nilicule's dashboard

+1 New Zealand. I agree. Twitter's my only method of texting my friends overseas - and now that's shot. :| Maybe when they get Australia sorted out we could hop on the bandwagon, but doubt it. (crosses fingers) – fridgefayse, on September 07, 2008 00:13

+1 New Zealand. I agree. Twitter's my only method of texting my friends overseas - and now that's shot. :| Maybe when they get Australia sorted out we could hop on the bandwagon, but doubt it. (crosses fingers) – fridgefayse, on September 07, 2008 00:13

Well, at least in Germany (yes, i know it's a small country compared to australia...) you could use the SMS-All-Net-Flatrates most Providers offer. It should be not a big problem to route SMS to a locally located server which in turn sends the SMSes to german users. I think i could convince a customer of me to provide a server and internet connectivity, especially if i talk a little bit to marketing...

Stefan and gya24jk:

I've already suggested to Twitter that they implement (non-SMS) instant notification via ping calls for those of us who relied on SMS DMs via Twitter's international number.

This would be the automated equivalent of the impoverished teenager who phones Dad but hangs up before Dad can answer. Dad notes a Missed call from his offspring, and can react appropriately.

Ping calls would surely be inexpensive and easy for Twitter to set up, and we'd at least know when to run to the PC or (for those of us who can) start a Twitter app. on our mobile devices.

I suspect that you, Stefan, might find this useful in monitoring potential system failures.

If such an interim solution would help you just a little, please indicate your support there, and encourage Twitter to get involved too.

I'm open to improvements and additions to my proposal, of course!

No fix yet?

Killing incoming SMS will reduce twitter usage. I understand that SMS is a scam in terms of bandwidth/cost, but fact is, most people have some SMS bundled with their phone plan. Or are able to send SMS with a discrete cost (e.g. 35¢), which is predictable and manageable.

The logical progression is for SMS to die, for everyone to pay for an equivalent data plan instead, and send/receive emails instead. Which should be more flexible. But, reality is that we aren't at the stage where most people have data plans or ability to send email on their phone. And as other people have stated, email is not instant either -- people will need to apply/buy a push email account.

So even though SMS is expensive in terms of bandwidth/cost, there are still advantages, and hopefully Twitter.com can monetise their service in some way that WILL allow us to restart using SMS.

In the meantime, at least give those users WITH data plans/smart phone/push email a "push"-like option, by redirecting tweets to email addresses instead. So far, the http://twitter.com/devices page is useless, because AIM don't work, Jabber don't work, and SMS don't work.

Which is retarded.

I've tried twittermail, and it only sends direct messages. And really, a 3rd party option for notifications is un-elegant, not to mention dangerous, having to let someone else know your twitter.com password etc.

+1 to New Zealand. Telcos in New Zealand need encouraging...a lot. – starpath, on September 02, 2008 23:36

At least fix fscking IM you muppets

I have a whole systems monitoring setup which posts to a protected twitter account which in turn sends me SMS notifications in case of system failures. Thanks for breaking this.

I, for one would be happy to pay for the SMS i receive! Wouldn't simply offering charged SMSes be better than not offer anything at all?

Jaiku does offer outbound SMS. There isn't as much control over which updates you receive, but it's there. – notsheep, on September 01, 2008 13:42

Jaiku does offer outbound SMS. There isn't as much control over which updates you receive, but it's there. – notsheep, on September 01, 2008 13:42

Bleh. No longer of much use to me, then - I can't use WAP during the day and the only real advantage I saw in joining Twitter was that I could get and send instant updates to online friends from my mobile phone, including those friends out-of-country.

Oh, and Thomas, I'm another UK user who knows nobody who uses Twitter for 'free group texting' as you put it - and I know a lot of people in my home country who DO use Twitter. It's far more widely spread over here than you seem to think, in my experience.

Seriously? I doubt Twitter really, REALLY cares about most of their non-US users, but as substantial amounts of people use the service in some of the more populated countries, they pretty much have to do something.

