The Philippines was the original texting capital of the world. When SMS was introduced to the public in 1995, it was used as a promotional gimmick for the hearing impaired. It was in fact originally offered as a value-added service available for free to subscribers. Not surprisingly, Filipinos started getting cellphones for the purpose of texting only so that they could communicate instantly for free. The telecoms caught on to this trend and started charging PHP1.00 per text message. For some good reason, that price did not change since...Owning a cellphone in the Philippines was an instant membership to the mobile social network. Long before Friendster, My Space and Facebook came to be, texting was the social networking application. A lot of applications and services were "invented" around texting. For most companies, offering an SMS-based service was the cheapest way to expand their customer-base. Instant news, daily horoscopes, registration services, games, surveys, tickets, mobile phone banking, mobile phone wallet... you name it, they were tried and tested in the Philippines.The cellphone was never a luxury in the Philippines. At some point, it even almost became a necessity for everyone to own one. There were some events and activities that require participants and members to have a cellphone (say for example, if the registration process is via SMS only). It became so much a part of the generation Y's growing up that it would be surprising to know someone without a cellphone. Almost everyone in the country owned a cellphone. As proof, texting was considered to had played important roles in some of the many recent historic events in the Philippines."Text" is both a noun and a verb in the Philippines. "I'll text you." "Text me." "I got your text." "Don't text me, I'll text you." It's part of the generation Y's modern vocabulary. But don't be fooled because even the older generations know what "text" means in this context...The good thing is that everyone could afford to send and receive text messages. There were more texts than there were calls really. Besides instant messaging via PC, texting is the cheapest way to communicate instantly in the Philippines. You pay a minimal price to send one and you get the replies for free. The charging model is a sure hit! It's been that way since around 15 years ago and it might stay that way for a long while. How I wish it's the same around the world!