<rant>
Since our discussions, things have predictably settled. It was never
the intention that this mailing list becomes a 'chat' forum - there
are plenty of other places for that. Instead, it's a way for us to
have a central node as a community to collaborate on. I'm quite proud
of what's become of it.
One new initiate has been born - the distributed database - which
several silicon beacher's having picked this up and are experimenting
with now. It's going to be interesting to see what we can cook up for
release later this year.
</rant>
But I've now got a new proposal. Building on some thoughts I tweeted
before[1], I have a solution that will do three separate things that
will help our industry.
Background
Twitter has become the most important social networking site for the
Australia tech community. It facilitates meet ups, keeps people up to
date, breaks news, and generally builds community.
Today - news was announced that twitter would be shutting off its SMS
service for international numbers because they now long can
sustain[2] . This leaves Australian users completely out in the cold
on one of the most valuable features of the technology. Separately,
the micro-blogging revolution that Twitter has created is going to
create transformative impacts on the industry. The embrace of Plurk
and Identi.ca by Australia's twitter community to name but two
examples, of how things are happening. However what these open source
solutions lack is an SMS solution.
The idea
What I propose, is that as a community, we create a SMS solution that
brings back Twitter to the phone for us as well as supporting other
twitter clones.
SMS gateways, including an Australian startup in Sydney, allow you to
set up premium SMS plans. So for example, if people subscribe to your
plan - it will cost you 55 cents. However, as the organiser of that
plan, you get 18 cents for every message you get. It's an innovative
revenue model, which I have explored in the past as part of my
research into the mobile web opportunity.
If we can hack together something that links the twitter API and a SMS
gateway API like that of Ivo Brett's startup[2], we can restore SMS
functionality. Oh, and make a bit of money.
Sure, this is a market opportunity for a entrepreneur. I reckon you
could make a quick buck, until a phone company or Twitter wakes up.
But personally, I think it's too small scale an idea to launch a
business, but too big an opportunity to pass up.
So by building this service, as Silicon Beach - we've now got a
revenue stream...for the comunity. The revenue raised, will be 100%
reinvested into the community. Sponsoring conferences, meetups - heck
wherever there is value to support effort in the community.
Twitter becomes useful + we make opensource microblogging useful + we
fund our community without realising it. Three bigs things, and all it
takes is a bit of API hackery as some Jelly-a-thon.
Sounds like a plan I have been hacking away today to get this going
for myself. Went and got a couple of domains etc http://tweet2sms.com but need a hand to get it all built.
On Aug 14, 9:45 pm, Elias Bizannes <elias.bizan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Boys and girls,
> <rant>
> Since our discussions, things have predictably settled. It was never
> the intention that this mailing list becomes a 'chat' forum - there
> are plenty of other places for that. Instead, it's a way for us to
> have a central node as a community to collaborate on. I'm quite proud
> of what's become of it.
> One new initiate has been born - the distributed database - which
> several silicon beacher's having picked this up and are experimenting
> with now. It's going to be interesting to see what we can cook up for
> release later this year.
> </rant>
> But I've now got a new proposal. Building on some thoughts I tweeted
> before[1], I have a solution that will do three separate things that
> will help our industry.
> Background
> Twitter has become the most important social networking site for the
> Australia tech community. It facilitates meet ups, keeps people up to
> date, breaks news, and generally builds community.
> Today - news was announced that twitter would be shutting off its SMS
> service for international numbers because they now long can
> sustain[2] . This leaves Australian users completely out in the cold
> on one of the most valuable features of the technology. Separately,
> the micro-blogging revolution that Twitter has created is going to
> create transformative impacts on the industry. The embrace of Plurk
> and Identi.ca by Australia's twitter community to name but two
> examples, of how things are happening. However what these open source
> solutions lack is an SMS solution.
> The idea
> What I propose, is that as a community, we create a SMS solution that
> brings back Twitter to the phone for us as well as supporting other
> twitter clones.
> SMS gateways, including an Australian startup in Sydney, allow you to
> set up premium SMS plans. So for example, if people subscribe to your
> plan - it will cost you 55 cents. However, as the organiser of that
> plan, you get 18 cents for every message you get. It's an innovative
> revenue model, which I have explored in the past as part of my
> research into the mobile web opportunity.
> If we can hack together something that links the twitter API and a SMS
> gateway API like that of Ivo Brett's startup[2], we can restore SMS
> functionality. Oh, and make a bit of money.
> Sure, this is a market opportunity for a entrepreneur. I reckon you
> could make a quick buck, until a phone company or Twitter wakes up.
> But personally, I think it's too small scale an idea to launch a
> business, but too big an opportunity to pass up.
> So by building this service, as Silicon Beach - we've now got a
> revenue stream...for the comunity. The revenue raised, will be 100%
> reinvested into the community. Sponsoring conferences, meetups - heck
> wherever there is value to support effort in the community.
> Twitter becomes useful + we make opensource microblogging useful + we
> fund our community without realising it. Three bigs things, and all it
> takes is a bit of API hackery as some Jelly-a-thon.
Sounds interesting. As someone who's messed around with premium SMS before, could I confirm the idea is:
1. A "short code" or 19 number be registered in AU
2. People who send to this number pay a premium to send their SMS
3. Some of this premium is revenue that goes to the "owner" of the 19 number
4. This revenue be re-invested in the community, in whatever form that is?
If that is the plan, this would require:
1. Account setup with a carrier, which I take it you're suggesting mobileme (although [3] wasn't referenced in your post)
2. Some glue to tie submission posts to the short code as submitting to the Twitter API
3. Resolving who's going to pay for broadcast/outgoing messages from Twitter (unless people agree to cop a fee per message they get delivered a la late nite adult tv commercials)
I see aspect 3 of the requirements above as the hard bit financially; this is why Twitter is removing support for international 'sending', and unless I'm missing something, the premium SMS creature is more to collecting a form of premium revenue on the user sending you a message, not the other way around.
Of course, this AU gateway could truncate the messages and fund the outbound transmissions via advertising, but that might be a bit hard to swallow.
Or, am I missing something really important here?
Geoff
-----Original Message-----
From: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com [mailto:silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Elias Bizannes
Sent: Thursday, 14 August 2008 9:46 PM
To: Silicon Beach Australia
Cc: ivo.br...@gmail.com
Subject: [SiliconBeach] New project idea: Bringing back Twitter SMS
Boys and girls,
<rant>
Since our discussions, things have predictably settled. It was never
the intention that this mailing list becomes a 'chat' forum - there
are plenty of other places for that. Instead, it's a way for us to
have a central node as a community to collaborate on. I'm quite proud
of what's become of it.
One new initiate has been born - the distributed database - which
several silicon beacher's having picked this up and are experimenting
with now. It's going to be interesting to see what we can cook up for
release later this year.
</rant>
But I've now got a new proposal. Building on some thoughts I tweeted
before[1], I have a solution that will do three separate things that
will help our industry.
Background
Twitter has become the most important social networking site for the
Australia tech community. It facilitates meet ups, keeps people up to
date, breaks news, and generally builds community.
Today - news was announced that twitter would be shutting off its SMS
service for international numbers because they now long can
sustain[2] . This leaves Australian users completely out in the cold
on one of the most valuable features of the technology. Separately,
the micro-blogging revolution that Twitter has created is going to
create transformative impacts on the industry. The embrace of Plurk
and Identi.ca by Australia's twitter community to name but two
examples, of how things are happening. However what these open source
solutions lack is an SMS solution.
The idea
What I propose, is that as a community, we create a SMS solution that
brings back Twitter to the phone for us as well as supporting other
twitter clones.
SMS gateways, including an Australian startup in Sydney, allow you to
set up premium SMS plans. So for example, if people subscribe to your
plan - it will cost you 55 cents. However, as the organiser of that
plan, you get 18 cents for every message you get. It's an innovative
revenue model, which I have explored in the past as part of my
research into the mobile web opportunity.
If we can hack together something that links the twitter API and a SMS
gateway API like that of Ivo Brett's startup[2], we can restore SMS
functionality. Oh, and make a bit of money.
Sure, this is a market opportunity for a entrepreneur. I reckon you
could make a quick buck, until a phone company or Twitter wakes up.
But personally, I think it's too small scale an idea to launch a
business, but too big an opportunity to pass up.
So by building this service, as Silicon Beach - we've now got a
revenue stream...for the comunity. The revenue raised, will be 100%
reinvested into the community. Sponsoring conferences, meetups - heck
wherever there is value to support effort in the community.
Twitter becomes useful + we make opensource microblogging useful + we
fund our community without realising it. Three bigs things, and all it
takes is a bit of API hackery as some Jelly-a-thon.
the main problem i see with this is that making people pay for incoming sms' *sucks* majorly. they can't control it (except by incuring a cost).
you're free to ignore this and do it, but what it will result in is a backlash against twitter itself. people will start to associate a cost with it's use.
Agreed. The only way would be for someone other than twitter to foot the bill, and search for a great price on international GSM gateway access through the likes of South Africa (where currency differentials make this sort of thing remotely possible).
Given the carriers make something like $1m profit on 1GB of SMS, the fact they haven't been more amenable to working with someone like Twitter (it is their spare wireless bandwidth after all!!!) is a disgrace.
Perhaps the answer is to abandon SMS as the channel?
Geoff
-----Original Message-----
From: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com [mailto:silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of silky
Sent: Thursday, 14 August 2008 9:58 PM
To: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com
Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: New project idea: Bringing back Twitter SMS
the main problem i see with this is that making people pay for
incoming sms' *sucks* majorly. they can't control it (except by
incuring a cost).
you're free to ignore this and do it, but what it will result in is a
backlash against twitter itself. people will start to associate a cost
with it's use.
> Agreed. The only way would be for someone other than twitter to foot the bill,
agreed; other than twitter *and also* other then the consumer. and who is that person? a mysteriously charitable - and as yet anonymous - company maybe :)
> and search for a great price on international GSM gateway access through the > likes of South Africa (where currency differentials make this sort of thing remotely > possible).
> Given the carriers make something like $1m profit on 1GB of SMS, the fact they > haven't been more amenable to working with someone like Twitter (it is their spare > wireless bandwidth after all!!!) is a disgrace.
ah yeah but i mean why would they care. a big company only changes when it needs to, not based on what people "from the internet" want. we're such a small minority that it's hardly worth much consideration and certainly not on the scale of a 'disgrace' in my books, but jmho.
