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Hustle, a text-distribution tool, raises $3M
- alistproducer2 10y agoI'd never heard of this, but it seems like a pretty innovative solution. It's refreshing to see money go to apps/ideas that actually add something new to social media.
- harrisreynolds 10y agoReminds me of Optimizely that was born out of Obama's campaign. Nice work!
- xapata 10y agoAnother case of taking advantage of a low-noise medium. If it works, others will follow and we'll need to get spam filters for SMS.
- skyvolt 10y agoWe are not a spam sms tool. We work best with organizations that have existing relationships or want to create long lasting relationships.
- stonogo 10y agoThis is what all spam-distribution platforms say. Nobody ever says "we spam people."
- skyvolt 10y agoA spam distribution platform is not a defensible business. In a year someone will come along that does it better and cheaper. There is just no long term value.
- mcbits 10y agoIf the recipient explicitly asks you (or your partners) to text them this and that, and you text them this and that, you're not a spammer. Anything more and you've become a spammer. Seriously. Not cool. Receiving a spam text costs me a postage stamp each time. Buy your own postage stamps.
- ajamesm 10y agoIf you're not spam, how do you prohibit bulk unsolicited SMS?
- jimhefferon 10y ago"Relationship" is the word that is most used by spammers. Kellogs imagines that we have a relationship. So does Subaru. More of that, I don't need.
- xapata 10y agoEven if you aren't, if you do well then a different company will follow with different ethics.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- AJ007 10y agoDue to the TCPA rules in the US, the penalties for just missing a few details are high enough many companies just avoid it altogether. I guess this could be an attempt at a loophole since people are doing it "manually." On the other hand, political stuff gets an exemption. Overall I wouldn't be worried about SMS. The economics don't make sense either with the front end cost or the long term penalties, and soon everyone will be on a third party messaging platform anyways.
- skyvolt 10y agoHappy to answer any questions people have about Hustle. And of course we are hiring! http://hustle.life/jobs http://hustle.life/jobs
- huac 10y agoI got texts from 'For Our Future' before the Nov 8th general election, that appear to have been sent from this service, or similar. The first was signed by 'Carlos' and the second was signed by 'Matt' - for the talk of personalization and how effective that is for text, the discontinuity was jarring. (They came from the same number). My other caveat with the piece: "The Hillary campaign ended up building their own clone of Hustle called “Megaphone,” though clearly that didn’t quite work." The success of a SMS engagement app is measured in getting people to go to the polls and vote, not winning the election. As I've written about previously here, getting voters to believe in your cause is a different matter.
- pj_mukh 10y agoYC alum Vote.org used this tool too [1]. This is pretty sweet! Wonder if they'd use twilio on the backend? [1] https://backchannel.com/the-simple-secret-weapon-that-could-change-elections-9e51f95038df#.rrg5gw6cq https://backchannel.com/the-simple-secret-weapon-that-could-...
- tbrock 10y agoHey everyone, I work at Hustle and I could not be more proud of our team and the work we have done so far. If anyone has any questions about the technical aspects of how we did it, our stack, whatever, I'd be happy to answer as a long time lurker.
- bobzimuta 10y agoWhere's your opt-out form?
- tbrock 10y agoGood question. Hustle tries its best to only work with organizations that are reaching out to people who actually want to hear from them. If you receive a message you don't want you can ask to be removed. You'll instantly be opted out of receiving messages from that organization in the future. Also, like all SMS based tools, if you reply with the word "STOP" you'll never hear from them again.
- bobzimuta 10y ago> Hustle tries its best to only work with organizations that are reaching out to people who actually want to hear from them But I can still receive unsolicited texts, correct? If organization X discovers my phone number, they can add it to their distribution list without my consent?
- tbrock 10y agoWe texted a large portion of the United States so I apologize if you happened to get caught in the crossfire. Better than someone knocking on your door or calling during supper though right?
- bobzimuta 10y agoHere's the rub. I'm from a generation that treats SMS as a more personal medium; it's exclusive to my friends and family. The last thing I want is random spam from any organization, regardless if you think they are trustworthy. If it's unsolicited, it's spam. Feature request: add a platform level opt-out.
- gthtjtkt 10y agoThe best way to end up on my Giant List of Most-Hated Entities is to send me a text message. Texts are for friends and family only. I'll tolerate the occasional appointment confirmation text, but other than that, my text inbox is the last place that has yet to be invaded by spammers. And don't play dumb, randomly texting someone "Go Vote!" is absolutely spam. Texting someone because some sign-up form had automatic opt-in is equally spammy.
- parennoob 10y agoYeah, something tells me I don't want to receive random text messages from "X with Z for Congress" inviting me to rallies. My reply to them would be considerably less polite than the one shown in their screenshot.
- physcab 10y agoThis last election was brutal for my phone. Every day for two weeks I got atleast 1 text and sometimes 5 reminding me to vote for some particular candidate or issue. I don't know how my number got on these lists, but I replied STOP to every one of them.
- saurik 10y agoEveryone has different boundaries. For me: phone calls are for friends and family and texts messages are public; when I hand people my business cards I tell them "SMS only". I also despise email, but really don't mind receiving tons of text messages every day. Since no one is the same, it just isn't fair to be as annoyed as you are, especially when it sounds like your problem is so completely trivially solved that you have no one to blame but yourself: turn off notifications for text messages from people who are not in your address book. Ok, and now someone has downvoted me within seconds of me posting that paragraph; the "I hate people contacting me" crowd is so amazingly vicious :/. Let's look at this from another perspective: I work with a group called Student Activist Network. The entire point of this group is you give them your phone number and they text you when actions come up related to your interests. Much like how anti-email spam people never are willing to believe that some people sign up for mailing lists on purpose, I bet they are also going to refuse to believe that hundreds of activists and protesters specifically want this kind of functionality, and right now the distribution is done manually by people copy/pasting.
- downandout 10y agoSpam issues aside, I am curious why they are using Twilio, which is a (relatively) expensive proposition. Rather, I'd have the app send the messages directly from the user's number. The app could then upload all sent/received messages to the sever and have all of the same benefits. None of this would be a problem on Android. On iOS it's a little more tricky since SMS access is locked down, but incoming iOS SMS can be read indirectly by reading device notifications. So it could be done.
- chrisdevereux 10y agoIn what sense is Hustle 'grassroots'?