{"id":1290,"date":"2008-08-14T12:57:54","date_gmt":"2008-08-14T11:57:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/geoffjones.com\/2008\/08\/14\/twitter-beaching-the-whale\/"},"modified":"2008-08-14T12:57:54","modified_gmt":"2008-08-14T11:57:54","slug":"twitter-beaching-the-whale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsite.geoffjones.com\/?p=1290","title":{"rendered":"Twitter beaching the whale"},"content":{"rendered":"

Very bad news from Twitter<\/a>,. Twitters USP here in the UK was the ability to send & receive tweets by SMS<\/a> (Text messaging) as of today, with no warning whatsoever, they have cut of receiving updates here in the UK by text.<\/p>\n

Their so called UK number, actually its a number based in the Isle of Man<\/a>, was outside most UK users calling plans (O2 it was included in the free texts) so most folks would not update their twitters at 20p or so at a time. However, incoming texts in the UK are free so Twitter was a neat way of sending texts to mobile phones from a PC. and also a way of amplifying texts 1 text to many. Alas no more.<\/p>\n

The reasons given are cost they argue “Even with a limit of 250 messages received per week, it could cost Twitter about $1,000 per user, per year” Which doesn’t add up to me as Bulk SMS’s seem to cost between 2p and 1.3p according to Bulksms.org<\/a><\/p>\n

Its interesting that they did not even offer an option to pay for receiving texts or even severely limit the number of texts per user? We are not all Scobles<\/a> with thousands of followers.<\/p>\n

Their alternative idea of using the internet on your phone is not so hot either, although Twinkle and <\/small><\/span><\/a><\/strong>twitterific<\/a> work OK on the iPhone<\/a> they cannot run in the background or alert you in the same way that texting does.<\/p>\n

I think they have now left the market wide open for Google to come in with Jaiku, although the omens don’t look good on that front.<\/p>\n

I guess the good news is that the twitter service may now be more reliable as users flood away leaving the fail whale beached rather than suspended.<\/p>\n

Update:<\/p>\n

First people trying to bridge the gap with tweetsms<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile over on AVC<\/a>, Fred Wilson an investor in Twitter, wrote in reply to my comment:-<\/p>\n

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