> Perhaps the answer is to abandon SMS as the channel?
maybe another solution will become apparent in the coming months :) for now i remain unconcerned (i never used it anyway [the sms update service]).
Let's not forget, you can only opt into the programme which I think is the point being missed. No one is forcing you to pay to use twitter; but you have an option to use a service that satisfies your twitter addiciton, but also helps a greater cause. ersonally, I am willing to pay to receive SMS's from Twitter. A 55 cent message times a few dozen is not a big deal on my phone bill, given the value I get from twitter.
Ivo's startup is one of any gateways we could use, I just know about his in detail. And yes, I made two [2]'s - apologies for the confusion.
So Geoff, your analysis is more or less right. However it's the user that pays, because they are the ones that want the benefit. You can choose to use the service, not forced to.
On 8/14/08, Geoff McQueen <geoff.mcqu...@internetrix.com.au> wrote:
> Silky,
> Agreed. The only way would be for someone other than twitter to foot the > bill, and search for a great price on international GSM gateway access > through the likes of South Africa (where currency differentials make this > sort of thing remotely possible).
> Given the carriers make something like $1m profit on 1GB of SMS, the fact > they haven't been more amenable to working with someone like Twitter (it is > their spare wireless bandwidth after all!!!) is a disgrace.
> Perhaps the answer is to abandon SMS as the channel?
> Geoff
> -----Original Message----- > From: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com [mailto: > silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of silky > Sent: Thursday, 14 August 2008 9:58 PM > To: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com > Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: New project idea: Bringing back Twitter SMS
> the main problem i see with this is that making people pay for > incoming sms' *sucks* majorly. they can't control it (except by > incuring a cost).
> you're free to ignore this and do it, but what it will result in is a > backlash against twitter itself. people will start to associate a cost > with it's use.
<elias.bizan...@gmail.com> wrote: > Let's not forget, you can only opt into the programme which I think is the > point being missed.
not at all being missed; of course the system would be opt-in. but you need to opt-out if you get too many messages. you don't control who sends you messages [directly]. what i mean is you don't *initiate* it (unlike the typical cost of sending an sms; you sent it, of course it cost you money).
> No one is forcing you to pay to use twitter; but you > have an option to use a service that satisfies your twitter addiciton, but > also helps a greater cause. ersonally, I am willing to pay to receive SMS's > from Twitter. A 55 cent message times a few dozen is not a big deal on my > phone bill, given the value I get from twitter.
not at all disagreeing people won't use it. i'm just highlghting what will happen in the community at large, and the sort of backlash you'll see.
> Ivo's startup is one of any gateways we could use, I just know about his in > detail. And yes, I made two [2]'s - apologies for the confusion.
> So Geoff, your analysis is more or less right. However it's the user that > pays, because they are the ones that want the benefit. You can choose to use > the service, not forced to.
My idea is to have a user controlled system where you limit the number of SMS's you get per week, funding out of a PayPal subscription. If you want 50, then set 50. If I could get a $0.10 gateway going that would be a fairly minor cost for most people. The main use I see would be for DM's anything else is too high volume to be viable.
[mailto:silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of silky Sent: Thursday, 14 August 2008 10:12 PM To: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: New project idea: Bringing back Twitter SMS
On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 10:09 PM, Elias Bizannes <elias.bizan...@gmail.com> wrote: > Let's not forget, you can only opt into the programme which I think is the > point being missed.
not at all being missed; of course the system would be opt-in. but you need to opt-out if you get too many messages. you don't control who sends you messages [directly]. what i mean is you don't *initiate* it (unlike the typical cost of sending an sms; you sent it, of course it cost you money).
> No one is forcing you to pay to use twitter; but you > have an option to use a service that satisfies your twitter addiciton, but > also helps a greater cause. ersonally, I am willing to pay to receive SMS's > from Twitter. A 55 cent message times a few dozen is not a big deal on my > phone bill, given the value I get from twitter.
not at all disagreeing people won't use it. i'm just highlghting what will happen in the community at large, and the sort of backlash you'll see.
> Ivo's startup is one of any gateways we could use, I just know about his in > detail. And yes, I made two [2]'s - apologies for the confusion.
> So Geoff, your analysis is more or less right. However it's the user that > pays, because they are the ones that want the benefit. You can choose to use > the service, not forced to.
I've heard Distribute IT have a good price offshore deal hooked up. The ZA connection was merely speculative, but I'm told they have about a 1/7th purchasing power exchange rate, yet first world infrastructure for interconnects, so they are worth looking at.
There could be much better deals out there; but sub 5c/message isn't unheard of (although the preparedness of some networks to receive messages from these networks isn't as solid as paying 20c or so through an AU gateway)
Geoff
-----Original Message-----
From: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com [mailto:silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Michael Specht
Sent: Thursday, 14 August 2008 10:14 PM
To: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com
Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: New project idea: Bringing back Twitter SMS
My idea is to have a user controlled system where you limit the number of
SMS's you get per week, funding out of a PayPal subscription. If you want
50, then set 50. If I could get a $0.10 gateway going that would be a fairly
minor cost for most people. The main use I see would be for DM's anything
else is too high volume to be viable.
-----Original Message-----
From: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com
[mailto:silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of silky
Sent: Thursday, 14 August 2008 10:12 PM
To: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com
Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: New project idea: Bringing back Twitter SMS
On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 10:09 PM, Elias Bizannes
<elias.bizan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Let's not forget, you can only opt into the programme which I think is the
> point being missed.
not at all being missed; of course the system would be opt-in. but you
need to opt-out if you get too many messages. you don't control who
sends you messages [directly]. what i mean is you don't *initiate* it
(unlike the typical cost of sending an sms; you sent it, of course it
cost you money).
> No one is forcing you to pay to use twitter; but you
> have an option to use a service that satisfies your twitter addiciton, but
> also helps a greater cause. ersonally, I am willing to pay to receive
SMS's
> from Twitter. A 55 cent message times a few dozen is not a big deal on my
> phone bill, given the value I get from twitter.
not at all disagreeing people won't use it. i'm just highlghting what
will happen in the community at large, and the sort of backlash you'll
see.
> Ivo's startup is one of any gateways we could use, I just know about his
in
> detail. And yes, I made two [2]'s - apologies for the confusion.
> So Geoff, your analysis is more or less right. However it's the user that
> pays, because they are the ones that want the benefit. You can choose to
use
> the service, not forced to.
On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 10:14 PM, Michael Specht <mspe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> My idea is to have a user controlled system where you limit the number of > SMS's you get per week, funding out of a PayPal subscription. If you want > 50, then set 50. If I could get a $0.10 gateway going that would be a fairly > minor cost for most people. The main use I see would be for DM's anything > else is too high volume to be viable.
yes but it's still trivial to waste anyone's money who is signed up with this system. obviously if someone does that to you you can just stop being friends with them, but yeah. i'm doubtful of it's long-term success for the reasons i listed.
> I've heard Distribute IT have a good price offshore deal hooked up. The ZA connection > was merely speculative, but I'm told they have about a 1/7th purchasing power exchange > rate, yet first world infrastructure for interconnects, so they are worth looking at.
> There could be much better deals out there; but sub 5c/message isn't unheard of (although > the preparedness of some networks to receive messages from these networks isn't as solid > as paying 20c or so through an AU gateway)
indeed; the thing you pay for in messaging is reliability. I wouldn't be going offshore for that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------
Adding Ivo's message which for some reason didn't post - Elias
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------
Hi Elias and Geoff,
I tried posting to the group but got an error message - maybe I'm not
allowed post. I've joined the group on google. Does someone need to
set me up to post?
Anyways heres my email.
Ivo
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ivo Brett <ivo.br...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:38:12 +0100
Subject: Re: [SiliconBeach] New project idea: Bringing back Twitter
SMS
To: "silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com"
<silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com>
Hi there,
Thanks for including me on this email and thanks to Elias for
introducing me2mobile.com. Premium SMS and bulk SMS is an area I know
quite a bit about after having struggled with many different business
models in this area. Its interesting that you've mentioned this as I
have spent the last couple of weeks looking into the area of SMS
enabling 'life streaming' services.
A few things I've learnt about running a premium SMS business that you
might not already know. Firstly, the costs for a shortcode with a
carrier is expensive to setup and maintain. The revenue share is
stacked in favour of the operators and they take a large share for no
risk. Secondly, you need to be doing a large volume of SMS for any
business case to pay off. This means that the only people who make
money out of premium SMS are the companies that can afford massive
marketing (e.g. late night text for a babe type services). This has
resulted in premium SMS being considered a slightly "grubby" service.
For all these reasons me2mobile has moved away from premium SMS as our
core offering. We now make most of our money out of selling
interactive SMS services to businesses (i.e. SMS campaigns using bulk
SMS) rather than premium SMS.
That being said, I think that your idea has a lot of merit. Twitter
have done the hard work of creating a market for this idea (they've
just withdrawn their own heavily used sms service). There is also a
sizable and well connected twitter user base so it would be relatively
easy to get this service 'out there'.
Geoff and some of the other posters correctly pointed out some of the
necessary mechanics of how premium SMS works so I wont go over them.
But you thing that wasnt mentioned was the ability to send a low
charged premium SMS (MT) to each follower. This could be as low as 25
cents. I do, however, accept the point from Silky that its a pain to
have to pay for incoming tweets especially since you dont know how
many there'll be but as Elias says you can give people the option to
opt out (or set a daily limit on how many they'll receive).
Not too make it sound too trivial as I know there'll be some gotchas
but I reckon I've implemented about 75% of what needs to be done for
this project. I also have an agreement with one of the top premium SMS
and bulk SMS aggregators. I selected them after indepth selection
process and I reckon I have the best rates and revenue share that one
can get. The best thing about this aggregator is that they have
premium SMS connectivity in 28 countries so if this offering proven
successful in Australia it would be very simple to roll out
internationally.
I have a good premium SMS shortcode already set up (19961996) with
this aggregator (its 55 cents MO). Note: If you were to set up a
shortcode yourself it normally takes 6 to 8 weeks to get a shortcode
set up and sometimes operators knock back the applications.
To be perfectly honest - the most expensive part of my agreement is
maintaining the premium shortcode and I have been considering closing
this part down altogether. There is one customer using it extensively
but I dont push our premium sms offering anymore. Therefore, ne
possibility is that I share my current agreement with others that want
to take advantage of this shortcode. I'll be a transparent as possible
and even share the contract details I have with the aggregator just to
show that I wont be creaming any margin off the top. All I'd ask is to
be involved in the service and any revenues generated by it.
