All MSU, all the time.
With ASMSU considering a possible campus-wide text-messaging system, the MSU undergraduate student government has added another way to keep students informed and involved in what goes on in and around campus.
University text messages can be a good, innovative idea; ASMSU is clearly putting its best intentions forward.
Mobile Campus, the text-messaging service MSU would use, is offering its program for free.
But MSU can also profit from this service.
Mobile Campus' sponsors will send text-message coupons to subscribers and MSU will receive 15 percent of the total revenue generated by those coupons.
However great and cutting edge this might sound, the way student organizations communicate with the student body won't exactly be revolutionized.
Although the amount of messages a student will receive on a day-to-day basis hasn't yet been disclosed, the chances are on the high side that there will be generic junk messages destined for the trash folder.
Some features being considered, such as notifications of canceled classes, availability of event tickets, administrator messages, student group messages and emergency notifications, serve a practical purpose for a large number of students. Other features, such as weather reports, seem superfluous compared looking it up on the Internet — or walking outside — rather than on the phone.
Dubbed as "faster than e-mails," the importance and urgency of the messages comes into question. Student sign-up is on a free and volunteer basis, but how many cell phones will go off at the same time indicating that a new message has arrived? How many students will sign up?
Will the rate of carpal tunnel syndrome skyrocket as the volume of text messages increase?
Without modification and fine-tuning, the text messaging services might end up like a hand-knitted sweater from an overzealous aunt or grandmother — worn just once or twice to appease relatives, only to be pushed to the back of the closet to attract dust.
But if ASMSU and MSU officials work a little more on the proposal, it might turn out to be an opportunity that's too good to pass up.
