6 to 10 times a day. "Our biggest complaint from teens is that they don't get enough messages," says Jonathan Linner, CEO of Enpocket. "Every time your phone beeps, it shows you're popular."

It's not just kids who want more missives on their phones. Consider one Enpocket campaign for a beauty-care company in Britain that Enpocket declined to name. The company sent to an undisclosed number of women a message promising to give them customized hair-care advice if they responded to 10 text messages over the following 10 days.

Each day, a message would arrive with a question. Is your hair dry? Is it fine? Is it thin or full? Fully 90% of the women responded to all 10 questions. In return, they got shampoo advice. And the beauty-care company had valuable data to build personalized profiles for further campaigns.

The US use of texting is dwarfed by the Europe market ($1B versus $16B), but teens are pushing at it.

This is another huge generational market, and so the push will come at that level -- with promotions linked to teen's interests: music, games, entertainment, and so on. But don't be fooled. This is not tinker toys.

[pointer from Britton Manasco Customer Intelligence: Membership has its Privileges]