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If you who spend a good chunk of time messaging on mobile phones, here's a service to add a little color, animation, and music to your screens.

VisualTxt is a new technology that converts Short Message Service (SMS) text into messages containing graphics or animations with sound. The technology, developed by ConVisual, a German start-up, is already drawing attention in Asia, where wireless services such as messaging are booming, according to CEO Thomas Wolf. And even in mobile-phone-mad Italy, where people have long preferred talking to texting, similar enthusiasm for the service is evident.

Why would anyone want to spend money spicing up a drab text message? Avid mobile texters, according to Wolf, want to add some pizzazz to their otherwise boring-looking messages in an effort to amuse or charm their recipients.

Get the Message

Despite being integrated into all second-generation GSM mobile phones, text messaging technology drew little consumer interest during the early years of the new digital cellular service. Then Scandinavian teenagers discovered it, then their parents, then the rest of Europe, and now Asia--and even people in the United States are showing interest.

Text messaging is a relatively quick and easy form of non-real-time communication, but one that, unlike modern e-mail today, has lacked funky features like color, sound, and animation. The service has been dominated by tiny letters viewed on tiny screens. The recent arrival of new color-screen-equipped phones capable of sending messages with graphical or audio attachments via Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) has so far done little to challenge the appeal of simple, relatively inexpensive text messaging.

One of the first new services to convert regular SMS text into multimedia messages, VisualTxt is both cheaper and easier to use than regular MMS. Already available in Thailand and the Philippines, it will soon appear in Singapore and Hong Kong, and will reach China next year; it is slated to begin later this year in Italy, Germany, and Turkey.

Simple Steps

Here's how it works. You key in an SMS, adding the phone number of the recipient in the message. If you wish to select an animation or graphic from a list, you have to add a two-letter abbreviation for the name of the character. You can opt for a message preview to look at images and choose one you like from a content database.

If you omit the abbreviation, the computer will analyze your message looking for key words and select a relevant animation or graphic for you. This is a neat option for folks who like surprises.

The cartoon characters include Garfield, Kandy Kool, Nappy Nick, and the Snufflebears. Pink Panther and many other famous images are being added, as are tunes. A large selection of photographs from one of the world's largest digital picture libraries is available, too.

After completing the text, you dial a premium number (this isn't cheap). Mobile phone companies that offer the service typically price an SMS-to-SMS call with graphics (but without animation and sound) three to five times higher than a standard SMS message. Similarly, they price an SMS-to-MMS call with all features four to six times higher, according to ConVisual. So if the price of an SMS message is 12 cents, the corresponding mobile visual message may cost up to 84 cents.

You do get something for the money, however. The animated cartoon figures add color to text messages, and the accompanying music is cool. Of course, to see animations in color and hear music, you need an MMS-capable handset. Otherwise, you get a tuneless black-and-white still picture that is only a notch up from plain SMS.

What could attract a mass market is the service's ease of use. Simply create an SMS message and an MMS message turns up at the other end. This quick and convenient process is one that most SMS texters can do blind.