Derek Johnson's dashboard

Derek Johnson replied on September 05, 2008 23:13 to the question "Does Tatango work with T-Mobile to Go?" in Tatango:

Ken,

The best way to test if your phone will work is to text the word HELP to 68398 and see if you get a response. If you don't get a response, you will need to contact your cell phone provider and ask them if your plan supports "Shortcode" messaging.

Derek Johnson replied on September 03, 2008 20:04 to the question "Add-Free Messaging for Groups" in Tatango:

Pete,

The monthly cost for ad-free messaging applies to all the groups you have.

Derek Johnson replied on August 22, 2008 18:30 to the question "How do I use the text in feature if I have more than one group?" in Tatango:

Great question! Check out our blog post about how to text message your group directly from your mobile phone, even if you have multiple groups: http://tatango.com/blog/?p=79

Derek Johnson replied on August 20, 2008 19:45 to the question "How do I use the Text In feature to only message a certain subgroup?" in Tatango:

Currently we don't offer the ability to send to only sub groups from your mobile phone, just different groups. We are launching a mobile application soon though that will allow you to do this. Please check our blog on a regular basis for any updates regarding this. http://www.tatango.com/blog

Derek Johnson replied on August 16, 2008 19:58 to the question "Beta signups?" in Tatango:

Great to hear you are looking into Tatango to help with your promotions for your nightclub, it's a great tool! We had thousands of people request beta invitations to Tatango, so as you can expect we have had to release them slowly in batches. We are currently looking to have all the beta invitations up to this point released by Friday. If you don't receive your beta invitation by Friday please email support@tatango.com

Derek Johnson replied on August 14, 2008 18:06 to the question "group name change" in Tatango:

Great question. There are two reasons for this.

1) We tried this before, and it didn't work. The group name is used as an identifier for your group, and if we allow a group administrator the ability to change this, group members get confused on who is sending messages to their mobile phone. The majority of Tatango users are part of 2+ groups and users need to be able to quickly identify which group each message is from. In addition, if we get a complaint from a user, the only way to quickly identify which group they belong to is from the group name, if this is changing all the time, you can see it might cause a little confusion. By having Tatango support monitor group name changes, it greatly reduces the risk of a group administrator constantly changing their group name and confusing their group members.

2) By changing your group name, it also changes your public page hyperlink and we like to make sure that a group administrator is aware of this before they make the change.

* If you need your group name changed, please don't hesitate to send an email to Tatango support at support@tatango.com

Derek Johnson replied on August 13, 2008 17:58 to the question "Hi, Is there an upper limit to how many members can be in a group??" in Tatango:

No, there is not an upper limit to how many members can be in a group.

Derek Johnson replied on August 05, 2008 04:01 to the question "Can my tatango group be configured so that all members can communicate back and forth with the entire group?" in Tatango:

Tatango was really designed to work best for one to many messaging, but it's still possible to make Tatango do what you need. There are a few steps to set up your account to enable this type of messaging.

1) Have all your members join your group and create accounts on Tatango (they don't need to create a group, just an account)

2) Once your members are in your group and they have created accounts you can make each one of them admins on the group by selecting their name in "Contacts", selecting "Edit Info" and then checking the "Make Admin" box and saving the change.

3) I'm guessing you want to do the communicating through your mobile phones, so when anyone in the group wants to send a message or reply to a message, all they have to do is send their message to the phone number 68398 and start each message with the # symbol.

Derek Johnson replied on August 05, 2008 01:04 to the discussion "Welcome!" in Tatango:

To have the ability to add any Tatango Pro features such as keywords, additional groups or ad free messaging, you must first upgrade your account to a Tatango Pro account. Once you have upgraded your account you may purchase those additional features.

That looks like a typo, it's supposed to say "their" and yes, keywords allow group members to join directly from their own mobile phone by texting your keyword to the phone number 68398.

Yes, each keyword has to be linked to a specific group.

Derek Johnson replied on August 05, 2008 00:54 to the discussion "Welcome!" in Tatango:

Sorry for the confusion, we changed the page layout to make things more simple. You will find advanced features under the tab "Advanced" on the left hand side of the page. You are correct in that we also changed "Add Members" to "Group Invites".

Derek Johnson replied on July 30, 2008 19:40 to the question "Rates" in Tatango:

Every message sent through Tatango is done through an SMS aggregator. If you are interested in knowing more about the difference between SMPP & SMTP text messaging please check out our blog post here: http://tatango.com/blog/?p=49

To add a keyword onto your group you must upgrade your account to a Tatango Pro account. Once you have a Tatango Pro account a keyword is $15/month. To upgrade your account, simply login to Tatango, click the "My Account" tab at the top of the page and find where it says "Subscriptions". Under Subscriptions you are able to upgrade your account, add keywords, additional groups and have the ability to send your messages ad free.

Derek Johnson replied on July 29, 2008 01:30 to the question "Rates" in Tatango:

Lets do the math and see...

Tatango Pro Account - $4.95/month
2 ($25/month) Additional Groups - $50
Total = $54.95/month

I'm assuming that you want those messages without any advertising at the bottom so you would add another $29.95/month to your bill and you would be at a grand total of $84.90/month

* Just a side note: If you had 1 group and you didn't mind the advertising at the bottom of your text messages, you would be able to send all your messages for free.

Derek Johnson replied on July 23, 2008 22:57 to the question "how do I change a phone number of a current member" in Tatango:

Great question, thanks for asking. Tatango doesn't allow a group administrator the ability to edit or change another persons phone number. This policy is in place to protect our users from receiving unwanted text message spam when a group administrator mistypes in a new phone number or changes the phone number to one that hasn't opted in to that group.

There are two ways for a member to update their own phone number on your account. The first is to have them re-join your group. The second is to have them login to their account and simply change their own phone number.

Derek Johnson replied on July 17, 2008 05:07 to the discussion "Welcome!" in Tatango:

I think what you are looking for are the Tatango website widgets. These widgets can be placed on your website, MySpace, blog etc. You can find the Tatango website widget under "Add Members" and then "Advanced".

See the image below...

Derek Johnson replied on July 17, 2008 04:57 to the discussion "Welcome!" in Tatango:

Great to hear you are excited to use the service. If you wish to change your group name you can simply send an email to our support team at support@tatango.com and they will change it for you.

The reason we don't give group administrators the ability to change group names is because the group name is used as an identifier at the top of your group text message. If this group identifier keeps changing it will confuse member's of your group.