I'd like to be involved in this project as I think its got a lot of
legs. I'm back in Ireland at the moment but I can have a call with
others if that helps speed things up.
Ivo
On 8/14/08, Geoff McQueen <geoff.mcqu...@internetrix.com.au> wrote:
- Show quoted text -
> Elias,
> Sounds interesting. As someone who's messed around with premium SMS before,
> could I confirm the idea is:
> 1. A "short code" or 19 number be registered in AU
> 2. People who send to this number pay a premium to send their SMS
> 3. Some of this premium is revenue that goes to the "owner" of the 19 number
> 4. This revenue be re-invested in the community, in whatever form that is?
> If that is the plan, this would require:
> 1. Account setup with a carrier, which I take it you're suggesting mobileme
> (although [3] wasn't referenced in your post)
> 2. Some glue to tie submission posts to the short code as submitting to the
> Twitter API
> 3. Resolving who's going to pay for broadcast/outgoing messages from Twitter
> (unless people agree to cop a fee per message they get delivered a la late
> nite adult tv commercials)
> I see aspect 3 of the requirements above as the hard bit financially; this
> is why Twitter is removing support for international 'sending', and unless
> I'm missing something, the premium SMS creature is more to collecting a form
> of premium revenue on the user sending you a message, not the other way
> around.
> Of course, this AU gateway could truncate the messages and fund the outbound
> transmissions via advertising, but that might be a bit hard to swallow.
> Or, am I missing something really important here?
> Geoff
> -----Original Message-----
> From: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com
> [mailto:silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Elias
> Bizannes
> Sent: Thursday, 14 August 2008 9:46 PM
> To: Silicon Beach Australia
> Cc: ivo.br...@gmail.com
> Subject: [SiliconBeach] New project idea: Bringing back Twitter SMS
> Boys and girls,
> <rant>
> Since our discussions, things have predictably settled. It was never
> the intention that this mailing list becomes a 'chat' forum - there
> are plenty of other places for that. Instead, it's a way for us to
> have a central node as a community to collaborate on. I'm quite proud
> of what's become of it.
> One new initiate has been born - the distributed database - which
> several silicon beacher's having picked this up and are experimenting
> with now. It's going to be interesting to see what we can cook up for
> release later this year.
> </rant>
> But I've now got a new proposal. Building on some thoughts I tweeted
> before[1], I have a solution that will do three separate things that
> will help our industry.
> Background
> Twitter has become the most important social networking site for the
> Australia tech community. It facilitates meet ups, keeps people up to
> date, breaks news, and generally builds community.
> Today - news was announced that twitter would be shutting off its SMS
> service for international numbers because they now long can
> sustain[2] . This leaves Australian users completely out in the cold
> on one of the most valuable features of the technology. Separately,
> the micro-blogging revolution that Twitter has created is going to
> create transformative impacts on the industry. The embrace of Plurk
> and Identi.ca by Australia's twitter community to name but two
> examples, of how things are happening. However what these open source
> solutions lack is an SMS solution.
> The idea
> What I propose, is that as a community, we create a SMS solution that
> brings back Twitter to the phone for us as well as supporting other
> twitter clones.
> SMS gateways, including an Australian startup in Sydney, allow you to
> set up premium SMS plans. So for example, if people subscribe to your
> plan - it will cost you 55 cents. However, as the organiser of that
> plan, you get 18 cents for every message you get. It's an innovative
> revenue model, which I have explored in the past as part of my
> research into the mobile web opportunity.
> If we can hack together something that links the twitter API and a SMS
> gateway API like that of Ivo Brett's startup[2], we can restore SMS
> functionality. Oh, and make a bit of money.
> Sure, this is a market opportunity for a entrepreneur. I reckon you
> could make a quick buck, until a phone company or Twitter wakes up.
> But personally, I think it's too small scale an idea to launch a
> business, but too big an opportunity to pass up.
> So by building this service, as Silicon Beach - we've now got a
> revenue stream...for the comunity. The revenue raised, will be 100%
> reinvested into the community. Sponsoring conferences, meetups - heck
> wherever there is value to support effort in the community.
> Twitter becomes useful + we make opensource microblogging useful + we
> fund our community without realising it. Three bigs things, and all it
> takes is a bit of API hackery as some Jelly-a-thon.
Twitter sends notifications to my email. I poll my email every 30 secs
and if a new twitter direct mail arrives I'm sending out an SMS using
my Huawei E220 USB HSDPA Modem. I can put any SIM in this device, so
could load a prepaid vodafone one with $49 maxicap = $310 = 1240 smses
= 4 cents per sms. Obviously you'd set limits on both total number per
day/week and total number from 1 person per day/week to prevent
someone creating a crazy bill.
So..... who would pay something like 10 cents per received sms? Should
I build this prototype into a real solution? Does anyone really care?
Time for bed.
On Aug 15, 10:09 am, Elias Bizannes <elias.bizan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------
> Adding Ivo's message which for some reason didn't post - Elias
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------
> Hi Elias and Geoff,
> I tried posting to the group but got an error message - maybe I'm not
> allowed post. I've joined the group on google. Does someone need to
> set me up to post?
> Anyways heres my email.
> Ivo
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Ivo Brett <ivo.br...@gmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:38:12 +0100
> Subject: Re: [SiliconBeach] New project idea: Bringing back Twitter
> SMS
> To: "silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com"
> <silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com>
> Hi there,
> Thanks for including me on this email and thanks to Elias for
> introducing me2mobile.com. Premium SMS and bulk SMS is an area I know
> quite a bit about after having struggled with many different business
> models in this area. Its interesting that you've mentioned this as I
> have spent the last couple of weeks looking into the area of SMS
> enabling 'life streaming' services.
> A few things I've learnt about running a premium SMS business that you
> might not already know. Firstly, the costs for a shortcode with a
> carrier is expensive to setup and maintain. The revenue share is
> stacked in favour of the operators and they take a large share for no
> risk. Secondly, you need to be doing a large volume of SMS for any
> business case to pay off. This means that the only people who make
> money out of premium SMS are the companies that can afford massive
> marketing (e.g. late night text for a babe type services). This has
> resulted in premium SMS being considered a slightly "grubby" service.
> For all these reasons me2mobile has moved away from premium SMS as our
> core offering. We now make most of our money out of selling
> interactive SMS services to businesses (i.e. SMS campaigns using bulk
> SMS) rather than premium SMS.
> That being said, I think that your idea has a lot of merit. Twitter
> have done the hard work of creating a market for this idea (they've
> just withdrawn their own heavily used sms service). There is also a
> sizable and well connected twitter user base so it would be relatively
> easy to get this service 'out there'.
> Geoff and some of the other posters correctly pointed out some of the
> necessary mechanics of how premium SMS works so I wont go over them.
> But you thing that wasnt mentioned was the ability to send a low
> charged premium SMS (MT) to each follower. This could be as low as 25
> cents. I do, however, accept the point from Silky that its a pain to
> have to pay for incoming tweets especially since you dont know how
> many there'll be but as Elias says you can give people the option to
> opt out (or set a daily limit on how many they'll receive).
> Not too make it sound too trivial as I know there'll be some gotchas
> but I reckon I've implemented about 75% of what needs to be done for
> this project. I also have an agreement with one of the top premium SMS
> and bulk SMS aggregators. I selected them after indepth selection
> process and I reckon I have the best rates and revenue share that one
> can get. The best thing about this aggregator is that they have
> premium SMS connectivity in 28 countries so if this offering proven
> successful in Australia it would be very simple to roll out
> internationally.
> I have a good premium SMS shortcode already set up (19961996) with
> this aggregator (its 55 cents MO). Note: If you were to set up a
> shortcode yourself it normally takes 6 to 8 weeks to get a shortcode
> set up and sometimes operators knock back the applications.
> To be perfectly honest - the most expensive part of my agreement is
> maintaining the premium shortcode and I have been considering closing
> this part down altogether. There is one customer using it extensively
> but I dont push our premium sms offering anymore. Therefore, ne
> possibility is that I share my current agreement with others that want
> to take advantage of this shortcode. I'll be a transparent as possible
> and even share the contract details I have with the aggregator just to
> show that I wont be creaming any margin off the top. All I'd ask is to
> be involved in the service and any revenues generated by it.
> I'd like to be involved in this project as I think its got a lot of
> legs. I'm back in Ireland at the moment but I can have a call with
> others if that helps speed things up.
> Ivo
> On 8/14/08, Geoff McQueen <geoff.mcqu...@internetrix.com.au> wrote:
> - Show quoted text -
> > Elias,
> > Sounds interesting. As someone who's messed around with premium SMS before,
> > could I confirm the idea is:
> > 1. A "short code" or 19 number be registered in AU
> > 2. People who send to this number pay a premium to send their SMS
> > 3. Some of this premium is revenue that goes to the "owner" of the 19 number
> > 4. This revenue be re-invested in the community, in whatever form that is?
> > If that is the plan, this would require:
> > 1. Account setup with a carrier, which I take it you're suggesting mobileme
> > (although [3] wasn't referenced in your post)
> > 2. Some glue to tie submission posts to the short code as submitting to the
> > Twitter API
> > 3. Resolving who's going to pay for broadcast/outgoing messages from Twitter
> > (unless people agree to cop a fee per message they get delivered a la late
> > nite adult tv commercials)
> > I see aspect 3 of the requirements above as the hard bit financially; this
> > is why Twitter is removing support for international 'sending', and unless
> > I'm missing something, the premium SMS creature is more to collecting a form
> > of premium revenue on the user sending you a message, not the other way
> > around.
> > Of course, this AU gateway could truncate the messages and fund the outbound
> > transmissions via advertising, but that might be a bit hard to swallow.
> > Or, am I missing something really important here?
> > Geoff
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com
> > [mailto:silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Elias
> > Bizannes
> > Sent: Thursday, 14 August 2008 9:46 PM
> > To: Silicon Beach Australia
> > Cc: ivo.br...@gmail.com
> > Subject: [SiliconBeach] New project idea: Bringing back Twitter SMS
> > Boys and girls,
> > <rant>
> > Since our discussions, things have predictably settled. It was never
> > the intention that this mailing list becomes a 'chat' forum - there
> > are plenty of other places for that. Instead, it's a way for us to
> > have a central node as a community to collaborate on. I'm quite proud
> > of what's become of it.
