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AWS Pinpoint Launches Two-Way Text Messaging
- gabeh 9y agoAWS is doing a great job producing more and more sticky features.
- zhyan7109 9y agoIs this available outside of the US/Canada?
- zhyan7109 9y agonvm, http://docs.aws.amazon.com/pinpoint/latest/userguide/channels-sms-countries.html http://docs.aws.amazon.com/pinpoint/latest/userguide/channel...
- thecybernerd 9y agoLooks like Amazon is gunning for Twilio
- codingdave 9y agoThis is powered by Twilio.
- Dotnaught 9y agoJust speculating here, but it wouldn't be surprising if Amazon ultimately acquired Twilio. CEO Jeff Lawson used to work for Amazon after all.
- samstave 9y agohis is likely a dry run on how well it can integrate... and what adoption levels... then they will buy Twilio. Buy some twilio stock now.
- nicodjimenez 9y agoAgreed. If you see how Amazon has done acquisitions in the past, they like to brutalize companies by aggressively undercutting them and then buying them for cheap after their value goes down. That's what happened to Zappos and Quidsi, it's a strategy that's saved them hundreds of millions. I like Amazon and I basically worship Bezos but I would not like it if they moved into my line of business.
- ceejayoz 9y agoPartnering, apparently. https://twitter.com/jeffiel/status/912775401084035072 https://twitter.com/jeffiel/status/912775401084035072
- drewnick 9y agoI wonder what happens if someone calls the phone number after receiving an SMS text. The FAQ/docs don't seem to address this.
- oliyoung 9y agoIn Australia at least, it doesn't connect/you get a busy tone
- aditya 9y agoHmm. Interesting. Cheaper (~0.65c) per SMS than twilio (~0.75c) in the US, great if you're already on AWS and support for sending to 200+ countries[1] but no MMS support that I can see... [1]http://docs.aws.amazon.com/pinpoint/latest/userguide/channels-sms-countries.html http://docs.aws.amazon.com/pinpoint/latest/userguide/channel...
- m3kw9 9y agoAmazon got volume discount I’m sure, and provides marketing for twillo
- aviv 9y agoNo need for volume. SMS is dirt cheap on its own. For my clients we implement custom SMS solutions and our wholesale rates are free inbound and 0.0018 outbound. And we can activate any off-net number, don't need to own it even.
- HatchedLake721 9y ago0.0018? What country?
- bob_theslob646 9y agoWhat country?
- gruez 9y agoSMS rates vary depending on which country/telecom it's sent to/from.
- wonder_bread 9y agoDoesn't bode well for Twilio that Amazon keeps rolling out these ecosystem-enhancing SMS features. They're still a standout solution for anybody who doesn't use AWS IMP but these features are getting a little too close for comfort
- dpcx 9y agoTwilio's advantage is that they have amazing API documentation, and extremely low barrier to entry.
- zitterbewegung 9y agoYea, I tried to use SNS today but couldn't find any example code for Python. I got frustrated and signed up with twilio. After signing up and doing their test I was able to click directly to the Python example.
- Kocrachon 9y agoI admit I don't use SNS but the boto3 docs are usually really well documented.
- wickawic 9y agothe integration between the python code and SNS is relatively well documented, but it is missing examples for how to actually achieve real-world results (such as sending yourself a text message).
- zitterbewegung 9y agoResponding to this and the parent it was the lack of examples that made me change my behavior. Not the lack of documentation for boto3.
- ranman 9y ago1. I love Twilio and I recommend it over pinpoint most of the time. The API is objectively easier and the documentation is better. 2. import boto3 sns = boto3.client('sns') number = '+12345678900' sns.publish(PhoneNumber=number, Message='Hello, World') Disclaimer: I work for AWS and wrote the post
- voiper1 9y agoI thought this was supposed to be... 2 way. But an Israel SMS just says from "NOTICE" and I can't even respond to it.
- gondo 9y ago"For countries that require an alphabetic sender ID, the message displays NOTICE as the sender ID." http://docs.aws.amazon.com/pinpoint/latest/userguide/channels-sms-countries.html http://docs.aws.amazon.com/pinpoint/latest/userguide/channel...
- damnstraight 9y agoDid you try using a local number? Many country codes only allow sending to local numbers. Example: Romania.
- bdcravens 9y agoOne thing I like about AWS is they keep pushing forward. You'd think they would have held this until AWS Reinvent, which is only 2 months (edit: was originally "weeks", doh!) away.
- wompfox 9y ago*months?
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y agos/weeks/months AWS re:Invent is during the Thanksgiving weekend.
- amrrs 9y agoI think it's a simple way of figuring out potential products and services that are cross-selling opportunities for their existing customer base in order to increase their Average Pocket Share. As it turns out, everything that they push forward is something someone is already offering to their customers and hence 'Why not us' while all it takes is some new devs or existing devs to work on copying an existing service and offering a cheap refined version of it. Edit: I'm not trying to undermine the challenge or business incumbence requirements. It's just not a risky innovative proposition.
