tech
nov 29
2007

Beeping

Snarkmarket points to the interesting paper The Rules of Beeping. Beeping? It's effectively poking with a cell phone. Poking? That's pinging via Facebook. Pinging? Oh, nevermind -- beeping is calling someone's cell phone, letting it ring once, and hanging up. Who would do this? People who have limited cell phone minutes who just need to send a binary signal.
5 comments

this happens to me all the time. but only because my name starts with an "a" and so people accidentally call the first number in their phone book. or they pocket call me, which is occasionally hilarious.

posted by kitty holmes at 2007-11-29 15:02:50

No, but beeping is <strong>intentional</strong> -- it's specifically a message, not an accident.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> Your description is 10X better than mine though, Rex. I love the layers of metaphor. I'm pretty sure it goes all the way back to the telegraph.

posted by robin at 2007-11-29 17:36:48

Interesting thing now that I think about it: it's not even <em>binary</em> -- it's more <em>monary</em> (um, word?).

posted by Rex at 2007-11-29 18:30:27

Kids call this 'one-ringing' in the UK and it seems to usually done by people with 'pay as you go' cellphones aned low credit.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> They 'one-ring' someone in the hope that the recipient will dial back when they see the 'missed call'.

posted by MattR at 2007-11-30 06:54:46

whatever it's called, it's damn annoying.

posted by marina at 2007-11-30 17:27:24