September 26, 2007
Beeping, flashing and miskin calls
Here's an example of a blog entry that grew into an article.
I would never have known that some Ethiopians call 'missed calls' 'miskin calls' if it hadn't been for the comments on this old entry.
Thanks to Jonathan Donner for giving me an early glimpse of his paper "The Rules of Beeping". See the full thing in the October issue of the online Journal of Computer Mediated Communication.
Phone credit low? Africans go for "beeping"By Andrew Heavens
KHARTOUM, Sept 26 (Reuters) - If you are in Sudan it is a "missed call". In Ethiopia it is a "miskin" or a "pitiful" call. In other parts of Africa it is a case of "flashing", "beeping" or in French-speaking areas "bipage".
Wherever you are, it is one of the fastest-growing phenomena in the continent's booming mobile telephone markets -- and it's a headache for mobile operators who are trying to figure out how to make some money out of it.
You beep someone when you call them up on their mobile phone -- setting its display screen briefly flashing -- then hang up half a second later, before they have had a chance to answer. Your friend -- you hope -- sees your name and number on their list of "Missed Calls" and calls you back at his or her expense.
It is a tactic born out of ingenuity and necessity, say analysts who have tracked an explosion in miskin calls by cash-strapped cellphone users from Cape Town to Cairo.
"Its roots are as a strategy to save money," said Jonathan Donner, an India-based researcher for Microsoft who is due to publish a paper on "The Rules of Beeping" in the high-brow online Journal of Computer Mediated Communication in October.
Donner first came across beeping in Rwanda, then tracked it across the continent and beyond, to south and southeast Asia. Studies quoted in his paper estimate between 20 to more than 30 percent of the calls made in Africa are just split-second flashes -- empty appeals across the cellular network.
The beeping boom is being driven by a sharp rise in mobile phone use across the continent.
Africa had an estimated 192.5 million mobile phone users in 2006, up from just 25.3 million in 2001, according to figures from the U.N.'s International Telecommunication Union. Customers may have enough money for the one-off purchase of a handset, but very little ready cash to spend on phone cards for the prepaid accounts that dominate the market.
Africa's mobile phone companies say the practice has become so widespread they have had to step in to prevent their circuits being swamped by second-long calls.
"We have about 355 million calls across the whole network every day," said Faisal Ijaz Khan, chief marketing officer for the Sudanese arm of Kuwaiti mobile phone operator Zain (formerly MTC). "And then there are another 130 million missed calls every day. There are a lot of missed calls in Africa."
FACTBOX-Commandments of "beeping"
(Reuters) - "Beeping" -- calling a contact on their cellphone then quickly hanging up to prompt them to call you back and spare you the charge -- is one of the fastest-growing phenomena in Africa's booming mobile telephone markets.
The following rules for the practice are extracted by Reuters from a forthcoming paper on the subject by researcher Jonathan Donner:
1. "The richer guy pays." It is acceptable to beep someone if you are short of cash and they are flush with credit. Never beep someone poorer than you.
2. Do not beep too often. Two beeps in a row is just about acceptable if you want to request an urgent call back. Any more and you risk becoming a pest.
3. Maximise the efficiency of your beeping by prearranging shorthand codes with friends, family and contacts -- for example, two beeps to be picked up by a taxi driver, one to say you are coming home.
4. Never beep someone if you are trying to get in touch to ask a favor. You don't want to risk annoying the person you are trying to win over.
5. Never flash your girlfriend, unless you want to look cheap. One Rwandan interviewed for the paper said "No self-respecting man would dream of merely flashing his wife or girlfriend ... Never mind the fact that it was Sugar Daddy himself who bought the phone and regularly buys her units."
(Source: "The rules of beeping: Exchanging messages via intentional "missed calls" on mobile phones")
© Reuters
Posted by aheavens at September 26, 2007 7:44 AM
Comments
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070926/od_nm/africa_beeping1_dc
Posted by: tom at September 28, 2007 9:57 AM
this has been going on in italy for years!
Posted by: jack ferrante at September 28, 2007 11:18 AM
Just to let you know that "missed calling" is a practice done in the Philippines from more than 10 years ago and still practiced up to this present day. If you want to learn more about cost saving tips in voice calls and text messages, you should interview a someone from the Manila. The whole english language has been redone in abbreviated form. Hv a gr8 dē!
Posted by: Vince Garcia at September 28, 2007 11:25 AM
I just read your piece on Yahoo News. This is news? I have been in Colombia for the last two years where this happens all the time. Everybody has a cell phone but often no minutes to make a real call. My friend with little money ring me up and I call back. So what? This is really clever? You've got to be kidding. I would think that this goes on wherever there are cell phones.
Posted by: John at September 28, 2007 12:09 PM
It is acceptable to beep someone if you are short of cash and they are flush with credit.
...they are flush with credit? Since when is "someone" plural?
Posted by: DL Austin at September 28, 2007 3:23 PM
Hello to you, not to undermine the quality of your article or how interesting it may be, I though important to bring to your attention that beeping has been going on in Venezuela (here I live)and several other latin american countries ever since caller's id was implemented, specialy in mobile telephony. It started as a way for parents to be able to give cell phones to their children with minimum expense limits but still keep in touch with them as much as required.
Hope you find this information usefull and update your article acordingly.
Sincerely,
L. Rivero.
Posted by: Luis Rivero at September 28, 2007 4:17 PM
Hi DL Austin, "someone" is not plural but, in this case, "they" is singluar.
See this Wikipedia entry on the 'singular they' - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
Posted by: andrew at September 29, 2007 6:37 AM
Thanks for all the feedback. The best comment on the feature so far has come from Romanian 'another it girl' Madalichka (http://another-it-girl.livejournal.com/29561.html):
"i've been beeping my friends and family ever since i've had a cellphone. and now, yahoo news says that the beeping has just been invented somewhere in Africa. i have nothing against the africans, americans, asians, australians etc who use this "tehnique", but i'd pretty much like to hit the journalist (Andrew Heavens) with a big pan right in the middle of his head."
If I could make a pathetic attempt to dodge the blow... The article doesn't actually say beeping is a new phenomenon - or that it was invented in Africa. It does say that beeping is already widespread and has been tracked outside Africa. The article is actually about the huge scale of beeping in Africa - is there anywhere else where beeping accounts for between a quarter and a third of all calls?
Posted by: andrew at September 29, 2007 7:58 AM
just a quick comment. the word miskin, or poor has a similar meaning in kiswahili ( maskini) and miskina (maltese).
people make miskin calls when too broke to make a proper call. the context also refers to making fun of someone who claims to have climbed the social or economic ladder out of poverty - demonstrated by owning a mobile phone, yet cannot afford the cost of staying on top..
Posted by: wambui at October 3, 2007 3:30 PM
I'm on a study in Nigeria and the focus is on this practice. There are many reasons attached to it, not only economic. There used to be a joke about a former vice-president who would "flash" his boss just to amuse him. However, he later gave up the practice when the president sent him an SMS that "flashers are liable to die young!" (reconstructing the Federal Ministry of Health's warning against smoking).
Posted by: Wale Oni at February 14, 2008 3:10 PM