fridgefayse's dashboard

Agreed - keeping us informed, even if it is only "we're still working on it" would be useful and reduce my feeling of being left in a void.

It's somewhat comforting to hear that you're still working on this. What I'd love to see is some sort of semi-regular status updates. I'm not asking for a weekly report or anything, a sentence or two at the end of blog-posts to let us know, even roughly, how things are coming along... – shinmai, on October 03, 2008 22:47

I'm sorry you're disappointed but I'm hopeful that the eventual results will be worth waiting for :) – crystal, on October 03, 2008 20:51

Thanks for your feedback. It may seem like we're not doing anything, but we are actively working on this project.

Not everyone is aware of this, but getting international numbers in place and ready for use is no small project. It takes time to get new numbers for international use set up in other countries. There are many steps that have to be taken by many different entities to get the proper international permissions to obtain phone numbers. Following that, multiple entities must then build the infrastructure with which to support the numbers. Carriers in every country are different and there are numerous small projects within the larger project. All of this means it takes awhile to get everything in place. In this case, the time it's taking is the bad news.

The good news is, we should have local numbers ready very soon. We're also in the process of bringing our India short code up to speed as well. We're working on getting international numbers to you guys as soon as possible, and have been on task since the initial announcement was made. Thanks for your patience in the meantime!

Are there no news on this matter? You said you'd be negotiating deals with local operators, yet nothing has been announced, and equally little has happened. Was the announcement made to silence people from smaller countries, while "the big boys" (germany, australia, india, UK etc) actually get service?

It would be better to just come out and announce that you're cutting the service down on low-costeffective areas, rather than feed us a cock-and-bull story that'll never actually fan out to anything more than empty promises..

Yeah, I second the password concern - if oauth would be back, then this would be a non-issue. ;)
http://getsatisfaction.com/twitter/to... – till, on September 09, 2008 11:57

Sorry to be negative, but this was one of the useful features left.

I mean, I see the costs and I'm kinda amazed that you guys did not cover this before. I honestly have a hard time believing you couldn't do a better job negotiating deals with local carriers.

Also, a 1,000 USD for 12,000 messages/user/year - shouldn't that be way more affordable? That's over 8cent/message?! Did you guys get ripped off? Even premium direct termination is cheaper at that volume.

Costs in the U.S. should be next to zero (txt can be faked via email), and I think the same applies to Canada. Many other companies make use of those services.

And a couple providers in Europe offer similar services (email to txt) to users. You might have to do more research though and/or educated your users on how to enable it for them (problem solved?). Also lots of people over here have "free" email on their phone while all other data is pretty pricey. Maybe you guys could start offering more export formats - such as, recently updated (= useful) feeds, maybe email notification etc..

Also, you might want to optimize the entire thing anyway. Sometimes you did send two messages when one was enough - just because e.g. you added a "Twitter-footer" to the message etc.. This sort of optimization could probably really save you guys money. ;)

If your API was less of a under construction thing, people could probably build apps on it to help other users. But, nah... ;)

Haha... you demand 24 hour notice from a free service? Get real. – till, on September 09, 2008 11:29

@Jack, can you please go a little into detail here? You guys like to be vague by using phrases like "soon" and "working on". Kinda like, "We're working to restore IM services to all users. Thanks for your patience!" - err.... yeah, only been there for six months. – till, on September 09, 2008 11:26

+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