Feeling depressed….SMS xxxx…Feeling Love-struck…SMS xxxx….Feeling intelligent (duh!)….SMS xxxx…Hell…Feeling socially conscious….SMS xxxx….Welcome to the brand new Indian phenomenon called the Sick Message Service, in short the SMS…That magic 160 chars that can help you get a grip of life..Those that can make your voice *reach* out to whosoever it is listening out there in the world…Those magic four numeral numbers that are in the process of attaining a life of their own…Those four numbers that now seem to over-run and trample perfectly sound business models !!

What is it about these services that every biz worth its salt is now going overboard over this new media…Of-course, it being a given that we usually tend to go over-board with any new *techie* revenue streams…Who can forget the spate of adverts on every little indian website in the early days of the dotcom boom….Infact, it had made sifting for *content* on those sites practically an art !! And now, with the boom in the mobile phones market, we are seeing a pretty similar trend here…However, what I fail to understand is the reason why a lot of companies tend to over-do it..Take this wonderful example of a Telugu TV channel which has almost a quarter of its screen covered by the adverts of its sms service offering tones/pics et al. And there was this hugely promoted service by STAR over the movie Swades….Targetting those who had a sudden rush of social conscience into sending an sms worth Rs.10/- !!! I am yet to come across any report which has conclusively proved that these services are indeed a potentially sound revenue stream… And I am yet to come across many people who actually respond to any of these services….Am I missing something??