If No One Else Is Around Text Message A Fake Person

There have been plenty of stories about people being addicted to text message, which usually appear to be some psychologist trying to drum up business for a made up problem. However, you do have to wonder when a story come along (found via textually.org) saying that there's a new service in Korea that will let you send text messages to a "virtual user" who will answer back appropriately. In other words, if none of your real friends are awake or conscious or able to punch buttons on their keypad, you can text message fake people instead to keep your text messaging habit fed. Of course, the details make it seem much more like a system like ActiveBuddy, which is used to let people send instant messages and get back sports, news, weather or stock information -- really just acting as an information retrieval system, rather than a virtual friend. Of course, since ActiveBuddy holds a variety of patents on such offerings, there's potential for a patent battle at some point down the road.