<p>As mobile app users increasingly turn from text-based messaging systems to more visual ones, skyrocketing startup Twilio is jumping onto that trend by adding photo messaging services to its offerings.</p><p>For those unfamiliar with it, Twilio is a cloud-focused company that lets developers build phone, text, and other voice communications directly into their apps, making an end-run around the telephone companies. By adding photo support, Twilio has jumped onto the idea that pictures really are worth 1000 words or at least far more than you can wedge into a 160 character SMS message.</p><p>Twilio's APIs are widely used by both third-party apps and websites to add text and voice messaging without a lot of development overhead. (The company claims it has observed some 1.5 billion API calls to its service so far, with 4 million voice calls completed every day.) The new update to add picture messaging to the mix won't offer considerably more complexity. At first it will be made available to the company's high-volume customers, with general availability to the masses coming soon.</p><p>Why does all of this matter to users like you? Because it's another big step toward pushing the telecommunications carriers out the door when it comes to messaging services like SMS and MMS.</p><p><a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/2048969/how-twilio-s-new-photo-messaging-service-may-soon-save-you-20-a-month.html">Keep reading...</a></p>