The Next Web

Two nifty ways to still receive Twitter SMS updates

Written on August 18, 2008 – 2:38 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Last Thursday, European Twitterazi experienced a bad start of the day. Their beloved micro blogging service would no longer send SMS updates. Smart phone users can still find ways to receive updates about Twitter conversations. Yet people with less sophisticated mobile devices are in the dark now.

My co-editor Patrick suggested that Twitter should offer a pro-account option, so that people would have to pay for SMS updates. But co-founder Biz Stone wrote on the Twitter blog that he didn’t share this opinion:

International billing is a significant project and not something we are comfortable focusing on before we have a dependable offering. It’s not right to charge for spotty service—and we know there are bugs.

How to get SMS text messages updates

Although Twitter still sends updates to 96 percent of its users, the remaining 4 percent is pretty pissed of. Especially in the UK, Twitter users are quite angry. Read for example the comments on this TechCrunch UK post.

The first commenter on the Techcrunch UK post was Paul Bradshaw from Online Journalism Blog. He called it a “stupid move” and was “in a very bad mood”. He even sacrified his Twitter avatar for the cause. But for Bradshaw, it doesn’t end with just being angry. He’s now actively looking for ways to still get SMS messages from Twitter. Here’s his try:

• Via Jaiku: the invite-only micro blogging service from Google still sends SMS updates to all its users. So a solution would be to feed your Twitter account into Jaiku, then create another account that receives the updates from the first Jaiku account.
• Redirect emails to phone: some mobile operators allow you to forward email via SMS messages to your phone. Create a filter in Gmail that forwards Twitter mail to a special email service of your operator

I realize I’ve described the solutions in a rather cryptic way. Did that on purpose, as I don’t want Bradshaw to miss the reward for his work. So check out the step-for-step instructions on his blog.

I hope you like that post!

The Next Web Blog covers start-up news from all over the world (not just the Valley), exciting new technologies and inspiring entrepreneurs. If you're new here, you may want to read our 'About' page and subscribe to our RSS feed.

Do you have a start-up that we should write about? Contact us! Thanks for visiting and hope you come back again!

Biz Stone, gmail, Jaiku, mobile, paul bradshaw, sms, Techcrunch UK, twitter

4 Comments »

Old phone user? So long for mobile Twittering

Written on August 14, 2008 – 10:57 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

This morning I received an email from Twitter co-founder Biz Stone. He told me, and every other Twitter user who doesn’t live in the U.S., India, or Canada, that receiving text messages from the micro blogging service is now history. Why? Because none of the British mobile operators fancies a partnership with Twitter. He writes:

Mobile operators in most of the world charge users to send updates. When you send one message to Twitter and we send it to ten followers, you aren’t charged ten times–that’s because we’ve been footing the bill. When we launched our free SMS service to the world, we set the clock ticking. As the service grew in popularity, so too would the price.

Well, the service is too popular now for Stone and Williams to cover the costs. Even with a limit of 250 messages received per week, it could cost Twitter about $1,000 per user, per year, to send SMS outside of Canada, India, or the US.

I don’t really mind though, ’cause I recently bought an iPhone. But if I still used my crappy Nokia, mobile Twittering would have been history. Since that’s only possible if your phone has a browser (Slandr) or email support (Twittermail).

So long for Twitter users with old phones, they’ll have to wait till Twitter has introduced several new, local SMS numbers in countries throughout Europe in the coming weeks and months.

mobile, sms, twitter

7 Comments »

Another way to save money with your iPhone: texting through AIM

Written on July 14, 2008 – 10:08 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

An iPhone 3G doesn’t come cheap, in fact, most monthly plans are pretty expensive. Yet bloggers are constantly writing about ways to save some money with the shiny object - such as VoIP calling (and not having to buy an iPod or GPS system). This morning I stumbled on a money-saving plan that concerns the most unfairly priced mobile technology of our time: SMS texting. It’s ridiculous how much we have to pay for transferring such a small amount of data. If we had to download a song from iTunes for SMS data costs, we’d pay €3,770 (based on calculations by Sam from a gthing science project).

So I don’t know about you, but I welcome every possibility to take away some money from this billion dollar SMS business. Here’s one:

• Download and install the free AIM client from the App Store.
• In your IM client, create a new contact whose AIM address is a plus sign and the mobile number of the recipient, such as “+31641510902″.
• Start texting away by looking up the new buddy on your AIM software. He or she will receive a SMS text message, yet the reply will end up in your AIM client.

Just so you know, this also works with an iPod Touch.

aim, im, iphone, ipod touch, shiny object, sms, texting, tips

6 Comments »