I have been a fan of Facebook Mobile for quite some time now.  I have used it and think it's a great tool.  However, recently I travelled overseas and data on my phone was not working.  This meant I could not browse the internet, access my Google Mail or update my Facebook status via my mobile.

UPDATE (17th Dec 08):  If you're looking for how to update your status via SMS, then check out my article "Updating your facebook status via SMS".

I have been a fan of Facebook Mobile (http://m.facebook.com) for quite some time now.  I have used it and think it's a great tool.  However, recently I travelled overseas and data on my phone was not working.  This meant I could not browse the internet, access my Google Mail or update my Facebook status via my mobile.  This meant that I was back to experiencing mobile phone usage like the majority of mobile phone users worldwide.  While products such as the iPhone and innovative "all-you-can-eat" pricing plans are encouraging more people to get onto the Mobile Internet bandwagon, those users only make up a minority of total users.  While that is expected to increase (so much so, that Yahoo claims that by 2013 most searches on Yahoo will be via mobile devices), we are still many years away from it being the norm.

Nevertheless, I still had the urge to update my status so that friends could see how I was going while travelling.  As I stated, because the network (or plan) had no data coverage I could not make any updates.  All I needed was a way to send a simple message back to my status update.  And then it dawned on me - what technology is available on every digital mobile phone ever made that sends short messages even while roaming?  SMS Text Messaging!  SMS messaging would be the perfect way to send an update to my Facebook status (perhaps even twitter too).  It would be great to be able to compose my text message, send it to a specific number and that would convert that to my Facebook status update.

Alas - this, I believe, is one of the failings of mobile sites coming out of the US.  Until only very recently, SMS Text Messaging was not popular in the US.  Furthermore, to this day, most call plans require you to pay extra to have SMS text messaging enabled and included.  As such, most product managers and developers who work on these mobile sites overlook many of the features that the rest of the world takes for granted, on these mobile phones.  I'm sure if Facebook were developed in parts of Europe or Asia, there would be tighter integration with the mobile phone and network's feature set.

This probably becomes an opportunity for an aspiring entrepreneur to develop a solution to send SMS text messages to update your status.  It probably will open up the doors for other features too (eg: Receive updates via SMS, etc).  This opportunity also has a limited lifetime - Over the next 5 years, there will probably be less of a need for a feature like this as more people sign up to using Mobile Internet on their phones.  Nevertheless, that leaves 5 years to make a profit!  As for business models, it would need to be a free service, supported by either: