Europeans are shocked to learn that in the US we have to pay for each SMS we receive (as well as send). Hence, the telcos are more than happy to allow twitter to send out tweets to their heart's content knowing that they get paid every time.

Since Twitter actually has to pay to send out SMS to Europe it gets expensive fast. Especially for a company that has yet to actually figure out how it will make money.

Twitter needs to figure out how to fix this if it wants to survive. Either iron out cheap carriage deals with the telcos that it can afford. Or offer a premium SMS service that will charge customers a fee to get receive SMS updates).

Although Twitterific for the iPhone and the other mobile web versions are great, getting tweets pushed to you by SMS is much better.

But again, I worry about Twitter's long term prospects without a way to pay for the bandwidth and the servers (and the SMS charges). Or maybe if Google bought them they could spend a few more years figuring out how to make money.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter#Similar_services

I'm *still* trying to figure out a use for Twitter. I just can't see a reason to sign up. And that's not snide; I've been *this* close to signing up several times, but I haven't been able to find a reason why I'd want or need to use the service.

See also

Plurk is the one I was trying to think of; someone linked it here on MeCha a few months back.

But, Eide, we WANT to know immediately what you had for supper last night and when you had your BM this morning.

Jesting aside, I am still trying to figure out how anyone, both cell providers and consumers, can justify such high SMS fees for something with negligible bandwidth. In my mind, SMS service should be part of a single-rate package. I wonder what percentage of the SMS fee is simply overhead for performing the billing.

I've seen the calculations somewhere. The per kilobyte cost for SMS bandwidth is equivalent to the per gallon cost of toner, in terms of exorbitance.

I can see the use of Twitter for folks like Jessamyn, who are always travelling and who have millions of internet fanboys. I'm just not that important (not a swipe; I have no illusions about how little people care about what I'm doing at any moment).

I can see the use of Twitter for folks like Jessamyn, who are always travelling and who have millions of internet fanboys.

My cell phone only vaguely works from my house, so I check twitter on my laptop, same as a lot of people. My sistr is on it though and for someone who works from home, and frequently alone, it gives me a little feeling that there are other people around. Plus I have a pretty serious rule to not talk about food, coffee or things that annoy me about customer service. (I may have broken it once or twice)

I never understood how Twitter could afford to send all those SMSs for free.

I can see the use of Twitter for folks like Jessamyn, who are always travelling and who have millions of internet fanboys. I'm just not that important

I found it useful for co-ordinating social events without having to send out messages to people individually. I don't really understand the compulsion to post a million minor updates about the day, either.

I am still trying to figure out how anyone, both cell providers and consumers, can justify such high SMS fees for something with negligible bandwidth.

It's even more annoying when you find out that there's about a 90% profit margin on text messages, as opposed to 50% on voice calls.

I never understood how Twitter could afford to send all those SMSs for free.


Meineither - I was waiting for this to happen and am rather impressed that it didn't happen sooner.

facebook has a text messaging facility so there's maybe something you could use there.

Otherwise, you're stuck with writing something yourself. I use Textanywhere for sending texts from the computer.