Mobile Bulletin Boards
MrDemeanour | 02.12.2004 10:02 | Technology
A technology called TxTMob was deployed to effect at the RNC in Noo Yawk. It's a sort of SMS bulletin board system - you send a text to a TxtMob group, and it gets relayed to all the subscribers to that group.
http://www.txtmob.com/
http://www.txtmob.com/
Observations:
1. It doesn't work in Europe. European service providers aren't
supported; You can't even enter a UK-style phone-number in the
subscription form; and phoning an SMS service in the US would be a
tad pricey.
2. A European version is planned, supposedly for release in January.
3. In North America, the recipient of a text-message pays. In the UK
(and most of the rest of Europe, I believe) it's the sender who pays.
I've done a fair bit of work on mobile telephony (paid, day-job work), and I'd be interested in setting up a UK version. But it seems to me there's a big problem - if you allow free subscriptions, as TxTMob do, then one way or another you have to figure out how to pay for relaying each incoming message to potentially large numbers of mobile subscribers. Text messages cost 10p each to send; so a single message to a group with a hundred members would cost the operator a tenner.
Can anyone offer suggestions as to how a system of this kind could be financed in the UK environment?
1. It doesn't work in Europe. European service providers aren't
supported; You can't even enter a UK-style phone-number in the
subscription form; and phoning an SMS service in the US would be a
tad pricey.
2. A European version is planned, supposedly for release in January.
3. In North America, the recipient of a text-message pays. In the UK
(and most of the rest of Europe, I believe) it's the sender who pays.
I've done a fair bit of work on mobile telephony (paid, day-job work), and I'd be interested in setting up a UK version. But it seems to me there's a big problem - if you allow free subscriptions, as TxTMob do, then one way or another you have to figure out how to pay for relaying each incoming message to potentially large numbers of mobile subscribers. Text messages cost 10p each to send; so a single message to a group with a hundred members would cost the operator a tenner.
Can anyone offer suggestions as to how a system of this kind could be financed in the UK environment?
MrDemeanour
e-mail:
mrdemeanour@jackpot.uk.net
Comments
Hide the following 2 comments
gotta be a way
02.12.2004 17:19
I don't know the technicals but advertising lines like 'never miss that vital goal' make me feel sick.
Hope that's some encouragement anyway.
bobby
Reverse Billing Innit
03.12.2004 12:19
It is certainly a service that could be set up. Although of dubious immediate tactical use given the distances involved next year for the Scottish G8, as opposed to US style street navigation info (all those 4th and 3rd street blocks), however it would be a qood way of distributing the latest legal info and news etc
Obviously the open to all channels would produce:
a) too many messages b) unverified noise c) a big bill at the end of the day.
The moderated channels make sense - like legal and medical dispatch.
Affinity group usage could work, but then would people really want to centralise all their comms through one set of sms servers?
up4it