Once upon a time, American’s didn’t believe in text messaging. Believe me, as a newly arrived Brit, obsessed with mobile tech, my American colleagues used to say I was insane to think a small screen could ever be as interactive or engaging as the Internet. They told me on numerous occasions that what works in Europe or Japan is irrelevant in USA.

I’d seen the roadmaps of the then leading handset companies as a founding exec at Symbian. I believed (and still do) that the human requirement to find the best communication tools, be they cave paintings, morse code or text messages, transcends even the weirdest cultural differences between USA, Europe and Asia.

OK - I was right on that one.

And they do say history repeats itself.

So here we are some 10 years on, and yes, many people are talking about social media, but not so many companies are actually practicing what they preach.

So will the messaging market once again be tipped by Simon Cowell? I think so.

Last week, in his new hit reality pop culture show, The X Factor, he announced that the TV audience (once passive) could start voting via Twitter.

This is more than a sign of the times, it’s really smart.

Voters will have to follow the show before they can Direct Message “DM” their votes. This will create waves of trending mentions (even more than it currently gets) in the “Twittersphere”. That will in turn help promote the buzz around the show.

Mark my words, here we go again. Once a “cool” technology goes mainstream, companies have to do or die.

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