Tuesday, July 29, 2008

SMS Enablers

A possible 5,000 text messages in a one hour event need to be projected onto the screen for audience to enjoy. How am I going to make that happen? Below are notes to myself and impressions of several services that I discovered. These are MY thoughts and NOT a complete investigation so any mistakes and misrepresentations are my misunderstanding. Go to the sites yourself, contact the contacts and do your own assessment.

TextMarks.com is my top candidate. Check out what you do with PHP on this developer page
http://www.textmarks.com/dev/docs/apiclient/php/?ref=devsb
Try an SMS to short code 41411 followed by a two letter state code like "az" for Arizona. Here is the useful code that creates the response you will see on your cellphone.
http://www.textmarks.com/dev/docs/etc/stateinfo/
TextMarks has an impressive TextMark Management Panel with options that range from Usage Stats, Configuration (of course), Developer Extension (nice, I'm still a llittle confused howtake best advantage here) to Share/Promote (includes a GET TSHIRT for wearable promotion--bravo).

Widgetbox guided me to TextMarks via useful page http://www.widgetbox.com/tag/sms so check here for lots-o-widgets-sms.

winksite got into this mix by colleague recommendation. They are useful to create a quickie cellphone web page. And the audience could post to the screen through a cellphone page if those 16 year olds all enabled Internet access on their mobile devices--NOT. See http://winksite.com/site/site_profile.cfm?susid=24779 to see how my colleague shrunk Cellphonia aka Cellphonia.org (I need to get around to re-directing the URL or redoing the home page et cetera).
Regarding SMS, winksite is not doing it now.

Mozes.com was an early SMS front runner candidate for me. But they never responded to my email or phone inquiries. I don't think anyone is there there because their code is not triggering. See http://wiki.mozes.com/developer/index.php/Gallery to understand the potential that intrigued.

msgme.com is another top candidate. It was recommended by a colleague associated with WHERE.com where [pun] I have GPS cellphone applications to finish ;-|. Message Me aka msgme by Waterfall Mobile seems to be carefully pursuing a SMS marketing platform model that precludes the customization that I require. However, the msgme focus and alliance with the carriers may so reassure my clients that they are willing to overlook the user experience issues, to be determined.

That's all for now. I've got ready for the proof-of-concept demo.

Cheers, ;-)s