Async medium being reliable ...

I was recently having an argument with my tech colleague on why we should use SMS to convey something to our users after they perform a particular option. The reason he gave was that SMS is an asynchronous technology and so we cannot rely on it.

SMS is fast catching on as a reliable but delayed medium. Because of its asynchronous nature, people have come to accept it as something that the reader will see when he / she wants to. Something like a non-interrupting medium like e-mail. This makes for it to be extremely reliable and yet convenient form of messaging.

I wonder if in such a medium, ordering the messages in chronological order is important. I think its the way we have all been brought up. Fixing a frame of reference like time. Even for such a medium it seems to fit well into the scheme of things. So what then should we do with an asynchronous medium ... should we try to make it reliable by ensuring messages reach immediately or simply build on the medium differently and let different creators build apps they way they want to above the different medium. Ok that got a little confusing there .. but the point was just that an asynchronous medium is reliable, just that its perceived to be unreliable because its different.

With that thought, i'll stop this post. Well its been a long time since I blogged.

Cheers,
KP.

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