Brad Feld

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3 Billion Instant Messages Served by Danger Hiptop’s Platform

Jan 12, 2005
Category Investments

I love my T-Mobile Sidekick (powered by Danger’s hiptop platform) – which you can currently get for free on Amazon.com with all the rebates.  Of course – since Danger is one of our portfolio companies – I’m supposed to love it.  But – I really I do (I’ve been a handheld user forever and have a closet full of Palm’s and RIMs, including a Palm VII (yuck-o-loa – remember that dog?.)

I’m not alone.  Danger just announced that over three billion (3B!) IMs were sent and received over the hiptop wireless platform in 2004.  For perspective, there were 22.8B SMS messages sent across ALL OF the carriers in the US last year.  If you’ve ever sent an SMS message on a cell phone and had the opportunity to send an IM on a hiptop, you’ll understand why IM’s on hiptops represented 10% of the total SMS traffic on cell phones (a huge percentage of traffic on a small percentage of enabled devices when you count cell phones + Sidekicks.)

IM just keeps on rolling.