By Staff Writer – Boonsri Dickinson (@boonspoon)

Pizza Hut is a great example of a company who has embraced short codes for advertising. As it turns out, and is also a no brainer, giving away free pizza is a great way to get people to text in.

The results? Pizza Hut will reach out to more pizza lovers.

According to a White Paper called “Common Short Codes: The Time Is Now for Mobile Marketing and Outreach”:

Common Short Codes (CDCs) represent the only universal way in the United States for brands to connect with almost all mobile users. They do so through Short message Service (SMS), or “text messaging,” which is built into almost every cell phone….

Common Short Codes represent the fastest, surest, and most proven way for brands
and organizations of any size to obtain access to today’s mobile culture and create a
mobile presence.

Pizza Hut is just a piece of the pie. Other businesses are using short codes too, according to The White Paper:

• NBA, NFL, and the Grammys
• Political campaigns. Obama for America, of course.
• The Boston police
• Verizon
• GQ magazine
• Fandango
• ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, and Bravo
• AskMeNow
• MLB
• Google

Even journalists could use a short code. My short code is Boonsri. I’m new at it, so I’ll let you know how it goes as I learn how to use it.

In the future, I think it will become much more personal. Instead of texts and links to mobile sites, you’ll send out voice messages or videos.

There’s one company that’s already pioneering that technology. Startup company Bubble Motion has the infrastructure to send voice messages to the masses. It’s popular in Asia and India, so far.

As I previously wrote in Forbes:

“We have a real revenue model, a traditionally based one with real margins, not just page views,” says [Tom] Clayton… The initial launch of Bubbly is with voice, but Clayton says the company has plans to enable video sharing too.