> > One new initiate has been born - the distributed database - which
> > several silicon beacher's having picked this up and are experimenting
> > with now. It's going to be interesting to see what we can cook up for
> > release later this year.
> > </rant>
> > But I've now got a new proposal. Building on some thoughts I tweeted
> > before[1], I have a solution that will do three separate things that
> > will help our industry.
> > Background
> > Twitter has become the most important social networking site for the
> > Australia tech community. It facilitates meet ups, keeps people up to
> > date, breaks news, and generally builds community.
> > Today - news was announced that twitter would be shutting off its SMS
> > service for international numbers because they now long can
> > sustain[2] . This leaves Australian users completely out in the cold
> > on one of the most valuable features of the technology. Separately,
> > the micro-blogging revolution that Twitter has created is going to
> > create transformative impacts on the industry. The embrace of Plurk
> > and Identi.ca by Australia's twitter community to name but two
> > examples, of how things are happening. However what these open source
> > solutions lack is an SMS solution.
> > The idea
> > What I propose, is that as a community, we create a SMS solution that
> > brings back Twitter to the phone for us as well as supporting other
> > twitter clones.
> > SMS gateways, including an Australian startup in Sydney, allow you to
> > set up premium SMS plans. So for example, if people subscribe to your
> > plan - it will cost you 55 cents. However, as the organiser of that
> > plan, you get 18 cents for every message you get. It's an innovative
> > revenue model, which I have explored in the past as part of my
> > research into the mobile web opportunity.
> > If we can hack together something that links the twitter API and a SMS
> > gateway API like that of Ivo Brett's startup[2], we can restore SMS
> > functionality. Oh, and make a bit of money.
> > Sure, this is a market opportunity for a entrepreneur. I reckon you
> Twitter sends notifications to my email. I poll my email every 30 secs > and if a new twitter direct mail arrives I'm sending out an SMS using > my Huawei E220 USB HSDPA Modem. I can put any SIM in this device, so > could load a prepaid vodafone one with $49 maxicap = $310 = 1240 smses > = 4 cents per sms. Obviously you'd set limits on both total number per > day/week and total number from 1 person per day/week to prevent > someone creating a crazy bill.
> So..... who would pay something like 10 cents per received sms? Should > I build this prototype into a real solution? Does anyone really care?
> Time for bed.
> On Aug 15, 10:09 am, Elias Bizannes <elias.bizan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- > > Adding Ivo's message which for some reason didn't post - Elias
> > I tried posting to the group but got an error message - maybe I'm not > > allowed post. I've joined the group on google. Does someone need to > > set me up to post?
> > Anyways heres my email. > > Ivo
> > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > > From: Ivo Brett <ivo.br...@gmail.com> > > Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:38:12 +0100 > > Subject: Re: [SiliconBeach] New project idea: Bringing back Twitter
> > SMS > > To: "silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com" > > <silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com>
> > Hi there,
> > Thanks for including me on this email and thanks to Elias for > > introducing me2mobile.com. Premium SMS and bulk SMS is an area I know > > quite a bit about after having struggled with many different business > > models in this area. Its interesting that you've mentioned this as I > > have spent the last couple of weeks looking into the area of SMS > > enabling 'life streaming' services.
> > A few things I've learnt about running a premium SMS business that you > > might not already know. Firstly, the costs for a shortcode with a > > carrier is expensive to setup and maintain. The revenue share is > > stacked in favour of the operators and they take a large share for no > > risk. Secondly, you need to be doing a large volume of SMS for any > > business case to pay off. This means that the only people who make > > money out of premium SMS are the companies that can afford massive > > marketing (e.g. late night text for a babe type services). This has > > resulted in premium SMS being considered a slightly "grubby" service. > > For all these reasons me2mobile has moved away from premium SMS as our > > core offering. We now make most of our money out of selling > > interactive SMS services to businesses (i.e. SMS campaigns using bulk > > SMS) rather than premium SMS.
> > That being said, I think that your idea has a lot of merit. Twitter > > have done the hard work of creating a market for this idea (they've > > just withdrawn their own heavily used sms service). There is also a > > sizable and well connected twitter user base so it would be relatively > > easy to get this service 'out there'.
> > Geoff and some of the other posters correctly pointed out some of the > > necessary mechanics of how premium SMS works so I wont go over them. > > But you thing that wasnt mentioned was the ability to send a low > > charged premium SMS (MT) to each follower. This could be as low as 25 > > cents. I do, however, accept the point from Silky that its a pain to > > have to pay for incoming tweets especially since you dont know how > > many there'll be but as Elias says you can give people the option to > > opt out (or set a daily limit on how many they'll receive).
> > Not too make it sound too trivial as I know there'll be some gotchas > > but I reckon I've implemented about 75% of what needs to be done for > > this project. I also have an agreement with one of the top premium SMS > > and bulk SMS aggregators. I selected them after indepth selection > > process and I reckon I have the best rates and revenue share that one > > can get. The best thing about this aggregator is that they have > > premium SMS connectivity in 28 countries so if this offering proven > > successful in Australia it would be very simple to roll out > > internationally.
> > I have a good premium SMS shortcode already set up (19961996) with > > this aggregator (its 55 cents MO). Note: If you were to set up a > > shortcode yourself it normally takes 6 to 8 weeks to get a shortcode > > set up and sometimes operators knock back the applications.
> > To be perfectly honest - the most expensive part of my agreement is > > maintaining the premium shortcode and I have been considering closing > > this part down altogether. There is one customer using it extensively > > but I dont push our premium sms offering anymore. Therefore, ne > > possibility is that I share my current agreement with others that want > > to take advantage of this shortcode. I'll be a transparent as possible > > and even share the contract details I have with the aggregator just to > > show that I wont be creaming any margin off the top. All I'd ask is to > > be involved in the service and any revenues generated by it.
> > I'd like to be involved in this project as I think its got a lot of > > legs. I'm back in Ireland at the moment but I can have a call with > > others if that helps speed things up.
> > Ivo
> > On 8/14/08, Geoff McQueen <geoff.mcqu...@internetrix.com.au> wrote:
> > - Show quoted text - > > > Elias,
> > > Sounds interesting. As someone who's messed around with premium SMS > before, > > > could I confirm the idea is:
> > > 1. A "short code" or 19 number be registered in AU > > > 2. People who send to this number pay a premium to send their SMS > > > 3. Some of this premium is revenue that goes to the "owner" of the 19 > number > > > 4. This revenue be re-invested in the community, in whatever form that > is?
> > > If that is the plan, this would require: > > > 1. Account setup with a carrier, which I take it you're suggesting > mobileme > > > (although [3] wasn't referenced in your post) > > > 2. Some glue to tie submission posts to the short code as submitting to > the > > > Twitter API > > > 3. Resolving who's going to pay for broadcast/outgoing messages from > Twitter > > > (unless people agree to cop a fee per message they get delivered a la > late > > > nite adult tv commercials)
> > > I see aspect 3 of the requirements above as the hard bit financially; > this > > > is why Twitter is removing support for international 'sending', and > unless > > > I'm missing something, the premium SMS creature is more to collecting a > form > > > of premium revenue on the user sending you a message, not the other way > > > around.
> > > Of course, this AU gateway could truncate the messages and fund the > outbound > > > transmissions via advertising, but that might be a bit hard to swallow.
> > > Or, am I missing something really important here?
> > > Geoff
> > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com > > > [mailto:silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Elias > > > Bizannes > > > Sent: Thursday, 14 August 2008 9:46 PM > > > To: Silicon Beach Australia > > > Cc: ivo.br...@gmail.com > > > Subject: [SiliconBeach] New project idea: Bringing back Twitter SMS
> > > Boys and girls,
> > > <rant> > > > Since our discussions, things have predictably settled. It was never > > > the intention that this mailing list becomes a 'chat' forum - there > > > are plenty of other places for that. Instead, it's a way for us to > > > have a central node as a community to collaborate on. I'm quite proud > > > of what's become of it.
> > > One new initiate has been born - the distributed database - which > > > several silicon beacher's having picked this up and are experimenting > > > with now. It's going to be interesting to see what we can cook up for > > > release later this year. > > > </rant>
> > > But I've now got a new proposal. Building on some thoughts I tweeted > > > before[1], I have a solution that will do three separate things that > > > will help our industry.
> > > Background > > > Twitter has become the most important social networking site for the > > > Australia tech community. It facilitates meet ups, keeps people up to > > > date, breaks news, and generally builds community.
> > > Today - news was announced that twitter would be shutting off its SMS > > > service for international numbers because they now long can > > > sustain[2] . This leaves Australian users completely out in the cold > > > on one of the most valuable features of the technology. Separately, > > > the micro-blogging revolution that Twitter has created is going to > > > create transformative impacts on the industry. The embrace of Plurk > > > and Identi.ca by Australia's twitter community to name but two > > > examples, of how things are happening. However what these open source > > > solutions lack is an SMS solution.
> > > The idea > > > What I propose, is that as a community, we create a SMS solution that > > > brings back Twitter to the phone for us as well as supporting other > > > twitter clones.
> > > SMS gateways, including an Australian startup in Sydney, allow you to > > > set up premium SMS plans. So for example, if people subscribe to your > > > plan - it will cost you 55 cents. However, as the organiser of that > > > plan, you get 18 cents for
I'm thinking you might be onto something here. There has recently been a dramatic increase in the number of "unlimited" mobile plans on the market, which include unlimited text. While there are of course going to be massive fine-print caveats on these plans (haven't had a chance to read up on them yet), I imagine they'll come back to not running a commercial service, and a fair use policy that you don't go completely nuts.
As a result, buying a couple of these plans and then opening up shop would likely end up getting one into hot water pretty quickly, but, what if we could do something a little more "community" with it, and run the service in a bit of a decentralised fashion, so that a number of individuals with these sorts of unlimited plans put up their hands and take a small bit of the load in a way which doesn't breach fair use or commercial provisions in these sort of plans?
I haven't thought about it enough to consider its mechanics, but the concept would probably be to have a central marshalling point where messages are read from Twitter (XMPP, API, whatever), and then a random user who's signed in is selected and the central point sends it through to their machine via the internet at which point it is then sent out. The user could nominate what they're prepared to offer, so, say 250 SMS messages per month, with a cap of 30 per day (less than your average teenager sends, so, again, they don't earn unwanted attention) could be what a user could choose, and once they have used up their quota, they're not part of the random selection list.
