7 trillion texts expected to be sent next year

A new research report claims that 7 trillion text messages will be sent from 4.8 billion phones.

!! O.M.G. U rnt gunna belve this!

Strange–for some odd reason, the text shorthand that is becoming almost a second language for the majority of people, just doesn’t look right outside its natural confines of a phone.

ABI research is claiming that in 2011, seven trillion text messages will be sent from 4.8 billion phones. To put that in a more astounding context, 7,000,000,000,000 texts will be sent from 4,800,000,000 phones. Honestly, it is a number so staggeringly large that the human mind can only recognize, but never truly appreciate it.

“It is the key communication tool of the modern era,” Neil Strother, practice director at ABI said. “It is a great place for marketers to communicate with consumers.

“Marketers get consumers to spark the conversation via messages based on a trigger or keyword.”

Even the government is getting in on the action. A new study is underway to check the feasibility of having 911 service accept and reply to emergency calls.

Part of the reason for the spike is the growth of cell phones in regions where computers have yet to fully expand into. Falling costs and high competition are also cited as reasons,

But for as large as that number is, Business Insider is quick to point out that it is nothing compared to the number of emails sent in 2009. According to the analytics firm Pingdom, 1.4 billion email users sent 90 trillion emails. That is 90,000,000,000,000 emails. No word on how many of those emails contained special offers for low interest credit cards, or were simply notifying you that your distant cousin died, leaving $10 million in a foreign bank that you could pick up as soon as you paid the legal fees, of course.

ABI also suggests that the future of digital communications will be with programs and services that combine all digital communications into one central location. Not surprisingly, several companies are already working on programs to that affect, including Facebook, whose Project Titan will log all communication registered with the service, then keep an easy to follow log of the conversation.

ABI didn’t mention anything past 2011, but it seems unlikely that the text messaging trend is going to slow down anytime soon.