YouTube video of me doing 75 words per minute
YouTube - 75 Words Per Minute on BlackBerry!

That includes several corrections. With some practice, I should be able to exceed 80 words per minute. We need get RIM to sponsor a group of us for a speed thumbtyping competition sometime in the month of June, and have Guiness Book of World Records there. I have submitted an application to Guiness about a June 17th record attempt in Ottawa in front of A-Channel, but I'm open to other ideas such as going to Waterloo if RIM steps up to the homeplate.

How about it, RIM? Sponsor a competition. Invite me too. The world record should belong to BlackBerry users.
Perhaps a charity, payable to a deaf charity such as National Association of Deaf or Canadian Hearing Society, as I am hearing impaired?

Dethrone other silly smartphones such as TREO being mentioned in the Book. The CrackBerry needs to be in *the* Book by next year, pronto. Even if it's not me. Agree?

I will be a happy participant of such a competition.

Wow that's fast. Some people struggle to type that much even on a regular computer keyboard. Talk about thumbs of fury.

BTW what site or program are you using? Would be interesting to testing my own (slow) typing speed as well.

Wow, you are way too quick with your thumbs. I thought I was a pretty fast at typing on my device, but I don't even come close to that.

Wow, what a fantastic idea Mark!

Unreal !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wirelessly posted (My Bold)

I was something like 65ish when I tried it. But a comp would be cool

that's like me.....

while driving...

I kid, I kid,

I don't text while driving....

I ride motorcycles

LOL

Reminds me of my mis-spent youth playing Shadowrun. One upgrade was to teflon coat your joints. That's amazing! Keep pushing it!

BTW, how many keyboards have you gone through? ;)

I'm from Ottawa too, I'll watch you on A-Channel if you go, I always watch A-Channel in the morning. Amazing Speed, I do about 20 words a minute on my Storm haha.

The app typerspeed (not sure how accurate it is) puts me in the 80s on the Bold with a peak at 92, on the javelin about 10wpm slower, and the Storm right at the 50-55 mark.

Good luck, Mark! If it winds up happening in Waterloo I'll definitely drive up and cheer you on!

Love the video! It'd be great to see a competition such as the one you mentioned.

RIM needs to sponsor you as well

Better upload some YouTube too.

I'll definitely need to practice to go neck-to-neck, especially with the razor-toothed piranhas of Serrasalmus (the standard 160-character speed texting competition phrase, which Guiness also uses). Of course, unless you want me to get this year's record and you try for next year's. Stopwatches in the background would be an asset.

TyperSpeed, while not perfect, does use the 5 character per word standard, but can also be calculated externally using a stopwatch and the number of character of a phrase. From the YouTube video, it seemed to be accurate, when I also measured with the external stopwatch (the time when I started, the time when I stopped, and the number of characters). But the TyperSpeed I was using wasn't using the standard speedtexting phrase, but I've requested the author to add the razortooth paragraph...

Wow, now that is impressive.. as much as I type on my BB I don't I go that fast..

While I have no interest in the Guiness book of Records I wish you the best of luck. Definitely keep us posted on how you do. If the test is only 160 characters it should be relatively easy, the hard part would be if they change up the phrase. At a certain point it becomes memorization and no longer typing while reading. Much more entertaining if you are given a random phrase (the same to all contestants) 30 seconds before the test and then see how everyone does.

lol

wow thats fast

That is effing incredible Mark.

TyperSpeed can be purchased here:
TyperSpeed - Personal Productivity Blackberry Software

I am the maker of the app.

I applied to Guiness Book of World Records to see if I could apply for the record.

I got a response back from them. Apparently, Guiness only allows texting world records to be made for one-thumb thumb typing, which is kind of archaic in the modern age of QWERTY cellphones (including iPhone's touchscreen keyboards too, which is designed to be typed on by two thumbs.

If Guiness even records obscure records such as "Lowest rated superhero video game" (Guiness Book Gamer's Edition 2009), they ought to have some room for a new record category "World's fastest two-thumb typing"! I tried to apply for a new record category to be created, but they declined the application.

So... Guiness denied the record category -- meaning nobody in the world can apply for world's fastest two-thumb thumb typing, it has to be one-thumb.

Just a heads up to any others considering of applying (for any smartphone, not just BlackBerry). Some big pull (RIM) is needed to convince them that this is a viable new record category, with the recent explosion of QWERTY smartphones. If one of you manage to convince Guiness otherwise, please let me know -- I'm easily googled.

I just peed my pants watching that video....amazing!

that is absolutely rediculous!

I wonder why.

Get a day job.

After about a dozen tries, I hit 76.01 WPM on the same text that you did in your video. Mark, I think it's about time we collaborate and throw some ideas together

Sounds like a showdown is in our near future.

I ended up getting 81.62 wpm this morning. Yes I have it on video. Will be uploaded soon enough. That was with mistakes as well, so the speeds can definitely go higher than that!