They've already got deals in place for all but one of their important areas. Canada, India and the US are happy, now they just need to shut up the Aussies and possibly the UK, and enough of their user-base will be happy so they can continue claiming they're "working on it" and get to the other countries once a rep. from an operator contacts them with a deal... This way they can just wait for their users to pressures mobile operators to offer deals to twitter, instead of having to beg and plead themsleves..

Some might say I'm pessimistic and cynical, but having been through many similar "service-nerfs", I'd say I'm just being a realist. – shinmai, on August 30, 2008 23:11

Without IM & SMS, twitter has lost EVERY SINGLE THING that made it worthwhile for me.
First of all, it's now no different than Jaiku, which - as a Finn I would've used had Twitter not been far superior to it, when I got into the whole microblogging thing. Jaiku offers updates via inbound SMS and a web form, just like twitter, and just like twitter, they don't have ountbound SMS or IM-support either.
Secondly, as Simon already pointed out, Twitter has transformed from a broadcast service to a bulletin-board service. I use a plugin to get my twitter updates as small posts in my blog, but now, Twitter doesn't provide any added conveniance over just posting the updates straight to my blog. I can do that over MMS, which is often cheaper with sorth messages than SMS, anyway.

Basically Twitter has managed to turn from a service that was convenient to use wherever I was, to just another website I have to sign into, with no added value. I REALLY don't feel like signing to yet another service, to get some duct-tape-tomfoolery (no offense to everyone who obviously worked hard on said tomfoolery) version of something that used to work reasonably well...

Twitter has become to my online life what Microsoft Live Search is to web-search.

Simon, in case you're open to the idea of using a third-party service, you might want to check out the various paid, third-party Twitter SMS services that have come up since Twitter shut down sms outside of US, Canada, and India. I haven't tried all of them (although I did sign up for one and am happy with it). See http://twitter.pbwiki.com/Internation... for the list. – mdy, on August 30, 2008 14:23

I know this is just another whining user adding to the noise, but this basically means Twitter is dead to me. This is because Twitter just went from being "push" to "pull"; I'm not going to remember to pull.

If you'd asked, I would happily have paid for the service, probably even up to the inflated retail SMS prices the Australian telcos charge. Instead, you silently took away the only channel by which I interact with Twitter. I now have to remember to poll twitter.com, which just isn't going to happen anywhere near as often.

Send me an SMS when you've got an Australian carrier agreement?

This is troubling me and not good for the company in the long term. You will be vulnerable to other twitter-killer webs.

I don't know if this is the best way you solve the problem.

In my opinion:
- it is not 'all or none' rule. Please consider some flexibilty. You can reduce the allowed SMS per week (to 30 or 50 / week) that will keep some usabilities for us.
- You might consider other service provider which might charge less sms fee. In my country (thailand), the cost for one sms is only about 0.3 USD.

Please reconsider this.

My personal project http://tweet2sms.com is taking beta testers at the moment, so if you are in Australia drop me a line and I will see if we can set you up.

+1 to New Zealand too! I love twitter and the apps are far slower than sms in my opininon. Dang Australians - maybe I should gust give up and hop across the ditch?! – lukejtharries, on August 27, 2008 05:26

greengo:

In the UK, O2 seems to be the only carrier which (still) treats Twitter's international Isle of Man number as an inland UK number.

Two acquaintances on different O2 tariffs (one with SMS 'flatrate', one on prepaid) have their SMS to Twitter charged at the expected inland rate.

I don't know how long O2 will hold out - but I'm sure they could gain customers by advertising their Twitter-friendly attitude. Perhaps O2 are even Twitter's UK negotiation partner for restoring SMS delivery to Twitter users?

If you're willing to pay to receive Twitter sms and you're open to using a third-party service, there are a couple already up and running that work in the UK and do not charge a premium fee for posting Twitter updates via sms. See http://gsfn.us/t/kmw#reply_577374 for details – mdy, on August 26, 2008 10:53