- chiefalchemist 9y agoI presume they can analyze any requests/traffic and figure out which services their customers are using. Talk about a competitive advantage.
- wslh 9y agoTwilio stocks down: https://finance.google.com/finance?q=twilio&ei=CqXKWZC4MY-_esO6lNgP https://finance.google.com/finance?q=twilio&ei=CqXKWZC4MY-_e...
- iiv 9y agoWhich is weird because AWS Pinpoint is powered by Twilio[1] [1]https://twitter.com/jeffiel/status/912775401084035072 https://twitter.com/jeffiel/status/912775401084035072
- digi_owl 9y agoAlgos going nuts again?
- nothrabannosir 9y agoIt’s probably in the api lock in. Amazon can switch to another provider once they’ve got a better deal elsewhere, and customers need not notice. They’re commoditising twilio, which is not a great place to be in, for stock. (Alternatively: Amz ends up buying twilio and the market was wrong :) )
- sjtgraham 9y agoI don't think this is what's happening but would be an interesting acquisition strategy. Spook the market into offloading Twilio, driving the price down before they make their move.
- HatchedLake721 9y agoThey can't really easily move elsewhere for 2 way texts. It'll require porting numbers worldwide in every country away from Twilio without any downtime
- aviv 9y agoTwilio is massively overvalued.
- throwaway34537 9y agoI'm excited to learn the ways in which this new product offering only superficially solves the relevant use cases despite a big media splash. Yes, I'm talking about ECS.
- sergiotapia 9y agoThe UI is garbage but that's par for the course with AWS I guess.
- DarronWyke 9y agoGiven how AWS tends to move to a policy of "we do what we want", I'm not surprised. I've had EC2 and SES send out spam for weeks without mitigation despite complaints.
- ranman 9y agoEC2 has limits for how much SMTP they can do by default. SES has similar controls in place. They take the fight against spam very seriously. If you wanna let me know specifics randhunt@amazon.com I'd be happy to help take care of the issue.
- DarronWyke 9y agoNo offense, but that's rich. I've emailed abuse, sent public notifications through Twitter, and more. Received silence. I've had spam campaigns -- open spam campaigns, complete with scraped emails, dubious subjects, and more -- last for 3+ weeks before finally getting shut down. I wouldn't call that "taking the fight seriously".
- ranman 9y agoIf you received no response at all from the abuse alias then something is wrong there and I want to fix it. You’re welcome to email me or link to the tweets or ping me directly on twitter @jrhunt. I personally take it seriously and I will get things taken care of. HN isn’t a great forum to dive deep on individual support though so feel free to take the convo to email or twitter DM. Randhunt@amazon.com
- ranman 9y agoAny specific feedback you want to share on how we could make it better? Is it just the UI or UX (flow of info) as well? I'm happy to collect any notes and get it back to the service team. Alternatively you can click the feedback link in the lower right hand corner of the console page. You can email me any feedback or DM me: randhunt@amazon or @jrhunt on twitter
- pnikosis 9y agoDelivery rates on AWS are not great in my experience, and there's no easy way to automate some kind of event triggering when a delivery has failed (ended up creating a lambda that reads the fail events from cloud watch). Plus, you have to specify a monthly spending limit that must be manually reviewed and enabled by Amazon, if you go over the limit, Amazon starts failing the SMS delivery, even when SNS responds with a successful status. AWS is great, but the biggest advantage of Twilio and other SMS providers is that they are way easier and straightforward to integrate.
- johns 9y agoPowered by Twilio: https://twitter.com/jeffiel/status/912775401084035072 https://twitter.com/jeffiel/status/912775401084035072
- sjtgraham 9y ago"helping to power"
- yalph 9y agoCan someone provide clarity on this pls?
- gozmike 9y agoIt sounds like this was tweeted to quiet the peanut gallery. Over the last year, I've been exposed to a lot of the nitty gritty of the SMS and carrier world and I was surprised to learn how at scale competition for SMS volume is insane and extremely complex aggregators and the commercial arrangements seemingly incestuous. The cost savings of easy integration and the appeal of a strong developer ecosystem are less and less attractive as the volume of SMS being managed make the marginal cost savings of going with a direct relationship with Amdocs, Syniverse etc....
- WisNorCan 9y agoTwilio's stock started dropping [1] with this announcement. Jeff Lawson wants to protect his stock price and restless employees (I am sure there is an internal email forthcoming as well). The worst (possibly realistic) reading of "Helping to power" is that Twilio confirmed that they are just one of many companies that are powering this solution for Amazon. The implication is that Amazon will keep playing these companies against each other to drive down rates. [1] https://finance.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:TWLO https://finance.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:TWLO
- Dylan16807 9y agoYou confused me for a second, because you're swapping the subject and object with your quote. AWS Pinpoint powered by Twilio -> Twilio helping to power AWS Pinpoint Not my initial interpretation of "AWS Pinpoint helping to power Twilio"
- aviv 9y agoOne more step closer to the end game... Business Hosted VOIP. They're already doing SMS, call center and a bunch of other stuff in this space. Hosted PBX and SIP trunking is coming. They are on a VOIP/WebRTC hiring spree since last year.
