Alan's dashboard

A comment on the problem "SMS stopped" in Twitter:

Absolutely, I understand. I'll see if I can get something together. Rest assured, we're as concerned about privacy as you. – Brad Kellett, on October 12, 2008 00:28

A comment on the problem "SMS stopped" in Twitter:

Brad Kellett - Thanks for your quick response!
I'd expected rapid access to a table of prices by country (Germany and UK are of particular interest, BTW) for comparison with alternatives. Thus a conventional local SMS might still work out cheaper than a Twitter DM via 3jam.

In Germany we're ultra cautious about entering personal details before reading the small print, because there are some nasty extortion scams around which allege non-payment for expensive services never actually signed up for, and threaten their victims with debt collector thugs. – Eridanus, on October 12, 2008 00:23

A comment on the problem "SMS stopped" in Twitter:

Good point, I'll get that fixed up ASAP. We don't charge you a thing during the signup process, FWIW. It doesn't show prices before you sign up at the moment because it's variable depending on where you are, but I'll fix that up.

We accept PayPal or Google Checkout, and the price per message depends on where you are, but is always <10c. – Brad Kellett, on October 11, 2008 23:57

A comment on the problem "SMS stopped" in Twitter:

Brad Kellett - http://3jam.com/twitter won't let me find out anything about 3jam's tariffs or payment methods unless I sign up. I'm unlikely to sign up for any service before I know what it's likely to cost me! – Eridanus, on October 11, 2008 23:50

A comment on the problem "SMS stopped" in Twitter:

I use 3jam myself, but they're currently limited to delivering direct messages only.

If you're willing to pay to receive Twitter sms and you want more than just your direct messages, there are other alternatives, which you'll find listed here: International SMS Alternatives. – mdy, on October 11, 2008 23:25

Eridanus replied on October 11, 2008 20:55 to the problem "SMS stopped" in Twitter:

Justin:

Yes, dacary is correct in all points:
all Twitter SMS from +447624801423 stopped on 13th. August 2008
- though it's still possible to send SMS updates to that number.

However, Twitter is trying to set up some new national numbers. A few days ago, crystal from Twitter stated:

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!

Some time ago I suggested some interim alternatives in this post about Twitter's old international SMS number.

I included lots of links; please follow them!

If enough of you indicate your support for any ideas you find useful, Twitter may get interested too.

A comment on the problem "SMS stopped" in Twitter:

The place I work for recently launched a Twitter service whereby we provide a few international numbers to tweet with, plus delivery of your direct messages to your phone (sorry if I sound spammy here...). You can check it out at http://3jam.com/twitter – Brad Kellett, on October 11, 2008 20:02

Justin replied on October 11, 2008 19:56 to the problem "SMS stopped" in Twitter:

that sucks. is there a work around? Do you know of any international number that does work reliably?

dacary replied on October 11, 2008 19:51 to the problem "SMS stopped" in Twitter:

Receiving SMS updates isn't available via the UK number anymore. It was just costing Twitter too much. I think it's possible to still send updates just not receive.

Justin replied on October 11, 2008 19:46 to the problem "SMS stopped" in Twitter:

I didn't have a single problem in the UK nor in France for the first 8 months I lived here. However SMS updates have stopped working all together. Someone help please...

A comment on the discussion "Changes for SMS users: the good news and the bad" in Twitter:

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

A comment on the discussion "Changes for SMS users: the good news and the bad" in Twitter:

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

crystal replied on October 03, 2008 20:49 to the discussion "Changes for SMS users: the good news and the bad" in Twitter:

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!

shinmai replied on October 03, 2008 19:58 to the discussion "Changes for SMS users: the good news and the bad" in Twitter:

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..

DawnOwar replied on September 11, 2008 01:44 to the question "Why don't my emailed videos from cellphone show up?" in 12seconds:

ugh! I hate sprint a lot sometimes. I hadn't thought about how it sends you an email w/a link instead of the file... I know that in the past, when tumblr upgraded my images would stop posting. To solve it the programmer had me send him a pic and then he did some magical thing with the information he gathered from the email sprint generated and then it would work till the next upgrade. So perhaps whatever he's doing is also the way to get video to post.
He's called marco (marco.org) maybe he knows what to do. Maybe he'll tell you what it is!

I love the idea of this and I'd love to do it w/o having to upload thru email. Can I have a "browse" button to upload through the site? That'd be nifty.

Also on my wish list would be a way to post this automatically on tumblr!

A comment on the discussion "Changes for SMS users: the good news and the bad" in Twitter:

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

till replied on September 09, 2008 11:52 to the discussion "Changes for SMS users: the good news and the bad" in Twitter:

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... ;)

A comment on the discussion "Changes for SMS users: the good news and the bad" in Twitter:

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

A comment on the discussion "Changes for SMS users: the good news and the bad" in Twitter:

@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

A comment on the discussion "Changes for SMS users: the good news and the bad" in Twitter:

+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