Hello, everyone.
Derek Johnson with Tatango.com.
I have some breaking RCS news and that is that Google, and I'm reading from the screen
here, I'm gonna link to the article below on "The Verge."
It's a really comprehensive article what's going on.
It says, "Google is finally taking charge of the RCS rollout."
So this video is going to try to explain what is going on here and what impact it has for
text message marketers.
So, first off, if you have an Android phone, I'm gonna talk about the United States because
that's where I'm located, but it's similar in other countries.
If you have an Android phone, this is a Samsung device right now, most likely you don't have
access to RCS messaging.
The reason is, most likely your wireless carrier has not actually rolled it out to your phone
yet.
It's taken a while.
It's a big project for the wireless carriers.
So it's been a while and Google has finally said, "You know what, guys?"
The carriers, "we got this for now, we're gonna roll it out."
So, what does that mean?
So, at least, from the people I'm talking to and what I've read in the articles is,
so if you look at an Android phone here, you'll see you have the messaging at the bottom.
It's just a regular message like on the iPhone, it's just the green little button there.
So, this is just the regular messaging button.
So, this is not like a Google product, or WhatsApp, or WeChat.
This is like the default messaging app on the phone.
So, what's gonna happen, according to the article and according to the people I'm talking
to.
When you click Messages, if your wireless carrier has not rolled out RCS to your wireless
phone yet, what's gonna happen is Google is going to pop up something kind of in this
area in your just regular text messages, and it's gonna say, "Do you want to opt in for
RCS messaging?"
Which essentially is like a better messaging experience for the consumer.
Most consumers, they really care about RCS because they can text back and forth, it's
more like an over-the-top service like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger rather than kind of
160 character SMS that they're used to.
So, it will be an upgrade for most consumers.
So, what will happen is, the consumer will go in, they'll agree to the terms and conditions,
because it's a Google product, and then they will be opted in and the phone essentially
will be activated for RCS messaging.
So, as you can imagine, this is going to have some consequences.
So, first off, before I get to those, what is interesting and what I'm being told is,
based on the standard of RCS, when the carrier actually activates RCS on their network, Google
will then fall back to the carrier and allow the carrier to manage the RCS, not Google.
So, even on your phone, and again, this is what I'm being told and the information is
kind of coming out fast, but if you've opted in to RCS through Google on your phone and
then the carrier comes out and rolls out their RCS to your phone, it essentially falls back
to the carrier version.
So, what is this going to have in terms of an impact for text message marketers?
Well, number one, it's going to roll out or give access to consumers way faster RCS messaging
than previously thought.
So, previously thought, we were waiting on hundreds of wireless carriers across the world
to each roll out RCS to each individual device.
It was going to take a long time.
Now, because Google is doing it, it's going to be a much shorter time.
So, I think a lot of the estimates that have been thrown around in terms of adoption rate
of RCS are going to be thrown out the window now because Google's coming in and saying,
"Hey, guys, we can do it much faster."
Now, this won't be, again, carrier adoption rate, this will be more consumer adoption
rate through Google.
Now, this, for text message marketers, will be great because more people will have access
quicker to RCS messaging, which is awesome because RCS messaging has a lot of features
and functionality that SMS and MMS don't.
So, really great news for text message marketers.
Now, what will most likely happen is, Google is putting pressure on the wireless carriers
now by saying, "Hey, we're gonna just roll it out."
People I've been talking to, they're saying the carriers are going to take note and they're
going to rush out RCS I think even faster than they were planning to because they don't
want Google controlling RCS, they want this as their, you know, product, a carrier-led
product.
So, that's kind of where things will happen.
I think, from a consumer standpoint, it's going to be much faster adoption for RCS than
thought before, because we don't have to wait for all the carriers, Google is gonna lead
the charge, roll it out, and then as each carrier, now, I think they'll do it a little
faster, rolls out their own RCS kind of installation to each phone, then it will default back to
the carrier solution.
So, I think, all around, I think this is good news for everybody.
I think really, at the end of the day though, it really comes down to how many of your SMS
subscribers are RCS enabled, and I think this is going to speed up that kind of adoption
rate from a consumer standpoint.
Let me know if you guys have any questions, drop them below.
I'm also gonna link to the article, it's theverge.com if you want to search for it, but I'll link
to it below.
Again, if you have any questions.
You think something different than maybe that I had in the video, again, I'm just going
off of what's in the article and then talking to people kind of in our industry.
So obviously this situation is fluid, as they say.
So, again, my name is Derek Johnson with Tatango.com.
Be sure you subscribe on YouTube, LinkedIn, because we try to do these videos and push
this information out to text message marketers as soon as possible.
Thanks, everyone.