In the developed world (except the US and Canada) voice calls are cheap and inclusive. Kids in the UK have phones for £10 a month, happily funded by parents, and they either hit a limit and have to top up or have enough inclusive minutes.
The developing world isn't going to be so quick to hand over its hard earned money to big corporates. The apps designed around missed calls as a communicative action are genius: you could use it in a variety of services: "Miss call Dominoes and we will send you your regular order within 30 minutes.... Could cause havoc too :) ( maybe need a railways return call to double check the order, on second thoughts...)
Maybe we are missing a trick here with consumers? A missed call is faster and more convenient than a text message... Would be a great marketing or polling tool
I think that as consumers our reflex is to send a text when a missed call might be faster/more convenient. For example, if I'm picking up a friend, I'll text "I'm here" or "here", whereas I could simply make a missed call and my friend sees that it's me on the display and goes outside because she's expecting me.
Making a missed call would just not occur to me, but when I moved to Lithuania for a few years it became a habit because that's what everyone does over there (and in other places where there is a missed call culture and people have several cell phones to take advantage of cheap/free calling plans within a given carrier network). It's faster by a few seconds than sending a text or calling the person and telling them.
Once you're in the missed call mindset, you see all kinds of situations where you can use it, but until you get in the mindset, the reflex will be to send a text or make a call.
The developing world isn't going to be so quick to hand over its hard earned money to big corporates. The apps designed around missed calls as a communicative action are genius: you could use it in a variety of services: "Miss call Dominoes and we will send you your regular order within 30 minutes.... Could cause havoc too :) ( maybe need a railways return call to double check the order, on second thoughts...)
Maybe we are missing a trick here with consumers? A missed call is faster and more convenient than a text message... Would be a great marketing or polling tool