« Explaining Facebook | Main | Acquisitions in the Search Space »
November 15, 2006
Scary Text Messaging Speed
Last weekend, 16-year-old Ang Chuang Yang of Singapore typed a standard text message (SMS – short message service) in 41.52 seconds beating the previous U.S. held Guinness world record of 42.22 seconds! He won 25,000 US in cash and prizes.
Want to try to beat it yourself? Here’s the standard phrase used by the Guinness people:
"The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human."
Start exercising your thumbs! And don’t blame me if you get RSI or carpal tunnel thumb! With texting being a key feature in many library services for holds and fine notification and virtual reference, you might want to add this to your next library Olympics along with the book cart drill teams.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at November 15, 2006 1:01 AM
Comments
Fascinating, as one of the slides in my "information shifting" presentation shows this phrase and notes that a 23-year old woman from Singapore won the contest by typing the phrase in 43.66 seconds. I think the slide is about 3 or 4 years old, which means someone seven years younger has shaved more than two full seconds off that time!
Posted by: Jenny Levine at November 15, 2006 11:27 AM