- sgarg 9y agoThe 200+ countries is slightly misleading, especially when the title mentions two-way messaging. I've done a lot of research into messaging/SMS providers like Twilio, Nexmo, Plivo, etc for supporting two-way messaging in developing countries. Most providers currently only support two-way messaging in similar subset of countries in North America and Europe. Since it is powered by Twilio, I don't think it adds any new countries and definitely not 200. https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/223183068-Twilio-international-phone-number-availability-and-their-capabilities https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/223183068-Twili...
- ranman 9y agoPinpoint works with multiple partners and carriers. You can get the list of countries here: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/pinpoint/latest/userguide/channels-sms-countries.html http://docs.aws.amazon.com/pinpoint/latest/userguide/channel... Disclaimer: I wrote the post and work for AWS
- sgarg 9y agoThanks for the reply. Are you saying that all of these countries support two-way messaging? It's my impression after signing up and looking at pricing pages that many of these countries only support outbound messaging.
- ranman 9y agoYou're totally right. We'll update the list of countries that support 2-way messaging in the docs in the next few days. It's ~50 or so.
- aviv 9y agoWhen is SIP trunking and Hosted Business PBX getting added to AWS?
- peteretep 9y agoHey, one thing I spent a bit of time trying to find and couldn't was if the numbers would be designated cell phone numbers? For example, in Thailand all cellphone numbers start with 08/09, in the UK with 07. There are some funny local laws about that. I have quite a few usecases in mind which require the provision of a cell phone number.
- WisNorCan 9y agoDisclosure: Short TWLO. If you look at Amazon's playbook (e.g. in Retail and Transportation), Twilio should be concerned: 1) Partnering with Twilio and other aggregators gives Amazon a fast path to market with broad reach. This is consistent with how they have approached groceries, transportation and other verticals. 2) Amazon is willing to be aggressive on price to win market share. They have already undercut Twilio and they will no doubt continue lowering rates as needed. The current rates are still very high relative to SMS cost and they will come down. 3) Amazon is establishing the relationship directly with developers. Others have tried to do this on price (e.g. Plivo) but they haven't had the developer base and Twilio has been great on developer marketing. AWS is very formidable here. Note that Twilio had to come out and say that they were a partner. 4) The reality is most of Twilio's business is on the most basic APIs for making phone calls and SMS messages. Twilio may have a lot of other capabilities, but 99% of them don't matter. In addition, AWS will keep adding capabilities. 5) AWS will keep asking Twilio for price concessions at each negotiation renewal point and RFP aggressively. With more volume they will have more power. Given the commodity nature of SMS, there is not much Twilio can do about it. 6) You can look at the position UPS is in to get a sense of how this can play out. Amazon will chip away at the most lucrative parts of the business and look at going direct. Leaving UPS (or Twilio) with the less interesting edge cases. The one counter I have read is that porting out of all the markets will be complicated for Amazon. If Amazon has done a reasonable job with vendor contracts, they will have the right to selectively renew or port-out on a per market basis. There is a scenario in which Amazon acquires Twilio. It might happen. But never bet on a company because you hope they will be acquired. EDIT: It may actually be worse for Twilio given Jeff Lawson’s tweet. “Helping to power” seems to indicate that Twilio is just one of several vendors as opposed to “powered by Twilio”. Can someone from AWS or Twilio confirm?
- unitboolean 9y agoDon't use Plivo. It's the worst provider ever. 5 months ago they forgot to renew their domain and all services were unavailable for 2 days. and this was not the first time we experienced such issues with them.
- ad93611 9y agoWe use both Twilio and Plivo in our text messaging products in CallHub. Both are great vendors to work with. We'll not move to Amazon just for a lower price. The things that we value are, 1. Quality of delivery 2. A consistent API across all our telephony needs. 3. Great support when we need it I especially love the fact that these vendors are constantly innovating and give us early access to those innovations as well. The most recent was Twilio's release of studio.
- ValentineC 9y agoJust a heads-up: AWS Pinpoint text messaging cannot be paid with credits. I just checked my bill and was charged $0.18 for sending three test messages to myself.
- IanCal 9y agoWhat is it that makes SMS so expensive to send in the UK? Cost in the US: 0.645-0.75¢ per message Cost in the UK: up to 7+¢ per message to send, inbound 0.9¢ I get that there are differences, but a factor of 10 is quite a shift. Twilio is 4¢ too if you want to send from an actual mobile number.
- Fomite 9y agoIs there a straightforward method for charging a customer for those texts?