Survey: MMS use still disappointing

VNU / Personal Computer World are running a story on In-Stat’s recent survey which found that less than a third of cameraphone owners share picture messages with friends.

Full article: Here

Now this survey blames poor picture quality, apparent slow network performance and the difficulty of actually sending pictures. 

These are issues.  However it’s the cash that’s holding it back.  None of my friends — and I’m talking the non-technical guys and girls who are simply mobile phone users — send MMS messages.  It’s only me.  Let’s be clear: They take tons of pictures on their phones, but they share them by physically handing the phone to their friend and showing them the picture. 

They don’t send.

Why?

Because on many price plans it’s around 50 pence a message.

Don’t be ridiculous! Yes the image is, on many phones, still a shitty resolution, however I’m quite happy to send it to my friend if it’ll raise a smile.  BUT NOT at GBP £0.50 per shitty picture.  It’s not difficult to do — the handset manufacturers have made it pretty simple for your average mobile user to send pictures nowadays.  (I’m thinking Sony Ericsson and their quick-send function).

There’s a whole UK mobile generation now who perceive MMS as far too expensive to actually use regularly.  What a shame.  If only they’d introduced it at say GBP£0.15 per message.  Even £0.25 is, I think, too expensive. 

It’s a huge disappointment to me.  A HUGE disappointment. 

Just checked Vodafone UK’s 3g price plan:

Text message: 12p
Picture message: 36p
Video message: 60p

Ridiculous.

I haven’t receive an MMS in the last month.  Isn’t that sad?  Tons of texts flying in all the time from friends. But no MMS.