Methods that come to mind include something like the HSDPA modem you're talking about, or via an iPhone application (Apple are promising to be able to "wake up" applications on handsets using push technology aren't they?), or a Windows Mobile 6 application. Ideally, the "from" number for this sort of service would be changed to be the +44 UK gateway (which twitter will still receive messages via), so the innocent are protected.
Anyway, this is a whole lot more engineering than other suggestions, but it could have the advantage of being a cost-less solution, and, personally, I'd say the world would have to be in awe of Aussie ingenuity for coming up with this work around (and since Twitter's domestic support is limited to USA, Canada and India for the time being (I think?), open sourcing the effort could result in a massive peer supported network of these gateways.
That's enough weekend dreaming for me... back to the 300+ item to do list... ;-)
Geoff
From: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com [mailto:silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Davis Weddi
Sent: Sunday, 17 August 2008 8:42 PM
To: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com
Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: New project idea: Bringing back Twitter SMS
Interesting stuff here on SMS.
As a newbie here, I am looking forward to seeing this SMS idea mature into a realtime projection.
Davis
On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 8:59 PM, Bart Jellema <bart.jell...@tjoos.com<mailto:bart.jell...@tjoos.com>> wrote:
Just got home from official friday and read (parts of) this thread...
Decided to give it a whirl and got it working just fine...
Twitter sends notifications to my email. I poll my email every 30 secs
and if a new twitter direct mail arrives I'm sending out an SMS using
my Huawei E220 USB HSDPA Modem. I can put any SIM in this device, so
could load a prepaid vodafone one with $49 maxicap = $310 = 1240 smses
= 4 cents per sms. Obviously you'd set limits on both total number per
day/week and total number from 1 person per day/week to prevent
someone creating a crazy bill.
So..... who would pay something like 10 cents per received sms? Should
I build this prototype into a real solution? Does anyone really care?
Time for bed.
On Aug 15, 10:09 am, Elias Bizannes <elias.bizan...@gmail.com<mailto:elias.bizan...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------
> Adding Ivo's message which for some reason didn't post - Elias
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------
> Hi Elias and Geoff,
> I tried posting to the group but got an error message - maybe I'm not
> allowed post. I've joined the group on google. Does someone need to
> set me up to post?
> Anyways heres my email.
> Ivo
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Ivo Brett <ivo.br...@gmail.com<mailto:ivo.br...@gmail.com>>
> Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:38:12 +0100
> Subject: Re: [SiliconBeach] New project idea: Bringing back Twitter
> SMS
> To: "silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com<mailto:silicon-beach-australia@go oglegroups.com>"
> <silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com<mailto:silicon-beach-australia@go oglegroups.com>>
> Hi there,
> Thanks for including me on this email and thanks to Elias for
> introducing me2mobile.com<http://me2mobile.com>. Premium SMS and bulk SMS is an area I know
> quite a bit about after having struggled with many different business
> models in this area. Its interesting that you've mentioned this as I
> have spent the last couple of weeks looking into the area of SMS
> enabling 'life streaming' services.
> A few things I've learnt about running a premium SMS business that you
> might not already know. Firstly, the costs for a shortcode with a
> carrier is expensive to setup and maintain. The revenue share is
> stacked in favour of the operators and they take a large share for no
> risk. Secondly, you need to be doing a large volume of SMS for any
> business case to pay off. This means that the only people who make
> money out of premium SMS are the companies that can afford massive
> marketing (e.g. late night text for a babe type services). This has
> resulted in premium SMS being considered a slightly "grubby" service.
> For all these reasons me2mobile has moved away from premium SMS as our
> core offering. We now make most of our money out of selling
> interactive SMS services to businesses (i.e. SMS campaigns using bulk
> SMS) rather than premium SMS.
> That being said, I think that your idea has a lot of merit. Twitter
> have done the hard work of creating a market for this idea (they've
> just withdrawn their own heavily used sms service). There is also a
> sizable and well connected twitter user base so it would be relatively
> easy to get this service 'out there'.
> Geoff and some of the other posters correctly pointed out some of the
> necessary mechanics of how premium SMS works so I wont go over them.
> But you thing that wasnt mentioned was the ability to send a low
> charged premium SMS (MT) to each follower. This could be as low as 25
> cents. I do, however, accept the point from Silky that its a pain to
> have to pay for incoming tweets especially since you dont know how
> many there'll be but as Elias says you can give people the option to
> opt out (or set a daily limit on how many they'll receive).
> Not too make it sound too trivial as I know there'll be some gotchas
> but I reckon I've implemented about 75% of what needs to be done for
> this project. I also have an agreement with one of the top premium SMS
> and bulk SMS aggregators. I selected them after indepth selection
> process and I reckon I have the best rates and revenue share that one
> can get. The best thing about this aggregator is that they have
> premium SMS connectivity in 28 countries so if this offering proven
> successful in Australia it would be very simple to roll out
> internationally.
> I have a good premium SMS shortcode already set up (19961996) with
> this aggregator (its 55 cents MO). Note: If you were to set up a
> shortcode yourself it normally takes 6 to 8 weeks to get a shortcode
> set up and sometimes operators knock back the applications.
> To be perfectly honest - the most expensive part of my agreement is
> maintaining the premium shortcode and I have been considering closing
> this part down altogether. There is one customer using it extensively
> but I dont push our premium sms offering anymore. Therefore, ne
> possibility is that I share my current agreement with others that want
> to take advantage of this shortcode. I'll be a transparent as possible
> and even share the contract details I have with the aggregator just to
> show that I wont be creaming any margin off the top. All I'd ask is to
> be involved in the service and any revenues generated by it.
> I'd like to be involved in this project as I think its got a lot of
> legs. I'm back in Ireland at the moment but I can have a call with
> others if that helps speed things up.
> Ivo
> On 8/14/08, Geoff McQueen <geoff.mcqu...@internetrix.com.au<mailto:geoff.mcqu...@internetrix.com.au>> wrote:
> - Show quoted text -
> > Elias,
> > Sounds interesting. As someone who's messed around with premium SMS before,
> > could I confirm the idea is:
> > 1. A "short code" or 19 number be registered in AU
> > 2. People who send to this number pay a premium to send their SMS
> > 3. Some of this premium is revenue that goes to the "owner" of the 19 number
> > 4. This revenue be re-invested in the community, in whatever form that is?
> > If that is the plan, this would require:
> > 1. Account setup with a carrier, which I take it you're suggesting mobileme
> > (although [3] wasn't referenced in your post)
> > 2. Some glue to tie submission posts to the short code as submitting to the
> > Twitter API
> > 3. Resolving who's going to pay for broadcast/outgoing messages from Twitter
> > (unless people agree to cop a fee per message they get delivered a la late
> > nite adult tv commercials)
> > I see aspect 3 of the requirements above as the hard bit financially; this
> > is why Twitter is removing support for
I can build a solution for this in under a week... and can either use
my modem, or just a gateway... my real question is: Are people just
talking about this, or is there actually someone out there that would
pay for this? This is not a personal need, so I can't build it without
the input from someone who actually wants this solution. Anyone
volunteer?
On Aug 17, 8:57 pm, Geoff McQueen <geoff.mcqu...@internetrix.com.au>
wrote:
> Bart,
> I'm thinking you might be onto something here. There has recently been a dramatic increase in the number of "unlimited" mobile plans on the market, which include unlimited text. While there are of course going to be massive fine-print caveats on these plans (haven't had a chance to read up on them yet), I imagine they'll come back to not running a commercial service, and a fair use policy that you don't go completely nuts.
> As a result, buying a couple of these plans and then opening up shop would likely end up getting one into hot water pretty quickly, but, what if we could do something a little more "community" with it, and run the service in a bit of a decentralised fashion, so that a number of individuals with these sorts of unlimited plans put up their hands and take a small bit of the load in a way which doesn't breach fair use or commercial provisions in these sort of plans?
> I haven't thought about it enough to consider its mechanics, but the concept would probably be to have a central marshalling point where messages are read from Twitter (XMPP, API, whatever), and then a random user who's signed in is selected and the central point sends it through to their machine via the internet at which point it is then sent out. The user could nominate what they're prepared to offer, so, say 250 SMS messages per month, with a cap of 30 per day (less than your average teenager sends, so, again, they don't earn unwanted attention) could be what a user could choose, and once they have used up their quota, they're not part of the random selection list.
> Methods that come to mind include something like the HSDPA modem you're talking about, or via an iPhone application (Apple are promising to be able to "wake up" applications on handsets using push technology aren't they?), or a Windows Mobile 6 application. Ideally, the "from" number for this sort of service would be changed to be the +44 UK gateway (which twitter will still receive messages via), so the innocent are protected.
> Anyway, this is a whole lot more engineering than other suggestions, but it could have the advantage of being a cost-less solution, and, personally, I'd say the world would have to be in awe of Aussie ingenuity for coming up with this work around (and since Twitter's domestic support is limited to USA, Canada and India for the time being (I think?), open sourcing the effort could result in a massive peer supported network of these gateways.
> That's enough weekend dreaming for me... back to the 300+ item to do list... ;-)
> Geoff
> From: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com [mailto:silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Davis Weddi
> Sent: Sunday, 17 August 2008 8:42 PM
> To: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com
> Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: New project idea: Bringing back Twitter SMS
> Interesting stuff here on SMS.
> As a newbie here, I am looking forward to seeing this SMS idea mature into a realtime projection.
> Davis
> On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 8:59 PM, Bart Jellema <bart.jell...@tjoos.com<mailto:bart.jell...@tjoos.com>> wrote:
> Just got home from official friday and read (parts of) this thread...
> Decided to give it a whirl and got it working just fine...
> Twitter sends notifications to my email. I poll my email every 30 secs
> and if a new twitter direct mail arrives I'm sending out an SMS using
> my Huawei E220 USB HSDPA Modem. I can put any SIM in this device, so
> could load a prepaid vodafone one with $49 maxicap = $310 = 1240 smses
> = 4 cents per sms. Obviously you'd set limits on both total number per
> day/week and total number from 1 person per day/week to prevent
> someone creating a crazy bill.
> So..... who would pay something like 10 cents per received sms? Should
> I build this prototype into a real solution? Does anyone really care?
> Time for bed.
