In the beginning, there were simple mobile phones. The primary aim of mobile phones was to enable people to call and talk to each other. The phones had very limited additional functionalities. People just used to talk to each other and that was it. In just a few years, how things have changed! Mobile phones have so much functionalities these days that were totally unimaginable 10 years back. Now, with smartphones, the game has changed further.

As smartphones became popular, came the advent of mobile apps which have taken the world by storm. There are mobile apps in various categories now ranging from text messaging apps, navigation, weather forecast apps, social media apps etc. You think of anything and you are likely to find an app for it already present.

Text messaging apps have recently become very popular because it allows people to send unlimited number of messages to each other completely free. Your friend may be in another country; they may be using any service provider and may have different kinds of mobile phones. You can still text them any time of the day or night with just a couple of clicks on your smartphone.

Many of these apps are either completely free or they are inexpensive. Some of the popular text messaging apps are Nimbuzz, WhatsApp, Skype Mobile etc. Nimbuz works on all platforms. You can use it whether you have an iPhone, Blackberry or any other smartphone which is able to run windows applications.

WhatsApp has recently become very popular and has taken over Nimbuzz in popularity. It is a smartphone messenger that allows you to communicate with your friends and contacts via your WiFi or 3G connection. WhatsApp works on Android, Symbian, iPhone and Blackberry phones. Now there is a new entry in the market. It is called Telegram, which is cloud based application and it syncs in easily across multiple devices. Telegram allows you to share and send many types of files like PDF, PPT, Doc Zip files etc.

With so many text messaging apps, nobody is using SMS’es to communicate with each other. Text messaging is the new way to stay in touch with each other. Smart business marketers can utilize this trend to their advantage. They now have one more medium to reach potential customers and increase their business. 9 out of 10 people own a mobile phone these days. A major percentage of these mobile phone owners possess smart phone. Business owners can now advertise to these smart phone owners using a reliable text-based service which will give them much higher ROI (Return on Investment) than other forms of advertising. It will cost much less money when compared to email marketing, SMS marketing or telemarketing campaigns.