Orange UK customers can now upload their pictures to their Twitter stream by simply sending them to 86444.
The service is run through a photo site called Snapshot which is run by Orange, and it all works pretty seemlessly too. I tried it out today and you just send your first MMS and get a SMS back which links you to a Twitter authorisation page. Read more…
Does your child own a mobile phone and still believe in Santa? (Is this even possible?)
If so then TextSanta.net is the service for you, for a mere $5.49 an SMS can be sent to your child appearing to be from Santa himself. A choice of three pre-set SMS message themes is available, here is a sample:
Hi <insert name here> It snowed a foot here@ the North Pole! Elves had 2 dig my sleigh out of the snow Hope the weather n St. Louis is good.cu soon luv Santa
You can also insert your own custom message and schedule the time for the SMS to be sent.
..and that’s about all it does.
However Text Santa does give $1.00 from that hefty fee to March Of Dimes which is a charity which improves the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality.
A cheaper way to do this is to put your number (or someone else’s) into your childs phone contacts as ‘Santa’ then send them a text with the desired message. If they aren’t smart enough to figure out Santa doesn’t exist then they probably won’t work out what you’ve done.
….then give extra to the March of Dimes with all that money you saved 
You can donate here.
[Via Textually]
During a global viral pandemic, there is no question that the quickest and most effective way to inform the public is by using mobile phones. It has the ability not only to save peoples lives but also to combat the virus being spread by providing real time alerts and information.
Initiatives such as Project Masiluleke shows that a simple SMS message to millions of people can raise awareness to levels that TV and radio cannot. Eventually this leads to prevention.
The clever guys Harvard Medical School hope to achieve the same thing with their new iPhone App, Swine Flu Center. It features everything you need to educate yourself about swine flu including video guides, symptom checks, hotlines to call in case of an emergency (based on your location) and a ‘Health Map’ showing the state of the epidemic in your area. All this for $1.99.
After recently hitting the jackpot by finding a Pay As You Go sim card topped up with £14 credit under a sock in my flat, I’ve decided test out premium rate SMS question and answer services.
The concept behind of these services is very simple, once you text in your question it gets routed to a researcher who will send you back an answer within one SMS. At the cost of around £1 per answer, it’s not cheap.
Most people are familiar with AQA (Answer Question Answered) who are undoubtedly the grandaddy of the whole SMS answering thing. They started out in 2004 and have answered over 20 million questions to date.
However competition is never far away from a good idea and since the AQA launch there have been dozens of identical services launched in the UK and abroad.
It’s really interesting that people are still willing to pay up to £1 to have their question answered when services such as Google and Yahoo Answers (plus dozens more) could potentially answer your questions for free on your mobile.
Even Twitter is a potential treasure chest of answers, just tweet your question out to your network and sit back. However you probably need more than the 54 followers I have to get the kind of knowledge range needed, I bet Ashton Kutcher never has a problem with a tweeted question.
Lets face it, there is nothing easier for a consumer than sending a text which is why they are paying £1 for the pleasure. You text a question then get an answer back. Simple.
But who is the best in the UK? Lets find out and move onto the main contestants for the UK showdown.
AQA: The Peoples Champion (http://www.aqa.63336.com)The original SMS answering service, but are they still the best? Generally liked by most people and a recent BBC Watchdog experiment revealed they are the most accurate. Lets see about that. Cost per answer: £1
118 118: The Contender (http://www.text118118.com)The quality of the service has been in question ever since they made the headlines last year by sending out racist jokes. The website has some nice touches such as the live question feed, plus decent exposure on TV and outdoor ads, but can they provide me answers without offending me? Cost per answer: £1
ANSA: The Unknown (http://www.ansanow.com)Started 2 years ago by Rok, ANSA is relatively unknown, to be honest I have no idea how I found them. The website is horrible so I’m not expecting much here. Cost per answer: £1 Read more…
UPDATE 3rd Oct 2011 -
TFL have now released the mobile web bus tracker, some people have created iPhone apps including Next Bus London, Bus Checker and the awesome Twitter account which tweets you back with your bus arrival details!
If you’re a commuter in London, you will no doubt have at one time or another felt the pain of the waiting ages for a bus. Finally, a solution is being developed using the mobile web and SMS to give commuters much needed bus arrival information.
The London bus service isn’t as predictable as the Underground for obvious reasons. Things such as traffic, crazy school kids, crazy passengers and accidents all happen hundreds of times every day across nearly a thousand bus routes, which is why the printed time tables displayed on bus shelters can only give you approximate times. These times mean nothing if any of the previous incidents have happened and delay the bus. During the day this is a pain and at night it could be dangerous if you’re on your own. There also might be situations where it could be quicker to take the next available bus and change again rather than wait for your bus to arrive in time.