> On Aug 15, 10:09 am, Elias Bizannes <elias.bizan...@gmail.com<mailto:elias.bizan...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------
> > Adding Ivo's message which for some reason didn't post - Elias
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------
> > Hi Elias and Geoff,
> > I tried posting to the group but got an error message - maybe I'm not
> > allowed post. I've joined the group on google. Does someone need to
> > set me up to post?
> > Anyways heres my email.
> > Ivo
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Ivo Brett <ivo.br...@gmail.com<mailto:ivo.br...@gmail.com>>
> > Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:38:12 +0100
> > Subject: Re: [SiliconBeach] New project idea: Bringing back Twitter
> > Thanks for including me on this email and thanks to Elias for
> > introducing me2mobile.com<http://me2mobile.com>. Premium SMS and bulk SMS is an area I know
> > quite a bit about after having struggled with many different business
> > models in this area. Its interesting that you've mentioned this as I
> > have spent the last couple of weeks looking into the area of SMS
> > enabling 'life streaming' services.
> > A few things I've learnt about running a premium SMS business that you
> > might not already know. Firstly, the costs for a shortcode with a
> > carrier is expensive to setup and maintain. The revenue share is
> > stacked in favour of the operators and they take a large share for no
> > risk. Secondly, you need to be doing a large volume of SMS for any
> > business case to pay off. This means that the only people who make
> > money out of premium SMS are the companies that can afford massive
> > marketing (e.g. late night text for a babe type services). This has
> > resulted in premium SMS being considered a slightly "grubby" service.
> > For all these reasons me2mobile has moved away from premium SMS as our
> > core offering. We now make most of our money out of selling
> > interactive SMS services to businesses (i.e. SMS campaigns using bulk
> > SMS) rather than premium SMS.
> > That being said, I think that your idea has a lot of merit. Twitter
> > have done the hard work of creating a market for this idea (they've
> > just withdrawn their own heavily used sms service). There is also a
> > sizable and well connected twitter user base so it would be relatively
> > easy to get this service 'out there'.
> > Geoff and some of the other posters correctly pointed out some of the
> > necessary mechanics of how premium SMS works so I wont go over them.
> > But you thing that wasnt mentioned was the ability to send a low
> > charged premium SMS (MT) to each follower. This could be as low as 25
> > cents. I do, however, accept the point from Silky that its a pain to
> > have to pay for incoming tweets especially since you dont know how
> > many there'll be but as Elias says you can give people the option to
> > opt out (or set a daily limit on how many they'll receive).
> > Not too make it sound too trivial as I know there'll be some gotchas
> > but I reckon I've implemented about 75% of what needs to be done for
> > this project. I also have an agreement with one of the top premium SMS
> > and bulk SMS aggregators. I selected them after indepth selection
> > process and I reckon I have the best rates and revenue share that one
> > can get. The best thing about this aggregator is that they have
> > premium SMS connectivity in 28 countries so if this offering proven
> > successful in Australia it would be very simple to roll out
> > internationally.
> > I have a good premium SMS shortcode already set up (19961996) with
> > this aggregator (its 55 cents MO). Note: If you were to set up a
> > shortcode yourself it normally takes 6 to 8 weeks to get a shortcode
> > set up and sometimes operators knock back the applications.
> > To be perfectly honest - the most expensive part of my agreement is
> > maintaining the premium shortcode and I have been considering closing
> > this part down altogether. There is one customer using it extensively
> > but I dont push our premium sms offering anymore. Therefore, ne
> > possibility is that I share my current agreement with others that want
> > to take advantage of this shortcode. I'll be a transparent as possible
> > and even share the contract details I have with the aggregator just to
> > show that I wont be creaming any margin off the top. All I'd ask is to
> > be involved in the service and any revenues generated by it.
> > I'd like to be involved in this project as I think its got a lot of
> > legs. I'm back in Ireland at the moment but I can have a call with
> > others if that helps speed things up.
> > Ivo
> > On 8/14/08, Geoff McQueen <geoff.mcqu...@internetrix.com.au<mailto:geoff.mcqu...@internetrix.com.au>> wrote:
> > - Show quoted text -
> > > Elias,
> > > Sounds interesting. As someone who's messed around with premium SMS before,
> > > could I confirm the idea is:
> > > 1. A "short code" or 19 number be registered in AU
> > > 2. People who send to this number pay a premium to send their SMS
> > > 3. Some of this premium is revenue that goes to the "owner" of the 19
I don't think pricing is an issue at all... I just build it with my
modem for fun... using a gateway is just as easy and just as cheap...
5c to 7c per message... http://www.clickatell.com/pricing/pricing_wizard.php
On Aug 17, 8:57 pm, Geoff McQueen <geoff.mcqu...@internetrix.com.au>
wrote:
> Bart,
> I'm thinking you might be onto something here. There has recently been a dramatic increase in the number of "unlimited" mobile plans on the market, which include unlimited text. While there are of course going to be massive fine-print caveats on these plans (haven't had a chance to read up on them yet), I imagine they'll come back to not running a commercial service, and a fair use policy that you don't go completely nuts.
> As a result, buying a couple of these plans and then opening up shop would likely end up getting one into hot water pretty quickly, but, what if we could do something a little more "community" with it, and run the service in a bit of a decentralised fashion, so that a number of individuals with these sorts of unlimited plans put up their hands and take a small bit of the load in a way which doesn't breach fair use or commercial provisions in these sort of plans?
> I haven't thought about it enough to consider its mechanics, but the concept would probably be to have a central marshalling point where messages are read from Twitter (XMPP, API, whatever), and then a random user who's signed in is selected and the central point sends it through to their machine via the internet at which point it is then sent out. The user could nominate what they're prepared to offer, so, say 250 SMS messages per month, with a cap of 30 per day (less than your average teenager sends, so, again, they don't earn unwanted attention) could be what a user could choose, and once they have used up their quota, they're not part of the random selection list.
> Methods that come to mind include something like the HSDPA modem you're talking about, or via an iPhone application (Apple are promising to be able to "wake up" applications on handsets using push technology aren't they?), or a Windows Mobile 6 application. Ideally, the "from" number for this sort of service would be changed to be the +44 UK gateway (which twitter will still receive messages via), so the innocent are protected.
> Anyway, this is a whole lot more engineering than other suggestions, but it could have the advantage of being a cost-less solution, and, personally, I'd say the world would have to be in awe of Aussie ingenuity for coming up with this work around (and since Twitter's domestic support is limited to USA, Canada and India for the time being (I think?), open sourcing the effort could result in a massive peer supported network of these gateways.
> That's enough weekend dreaming for me... back to the 300+ item to do list... ;-)
> Geoff
> From: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com [mailto:silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Davis Weddi
> Sent: Sunday, 17 August 2008 8:42 PM
> To: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com
> Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: New project idea: Bringing back Twitter SMS
> Interesting stuff here on SMS.
> As a newbie here, I am looking forward to seeing this SMS idea mature into a realtime projection.
> Davis
> On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 8:59 PM, Bart Jellema <bart.jell...@tjoos.com<mailto:bart.jell...@tjoos.com>> wrote:
> Just got home from official friday and read (parts of) this thread...
> Decided to give it a whirl and got it working just fine...
> Twitter sends notifications to my email. I poll my email every 30 secs
> and if a new twitter direct mail arrives I'm sending out an SMS using
> my Huawei E220 USB HSDPA Modem. I can put any SIM in this device, so
> could load a prepaid vodafone one with $49 maxicap = $310 = 1240 smses
> = 4 cents per sms. Obviously you'd set limits on both total number per
> day/week and total number from 1 person per day/week to prevent
> someone creating a crazy bill.
> So..... who would pay something like 10 cents per received sms? Should
> I build this prototype into a real solution? Does anyone really care?
> Time for bed.
> On Aug 15, 10:09 am, Elias Bizannes <elias.bizan...@gmail.com<mailto:elias.bizan...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------
> > Adding Ivo's message which for some reason didn't post - Elias
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------
> > Hi Elias and Geoff,
> > I tried posting to the group but got an error message - maybe I'm not
> > allowed post. I've joined the group on google. Does someone need to
> > set me up to post?
> > Anyways heres my email.
> > Ivo
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Ivo Brett <ivo.br...@gmail.com<mailto:ivo.br...@gmail.com>>
> > Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:38:12 +0100
> > Subject: Re: [SiliconBeach] New project idea: Bringing back Twitter
> > Thanks for including me on this email and thanks to Elias for
> > introducing me2mobile.com<http://me2mobile.com>. Premium SMS and bulk SMS is an area I know
> > quite a bit about after having struggled with many different business
> > models in this area. Its interesting that you've mentioned this as I
> > have spent the last couple of weeks looking into the area of SMS
> > enabling 'life streaming' services.
> > A few things I've learnt about running a premium SMS business that you
> > might not already know. Firstly, the costs for a shortcode with a
> > carrier is expensive to setup and maintain. The revenue share is
> > stacked in favour of the operators and they take a large share for no
> > risk. Secondly, you need to be doing a large volume of SMS for any
> > business case to pay off. This means that the only people who make
> > money out of premium SMS are the companies that can afford massive
> > marketing (e.g. late night text for a babe type services). This has
> > resulted in premium SMS being considered a slightly "grubby" service.
> > For all these reasons me2mobile has moved away from premium SMS as our
> > core offering. We now make most of our money out of selling
> > interactive SMS services to businesses (i.e. SMS campaigns using bulk
> > SMS) rather than premium SMS.
> > That being said, I think that your idea has a lot of merit. Twitter
> > have done the hard work of creating a market for this idea (they've
> > just withdrawn their own heavily used sms service). There is also a
> > sizable and well connected twitter user base so it would be relatively
> > easy to get this service 'out there'.
> > Geoff and some of the other posters correctly pointed out some of the
> > necessary mechanics of how premium SMS works so I wont go over them.
> > But you thing that wasnt mentioned was the ability to send a low
> > charged premium SMS (MT) to each follower. This could be as low as 25
> > cents. I do, however, accept the point from Silky that its a pain to
> > have to pay for incoming tweets especially since you dont know how
> > many there'll be but as Elias says you can give people the option to
> > opt out (or set a daily limit on how many they'll receive).
> > Not too make it sound too trivial as I know there'll be some gotchas
> > but I reckon I've implemented about 75% of what needs to be done for
> > this project. I also have an agreement with one of the top premium SMS
> > and bulk SMS aggregators. I selected them after indepth selection
> > process and I reckon I have the best rates and revenue share that one
> > can get. The best thing about this aggregator is that they have
> > premium SMS connectivity in 28 countries so if this offering proven
> > successful in Australia it would be very simple to roll out
> > internationally.
