I must have been living under a digital rock for the past few months when it comes to instant and text messaging. AOL has really surged to the forefront for me, a Blackberry 7520 user. For those of you who don’t know, the 7520 is a Nextel device that doesn’t really accept SMS/Text messages as easily as other mobile phones. It’s been frustrating enough that I thought about moving to another solution for work because text messaging is becoming a great tool for communicating in the business world.

OK, I know a lot of BB users have this capability so you may not know how good you have it. The 7520 will accept text messages but the Nextel iDen network doesn’t pass on the source identifier so I’ll receive a text message that looks like this:

Please call me asap

That’s it, no name or phone number. Now, there really wouldn’t be a need for this if the etiquette for sending text messages is to leave your name and/or number in a text message but sometimes that’s tough when you’re typing on a cell phone, even with T9. The sender naturally assumes their number will be transmitted with the message, and it is IF you don’t use a 7520. So the problem for me is to find a way that I can receive these text messages without making it too tough on my friends and co-workers and that’s where AOL comes in.

Their convergence of IM and Text messaging is awesome. AOL now allows you to add phone numbers to your buddy list and send text messages to them. I added an IM chat program to my 7520 (Verichat) and now I have my buddy list on my BB. I can send text messages to friends and they can respond the same way they normally would - my address is just an AOL identifier now. There is some setup in the way that I must send a message to people who normally text me and ask them to add my new address to their phonebook, but that’s a better solution than not knowing who is sending the message.

The AOL IM suite is really great now. They have a web interface that allows me to easily add contacts to my buddy list from anywhere and I can save all my cell contacts to a group so they’re easily searchable. Adding the feature for text messaging to phones is what seals the deal, but the ability actually use the IM feature on my phone works for those users who have the AIM WAP on theirs, such as T-mobile users, because it’s sometimes cheaper than text messaging.

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