New project idea: Bringing back Twitter SMS - Silicon Beach Australia

Message from discussion New project idea: Bringing back Twitter SMS
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Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:59:29 -0700 (PDT)
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Subject: Re: New project idea: Bringing back Twitter SMS
From: Bart Jellema <bart.jell...@tjoos.com>
To: Silicon Beach Australia <silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com>
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Just got home from official friday and read (parts of) this thread...
Decided to give it a whirl and got it working just fine...

http://www.tjoos.com/Img/Tweet2Sms.png

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 =3D $310 =3D 1240 smses
=3D 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=A0am, 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 =A0means 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 bef=
ore,
> > 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 n=
umber
> > 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 mobi=
leme
> > (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 Tw=
itter
> > (unless people agree to cop a fee per message they get delivered a la l=
ate
> > nite adult tv commercials)
>
> > I see aspect 3 of the requirements above as the hard bit financially; t=
his
> > is why Twitter is removing support for international 'sending', and unl=
ess
> > 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 out=
bound
> > 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.
>
> > Thoughts?
>
> > [1]http://twitter.com/liako/statuses/887005932
> > [2]
> >http://blog.twitter.com/2008/08/changes-for-some-sms-usersgood-and-ba...