> > I have a good premium SMS shortcode already set up (19961996) with
> > this aggregator (its 55 cents MO). Note: If you were to set up a
> > shortcode yourself it normally takes 6 to 8 weeks to get a shortcode
> > set up and sometimes operators knock back the applications.
> > To be perfectly honest - the most expensive part of my agreement is
> > maintaining the premium shortcode and I have been considering closing
> > this part down altogether. There is one customer using it extensively
> > but I dont push our premium sms offering anymore. Therefore, ne
> > possibility is that I share my current agreement with others that want
> > to take advantage of this shortcode. I'll be a transparent as possible
> > and even share the contract details I have with the aggregator just to
> > show that I wont be creaming any margin off the top. All I'd ask is to
> > be involved in the service and any revenues generated by it.
> > I'd like to be involved in this project as I think its got a lot of
> > legs. I'm back in Ireland at the moment but I can have a call with
> > others if that helps speed things up.
> > Ivo
> > On 8/14/08, Geoff McQueen <geoff.mcqu...@internetrix.com.au<mailto:geoff.mcqu...@internetrix.com.au>> wrote:
> > - Show quoted text -
> > > Elias,
> > > Sounds interesting. As someone who's messed around with premium SMS before,
> > > could I confirm the idea is:
> > > 1. A "short code" or 19 number be registered in AU
> > > 2. People who send to this number pay a premium to send their SMS
> > > 3. Some of this premium is revenue that goes to the "owner" of the 19 number
> > > 4. This revenue be re-invested in the community, in whatever form that is?
People definitely want this. I'll see if I can get some people to put
their hands up, if people on this mailing list don't volunteer to
guide Bart. I know personally I would pay for the SMS service.
On Aug 18, 1:05 am, Bart Jellema <bart.jell...@tjoos.com> wrote:
> I don't think pricing is an issue at all... I just build it with my
> modem for fun... using a gateway is just as easy and just as cheap...
> 5c to 7c per message...http://www.clickatell.com/pricing/pricing_wizard.php
> On Aug 17, 8:57 pm, Geoff McQueen <geoff.mcqu...@internetrix.com.au>
> wrote:
> > Bart,
> > I'm thinking you might be onto something here. There has recently been a dramatic increase in the number of "unlimited" mobile plans on the market, which include unlimited text. While there are of course going to be massive fine-print caveats on these plans (haven't had a chance to read up on them yet), I imagine they'll come back to not running a commercial service, and a fair use policy that you don't go completely nuts.
> > As a result, buying a couple of these plans and then opening up shop would likely end up getting one into hot water pretty quickly, but, what if we could do something a little more "community" with it, and run the service in a bit of a decentralised fashion, so that a number of individuals with these sorts of unlimited plans put up their hands and take a small bit of the load in a way which doesn't breach fair use or commercial provisions in these sort of plans?
> > I haven't thought about it enough to consider its mechanics, but the concept would probably be to have a central marshalling point where messages are read from Twitter (XMPP, API, whatever), and then a random user who's signed in is selected and the central point sends it through to their machine via the internet at which point it is then sent out. The user could nominate what they're prepared to offer, so, say 250 SMS messages per month, with a cap of 30 per day (less than your average teenager sends, so, again, they don't earn unwanted attention) could be what a user could choose, and once they have used up their quota, they're not part of the random selection list.
> > Methods that come to mind include something like the HSDPA modem you're talking about, or via an iPhone application (Apple are promising to be able to "wake up" applications on handsets using push technology aren't they?), or a Windows Mobile 6 application. Ideally, the "from" number for this sort of service would be changed to be the +44 UK gateway (which twitter will still receive messages via), so the innocent are protected.
> > Anyway, this is a whole lot more engineering than other suggestions, but it could have the advantage of being a cost-less solution, and, personally, I'd say the world would have to be in awe of Aussie ingenuity for coming up with this work around (and since Twitter's domestic support is limited to USA, Canada and India for the time being (I think?), open sourcing the effort could result in a massive peer supported network of these gateways.
> > That's enough weekend dreaming for me... back to the 300+ item to do list... ;-)
> > Geoff
> > From: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com [mailto:silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Davis Weddi
> > Sent: Sunday, 17 August 2008 8:42 PM
> > To: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com
> > Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: New project idea: Bringing back Twitter SMS
> > Interesting stuff here on SMS.
> > As a newbie here, I am looking forward to seeing this SMS idea mature into a realtime projection.
> > Davis
> > On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 8:59 PM, Bart Jellema <bart.jell...@tjoos.com<mailto:bart.jell...@tjoos.com>> wrote:
> > Just got home from official friday and read (parts of) this thread...
> > Decided to give it a whirl and got it working just fine...
> > Twitter sends notifications to my email. I poll my email every 30 secs
> > and if a new twitter direct mail arrives I'm sending out an SMS using
> > my Huawei E220 USB HSDPA Modem. I can put any SIM in this device, so
> > could load a prepaid vodafone one with $49 maxicap = $310 = 1240 smses
> > = 4 cents per sms. Obviously you'd set limits on both total number per
> > day/week and total number from 1 person per day/week to prevent
> > someone creating a crazy bill.
> > So..... who would pay something like 10 cents per received sms? Should
> > I build this prototype into a real solution? Does anyone really care?
> > Time for bed.
> > On Aug 15, 10:09 am, Elias Bizannes <elias.bizan...@gmail.com<mailto:elias.bizan...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> > > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------
> > > Adding Ivo's message which for some reason didn't post - Elias
> > > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------
> > > Hi Elias and Geoff,
> > > I tried posting to the group but got an error message - maybe I'm not
> > > allowed post. I've joined the group on google. Does someone need to
> > > set me up to post?
> > > Anyways heres my email.
> > > Ivo
> > > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > > From: Ivo Brett <ivo.br...@gmail.com<mailto:ivo.br...@gmail.com>>
> > > Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:38:12 +0100
> > > Subject: Re: [SiliconBeach] New project idea: Bringing back Twitter
> > > Thanks for including me on this email and thanks to Elias for
> > > introducing me2mobile.com<http://me2mobile.com>. Premium SMS and bulk SMS is an area I know
> > > quite a bit about after having struggled with many different business
> > > models in this area. Its interesting that you've mentioned this as I
> > > have spent the last couple of weeks looking into the area of SMS
> > > enabling 'life streaming' services.
> > > A few things I've learnt about running a premium SMS business that you
> > > might not already know. Firstly, the costs for a shortcode with a
> > > carrier is expensive to setup and maintain. The revenue share is
> > > stacked in favour of the operators and they take a large share for no
> > > risk. Secondly, you need to be doing a large volume of SMS for any
> > > business case to pay off. This means that the only people who make
> > > money out of premium SMS are the companies that can afford massive
> > > marketing (e.g. late night text for a babe type services). This has
> > > resulted in premium SMS being considered a slightly "grubby" service.
> > > For all these reasons me2mobile has moved away from premium SMS as our
> > > core offering. We now make most of our money out of selling
> > > interactive SMS services to businesses (i.e. SMS campaigns using bulk
> > > SMS) rather than premium SMS.
> > > That being said, I think that your idea has a lot of merit. Twitter
> > > have done the hard work of creating a market for this idea (they've
> > > just withdrawn their own heavily used sms service). There is also a
> > > sizable and well connected twitter user base so it would be relatively
> > > easy to get this service 'out there'.
> > > Geoff and some of the other posters correctly pointed out some of the
> > > necessary mechanics of how premium SMS works so I wont go over them.
> > > But you thing that wasnt mentioned was the ability to send a low
> > > charged premium SMS (MT) to each follower. This could be as low as 25
> > > cents. I do, however, accept the point from Silky that its a pain to
> > > have to pay for incoming tweets especially since you dont know how
> > > many there'll be but as Elias says you can give people the option to
> > > opt out (or set a daily limit on how many they'll receive).
> > > Not too make it sound too trivial as I know there'll be some gotchas
> > > but I reckon I've implemented about 75% of what needs to be done for
> > > this project. I also have an agreement with one of the top premium SMS
> > > and bulk SMS aggregators. I selected them after indepth selection
> > > process and I reckon I have the best rates and revenue share that one
> > > can get. The best thing about this aggregator is that they have
> > > premium SMS connectivity in 28 countries so if this offering proven
> > > successful in Australia it would be very simple to roll out
> > > internationally.
> > > I have a good premium SMS shortcode already set up (19961996) with
> > > this aggregator (its 55 cents MO). Note: If you were to set up a
> > > shortcode yourself it normally takes 6 to 8 weeks to get a shortcode
> > > set up and sometimes operators knock back the applications.
> > > To be perfectly honest - the most expensive part of my agreement is
> > > maintaining the premium shortcode and I have been considering closing
> > > this part down altogether. There is one customer using it extensively
> > > but I dont push our premium sms offering anymore. Therefore, ne
> > > possibility is that I share my current agreement with others that want
> > > to take advantage of this shortcode. I'll be a transparent as possible
> > > and even share the contract details I have with the aggregator just to
> > > show that I wont be creaming any margin off the top. All I'd ask is to
> > > be involved in the service and any revenues generated by it.
> > > I'd like to be involved in this project as I think its got a lot of
> > > legs. I'm back in Ireland at the moment but I can have a call with
> > > others if that helps speed things up.
> > > Ivo
> > > On 8/14/08, Geoff McQueen <geoff.mcqu...@internetrix.com.au<mailto:geoff.mcqu...@internetrix.com.au>> wrote:
I'm sure that developing a Twitter-to-SMS would be a fairly straightforward exercise, given their API and the fact they currently support it in other countries.
I am just wondering if this is a retrograde solution.
Anyone who has dealt with telcos will tell you that they love to skim profits. The artificially high data rates for mobile data (and SMS for that matter) is a classic case in point. They charge like wounded bulls because they can - they own the infrastructure and, in the case of SMS, they own the billing engine.
Given that 3G is fast becoming a standard globally, why would you develop a solution based on 1G technology - and force yourself into bed with the profiteering telcos?
Why not look at the other data channel (IP) and use that to create an SMS-esque application? Create a solution that gives a SMS-like experience - beeping/vibrating when incoming messages are received, with a reply service - but which operates independently of a specific carrier?
And, if you're going to go down that path, why not build the app in such a way that it can be interfaced with other social services?
The pain that has been articulated - wanting to keep an eye on 'social updates' when away from your primary computer - is real. But it is felt by a lot more people than just Twitter users.
