Snarkmarket points to the interesting paper The Rules of Beeping. Beeping? It's effectively poking with a cell phone. Poking? That's pinging via Facebook. Pinging? Oh, nevermind -- beeping is calling someone's cell phone, letting it ring once, and hanging up. Who would do this? People who have limited cell phone minutes who just need to send a binary signal.
this happens to me all the time. but only because my name starts with an "a" and so people accidentally call the first number in their phone book. or they pocket call me, which is occasionally hilarious.
posted by kitty holmes at 3:02 PM on November 29, 2007 
No, but beeping is intentional -- it's specifically a message, not an accident.
Your description is 10X better than mine though, Rex. I love the layers of metaphor. I'm pretty sure it goes all the way back to the telegraph.
posted by robin at 5:36 PM on November 29, 2007
Interesting thing now that I think about it: it's not even binary -- it's more monary (um, word?).
posted by Rex at 6:30 PM on November 29, 2007
Kids call this 'one-ringing' in the UK and it seems to usually done by people with 'pay as you go' cellphones aned low credit.
They 'one-ring' someone in the hope that the recipient will dial back when they see the 'missed call'.
posted by MattR at 6:54 AM on November 30, 2007
whatever it's called, it's damn annoying.
posted by marina at 5:27 PM on November 30, 2007
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