TFL currently has a system called Countdown (below) which provides real-time bus arrival information at stops, which is great apart from….
..its not on every bus stop:
Although Countdown is on ‘key’ bus stops, it’s not on nearly enough across the capital. That’s where the SMS and mobile web step in. TFL already have a pretty good suite of mobile services using WAP, SMS and Java Apps that cover live updates, journey planning, interactive maps and taxi hire – all for free. Read more…
Director Sally Porter is embracing mobile in a big way with the release of her new low-budget film called Rage starring Jude Law, Judi Dench, Eddie Izzard and loads of other big names. The movie is (according to the trailer but probably isn’t) filmed on a mobile phone, is in cinemas this week.
The film went straight-to-mobile as well as being broadcast live across theatres in London and Europe. There was also be a chance to be part of the Q&A after the film by sending SMS messages directly to the director and cast. A very cool bit of mobile interaction. See the webcast here.
Viewers will need to download a Bablegum application (groan) before being able to view the movie on their mobile.
Rage takes the format of being a series of ‘interviews’ over a 7 day period. Bablegum will release a ‘interview’ a day for one week to cover the entire film. Read more…
What do you get when you take the Schiesser Bluetooth underwear campaign and use SMS instead? You get this ad from Axe deodorant (or Lynx if you’re in the UK). Click to enlarge.
The print ad displays a picture of a model looking like she could be naked and a call to action. The message says “To complete this ad send Axe to 2345 after 9pm”, once you send the text you get a picture message (MMS) back with the rest of the ad showing the model in her underwear. Great, so you paid 11p to basically look at a Marks & Spencer’s advert. Read more…
As you may have noticed in the last couple of years there has been a surge of popularity in online discount vouchers in the UK. A week doesn’t go by without a voucher for Gap, GBK, Ask, Urban Outfitters or H&M landing in my inbox. All you have to do is print them out and take them in-store. Sites like Money Saving Expert are visited by millions looking for discount vouchers to download.
The peak of the craze was in December 2006 when Thresher’s saw its ’40% off all wine and champagne’ voucher downloaded and printed by millions of people and was so popular that it made the news. The following year they relaunched the offer.
Since then printable vouchers have exploded and been in constant supply from top high street retailers, in fact I’m holding a 30% one for Gap right now. If you head over to the discount section on Money Saving Expert you can literally download hundreds of different printable vouchers from restaurants to shopping.
At first the vouchers were either PDF or JPEGs that just circulated around via email. Many had a space to fill in your details such as name, age but you never had to fill them out to use them (or they just weren’t enforced properly). Often you don’t even have to hand the voucher to staff, simply display it.
Now it seems these companies have realised that they could be capturing the information of thousands of consumers. This means that store and restaurant websites are requesting some information before allowing to download vouchers such as name, age and email address, some are making it compulsory to sign up to newsletters or become website members. This allows the company to keep the customer updated on new offers, products and news.
A couple of things to note about these printed vouchers is that they almost always contain no unique numbers or barcodes. After asking a few stores about the process, they simply said that staff are told the length of the offer, the button to press on the cash register to apply the discount and to put the store receipt in a separate pile to be counted later. How old school is that process! We are talking about massive chains like Gap here. This is perfect for mobile. Read more…
McDonald’s has launched a national premier DJ competition called Flavor Battle, where three DJs will battle it out online and at Sprite Steff Off events.
Each DJ will represent a McDonald’s burger (I’m praying they have to dress up like them too) and audience members can vote for their favourite burger SMS. Every text will count as a entry into the Flavor Battle sweepstakes as an extra incentive to vote.
Some blurb from McD’s:
“Utilizing text as the voting mechanism offers instant gratification to our young consumers in attendance at the McDonald’s Flavor Battle,” Mr. Jackson said. “We were looking for a mechanism that captured their response immediately – voting for their favorite DJ and, at the conclusion of each event, seeing the measurable results.
“We’re also excited to be able to offer them a benefit – an entry into the Flavor Battle sweepstakes,” he said.
I really like SMS voting mechanics especially for live events, it’s a great way to engage the audience especially when they can make a difference on the outcome. You can also carry on the dialogue with them once the event has finished alerting them to new competitions, promotions, battle dates or downloadable content (with a opt-out option of course).
Indian mobile operator Tata Docomo has announced it is going to start charging customers by the character instead of billing for 160 characters like most other operators.
Tata Docomo said:
“The cost of any Diet-SMS will be only one paise per character used (100 paise= 1 rupee), thereby providing complete value to customers,
The company, frontrunner in the pay-per-use business model in the mobile telephony segment, will not charge for space between words.”
So the blank spaces are free!
Quite a innovative business model and could fit really well in poorer regions of India. Nice to see operators thinking of new ways of working.
[Via Textually]
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