Back in March of this year, Guiness opened up their big book o’ World Records to anyone willing to claim that they were the fastest touchscreen texter on the block. The first contender to step up to the plate was a gent named Franklin Page, who used Swype’s slide-to-type tech to blast out Guiness’ headache-inducing pre-set sentence in just 35.54 seconds. Surely by no coincidence, Page was a Swype employee.

Five months later, someone else has come forward for their shot at the heavyweight belt fancy plaque.

Aaaand sure enough, the record has a new owner. 27-year old Melissa Thompson — who, like Page, used Swype — was able to crank out the same pre-set sentence in just 25.94 seconds.

With a gap of 9.6 seconds (that’s around 28% faster), it seems like there’s still plenty of room for improvement. Think you’ve got the finger finesse to beat the clock? Find the test sentence below and get to practicing. (I couldn’t break 45 seconds on my iPhone. No world record for me, I suppose.)

The test sentence:

The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human

[Via IntoMobile]

Ever since Swype (an alternative keyboard for touchscreens which has users drag paths through the letters of a word rather than tap them out individually) debuted at TechCrunch 50, I’ve been asked the same question a near-regular basis: is it really any faster than just typing words the old fashion way?

Well, it’s apparently fast enough for a Guinness World Record.

Looking to play up the fact that the Omnia II comes with Swype installed out of the box, Samsung set out to find the fastest Swyper on the block. They didn’t have to look far. As luck (and logic) may have it, Swype just happened to know one of the fastest Swypers off-hand: one of their employees, Franklin Page.

Guinness gave Page the official challenge phrase:

“The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human,”

35.54 seconds later, Page had blasted out the thumb-twisted text, securing himself the record for Fastest Text Message on a Touchscreen Mobile Phone.

Alas, there’s a bit of a catch: this is a brand new record category. Texting speed records were previously all encompassing; be it T9, physical QWERTY, or touchscreen, they used to just lump it all together. That wasn’t exactly fair, so Guinness has begun to separate things out into proper categories. Page’s was the first record attempt for this category; in theory, he could have taken 20 minutes to type the message and still claimed the record.

How long do you think this record will last? Given the number of text-obsessed teens out there unknowingly training to beat this record all day, every day, it probably won’t be too long.