Regards,
Mark ----- Mark Neely Master Strategist Infolution Pty Ltd
[mailto:silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bart Jellema Sent: Monday, 18 August 2008 1:06 AM To: Silicon Beach Australia Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: New project idea: Bringing back Twitter SMS
I don't think pricing is an issue at all... I just build it with my modem for fun... using a gateway is just as easy and just as cheap... 5c to 7c per message... http://www.clickatell.com/pricing/pricing_wizard.php
Guys,
Interesting conversation. The key issue here is one thing - Google.
Remember Google bought Jaiku a few months ago? Well Google has big
plans for it, and I would not be surprised if FREE SMS is on the
table. Why not? They have done this with Google Calendar.
I love Jaiku, thought it was way better than twitter. Once Google
opens it back up and integrates it with all their other products game
over - Google wins :-)
I would not be surprised at all once they go live with it (very soon I
hear), FREE SMS to anywhere in the world is a feature....
Sherif
On Aug 18, 11:59 am, "Mark Neely" <mark.ne...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm sure that developing a Twitter-to-SMS would be a fairly straightforward
> exercise, given their API and the fact they currently support it in other
> countries.
> I am just wondering if this is a retrograde solution.
> Anyone who has dealt with telcos will tell you that they love to skim
> profits. The artificially high data rates for mobile data (and SMS for that
> matter) is a classic case in point. They charge like wounded bulls because
> they can - they own the infrastructure and, in the case of SMS, they own the
> billing engine.
> Given that 3G is fast becoming a standard globally, why would you develop a
> solution based on 1G technology - and force yourself into bed with the
> profiteering telcos?
> Why not look at the other data channel (IP) and use that to create an
> SMS-esque application? Create a solution that gives a SMS-like experience -
> beeping/vibrating when incoming messages are received, with a reply service
> - but which operates independently of a specific carrier?
> And, if you're going to go down that path, why not build the app in such a
> way that it can be interfaced with other social services?
> The pain that has been articulated - wanting to keep an eye on 'social
> updates' when away from your primary computer - is real. But it is felt by a
> lot more people than just Twitter users.
> Regards,
> Mark
> -----
> Mark Neely
> Master Strategist
> Infolution Pty Ltd
> [mailto:silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bart Jellema
> Sent: Monday, 18 August 2008 1:06 AM
> To: Silicon Beach Australia
> Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: New project idea: Bringing back Twitter SMS
> I don't think pricing is an issue at all... I just build it with my modem
> for fun... using a gateway is just as easy and just as cheap...
> 5c to 7c per message...http://www.clickatell.com/pricing/pricing_wizard.php
Google seem to be turning into a bit of a behemoth lately though. Their "soon" is becoming years rather than months for some things. Don't get me wrong, I don't know about Jaiku or their plans for it, and they have great products and will be market leaders for a long time. But if you can create something profitable quickly, I wouldn't stop just because Google may have something that will compete.
small wrote: > Guys, > Interesting conversation. The key issue here is one thing - Google.
> Remember Google bought Jaiku a few months ago? Well Google has big > plans for it, and I would not be surprised if FREE SMS is on the > table. Why not? They have done this with Google Calendar.
> I love Jaiku, thought it was way better than twitter. Once Google > opens it back up and integrates it with all their other products game > over - Google wins :-)
> I would not be surprised at all once they go live with it (very soon I > hear), FREE SMS to anywhere in the world is a feature....
> Sherif
> On Aug 18, 11:59 am, "Mark Neely" <mark.ne...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I'm sure that developing a Twitter-to-SMS would be a fairly straightforward >> exercise, given their API and the fact they currently support it in other >> countries.
>> I am just wondering if this is a retrograde solution.
>> Anyone who has dealt with telcos will tell you that they love to skim >> profits. The artificially high data rates for mobile data (and SMS for that >> matter) is a classic case in point. They charge like wounded bulls because >> they can - they own the infrastructure and, in the case of SMS, they own the >> billing engine.
>> Given that 3G is fast becoming a standard globally, why would you develop a >> solution based on 1G technology - and force yourself into bed with the >> profiteering telcos?
>> Why not look at the other data channel (IP) and use that to create an >> SMS-esque application? Create a solution that gives a SMS-like experience - >> beeping/vibrating when incoming messages are received, with a reply service >> - but which operates independently of a specific carrier?
>> And, if you're going to go down that path, why not build the app in such a >> way that it can be interfaced with other social services?
>> The pain that has been articulated - wanting to keep an eye on 'social >> updates' when away from your primary computer - is real. But it is felt by a >> lot more people than just Twitter users.
>> Regards,
>> Mark >> ----- >> Mark Neely >> Master Strategist >> Infolution Pty Ltd
>> [mailto:silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bart Jellema >> Sent: Monday, 18 August 2008 1:06 AM >> To: Silicon Beach Australia >> Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: New project idea: Bringing back Twitter SMS
>> I don't think pricing is an issue at all... I just build it with my modem >> for fun... using a gateway is just as easy and just as cheap... >> 5c to 7c per message...http://www.clickatell.com/pricing/pricing_wizard.php
I think it is a bigger issue that just twitter. I still think there is value in SMS as a medium, just because of the multitude of phones that do not have a good online interface (I mean not like iPhones!) and also of the fact that many do not subscribe to mobile data plans for the reasons that you have articulated.
Considering the discussions, the telco model for making profits in Australia on SMS is tough to break. If there is a cheaper solution available it will be a great one.
I use one alternative. I am on 3 and they provide unlimited e-mails (to and fro) from the 3 e-mail account for $3 a month or part of the many mobile data packages that they provide. With my Sony K610i, it supports push e-mail from 3.
I generally forward from my gmail account the specfic e-mails that I want to recieve while on the go, whether they are from a person, twitter etc. I am always connected and it is cheap and unlimited.
That is one way to go.
Another option is Twitter or other social network RSS feed. Again it is built into my Sony K610i and it is easy to access and does not cost a lot in mobile data.
Cheers Suhit
On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 11:29 AM, Mark Neely <mark.ne...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm sure that developing a Twitter-to-SMS would be a fairly straightforward > exercise, given their API and the fact they currently support it in other > countries.
> I am just wondering if this is a retrograde solution.
> Anyone who has dealt with telcos will tell you that they love to skim > profits. The artificially high data rates for mobile data (and SMS for that > matter) is a classic case in point. They charge like wounded bulls because > they can - they own the infrastructure and, in the case of SMS, they own > the > billing engine.
> Given that 3G is fast becoming a standard globally, why would you develop a > solution based on 1G technology - and force yourself into bed with the > profiteering telcos?
> Why not look at the other data channel (IP) and use that to create an > SMS-esque application? Create a solution that gives a SMS-like experience - > beeping/vibrating when incoming messages are received, with a reply service > - but which operates independently of a specific carrier?
> And, if you're going to go down that path, why not build the app in such a > way that it can be interfaced with other social services?
> The pain that has been articulated - wanting to keep an eye on 'social > updates' when away from your primary computer - is real. But it is felt by > a > lot more people than just Twitter users.
> Regards,
> Mark > ----- > Mark Neely > Master Strategist > Infolution Pty Ltd
> -----Original Message----- > From: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com > [mailto:silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bart > Jellema > Sent: Monday, 18 August 2008 1:06 AM > To: Silicon Beach Australia > Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: New project idea: Bringing back Twitter SMS
> I don't think pricing is an issue at all... I just build it with my modem > for fun... using a gateway is just as easy and just as cheap... > 5c to 7c per message... > http://www.clickatell.com/pricing/pricing_wizard.php
On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 5:24 PM, Suhit Anantula <anant...@gmail.com> wrote: > Mark:
> Good one there.
> I think it is a bigger issue that just twitter. I still think there is > value in SMS as a medium, just because of the multitude of phones that do > not have a good online interface (I mean not like iPhones!) and also of the > fact that many do not subscribe to mobile data plans for the reasons that > you have articulated.
> Considering the discussions, the telco model for making profits in > Australia on SMS is tough to break. If there is a cheaper solution available > it will be a great one.
> I use one alternative. I am on 3 and they provide unlimited e-mails (to and > fro) from the 3 e-mail account for $3 a month or part of the many mobile > data packages that they provide. With my Sony K610i, it supports push e-mail > from 3.
> I generally forward from my gmail account the specfic e-mails that I want > to recieve while on the go, whether they are from a person, twitter etc. I > am always connected and it is cheap and unlimited.
> That is one way to go.
> Another option is Twitter or other social network RSS feed. Again it is > built into my Sony K610i and it is easy to access and does not cost a lot in > mobile data.
> Cheers > Suhit
> On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 11:29 AM, Mark Neely <mark.ne...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I'm sure that developing a Twitter-to-SMS would be a fairly >> straightforward >> exercise, given their API and the fact they currently support it in other >> countries.
>> I am just wondering if this is a retrograde solution.
>> Anyone who has dealt with telcos will tell you that they love to skim >> profits. The artificially high data rates for mobile data (and SMS for >> that >> matter) is a classic case in point. They charge like wounded bulls because >> they can - they own the infrastructure and, in the case of SMS, they own >> the >> billing engine.
>> Given that 3G is fast becoming a standard globally, why would you develop >> a >> solution based on 1G technology - and force yourself into bed with the >> profiteering telcos?
>> Why not look at the other data channel (IP) and use that to create an >> SMS-esque application? Create a solution that gives a SMS-like experience >> - >> beeping/vibrating when incoming messages are received, with a reply >> service >> - but which operates independently of a specific carrier?
>> And, if you're going to go down that path, why not build the app in such a >> way that it can be interfaced with other social services?
>> The pain that has been articulated - wanting to keep an eye on 'social >> updates' when away from your primary computer - is real. But it is felt by >> a >> lot more people than just Twitter users.
>> Regards,
>> Mark >> ----- >> Mark Neely >> Master Strategist >> Infolution Pty Ltd
>> -----Original Message----- >> From: silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com >> [mailto:silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bart >> Jellema >> Sent: Monday, 18 August 2008 1:06 AM >> To: Silicon Beach Australia >> Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: New project idea: Bringing back Twitter SMS
>> I don't think pricing is an issue at all... I just build it with my modem >> for fun... using a gateway is just as easy and just as cheap... >> 5c to 7c per message... >> http://www.clickatell.com/pricing/pricing_wizard.php
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-- Chris Saad
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