A week ago while I was reading Reuters news on my cell, I read an article about people in Africa using a new method to contact each others. This new method is THE MISSED CALL! They just discovered it and cell phones companies are going crazy about it since they can’t make money from it. But the only thing missing in the article is a mention that Lebanese have been using this method for years now and that we use it for everything: Yes, No, I Love you, Good Morning, Good night, Call me, Hi, Bye, I hate you, come down (Nzal), I arrived, I’ll be arriving soon, I reached the party, I left the party, I miss you … And I can keep counting the usage of this beep for many more lines.
Anyways I googled for the article and here’s a quote from it followed by the link to the original web-site.
Khartoum – 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 cellphone markets – and it’s a headache for cellphone operators who are trying to figure out how to make some money out of it.
4 replies on “We Invented it First!”
Yeah, I remember reading that article and laughing at how they’re treating it as some sort of rocket science :)
We did invent it first!
I’m sure that if we dig deeper, we will find out some resourceful Lebanese who introduced ‘the missed call’ there too.
Mustapha, hehe I had the same reaction! I couldn’t believe that scientists are researching this phenomenon :P
Moussa, It might be true, a lot of Lebanese live in Africa so I am sure they teached them a trick or two.
[…] We Invented it First! . Khartoum – If you are in Sudan it is a missed call . In Ethiopia it is a or a call. In other parts […]