Burden said the lesson for charity groups and businesses and marketing professionals is that "when you want to get donations from a lot of people very quickly, the mobile phone has become a great medium."

He credited American Idol, the TV show in which viewers vote for their favorite singer via text messages, with helping the public understand the value of text messaging beyond chatting with friends. "American Idol has helped us see how a lot of people can get together and chip in and make something happen," he said. "There's a feeling of community, it's easy, and you have an impact."

Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates, warned against drawing too many conclusions about the power of using phones to make payments.

"The Haiti relief texting shows that many people in the states are no longer afraid to use their phones to make payments," he said. "Given the right circumstances, phone users will use their phones as their credit cards. But I think their generosity is more of a gut response to people seeing things going on in Haiti. Will this example enhance interest in people using phones as payments? I'm not sure."

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld . Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen , send e-mail to mhamblen@computerworld.com or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed .