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Ask HN: Is there demand for an email as text messages service?
Here's my situation: I spend around $40-$50 extra a month for unlimited email access when I already receive free text messages. If I set up an email to text service, I can save money. I think other people can to.
I'm probably going to build this for myself anyway - but any thoughts of rolling this out as a full business?
I found a company that has a free text message api, but puts ads on the end of the text.
Is this a good idea for a business? Is someone already doing it? (that would save me time)
- eof 16y agoIt would be viable as an app if it abstracted away the 140 character limit of sms. I don't think people are going to be willing to deal with the annoyance of sending emails as multiple sms messages
- rcavezza 16y agoI'm thinking it will send subject line of 4 or 5 recent email messages - each message has an idea #, text that id # back to the server, and it gives you the first 140, text back read more, and it texts back another 140 - would this solve it?
- hazooi 16y agoPersonally, I think USSD would be a better way to implement this. However, it seems the mobile carriers want to keep USSD to themselves. The 140 char limit in SMS is a somewhat arbitrary limit in the GSM specs that we are no stuck with. Nevertheless, your solution (using id numbers) does seem quite clever but if this is going over a premium rate service then the SMS's will no longer be free.
- eof 16y agoThis is a bit better, but still a real pain. What about sending email?
- there 16y agoI spend around $40-$50 extra a month for unlimited email access when I already receive free text messages. i think for the vast majority of users, it's the complete opposite. free email through something like gmail, and a 200-500 sms/month plan. what are you using that costs $40-50 a month for email? i provide secure imap service for my business customers and occasionally get complaints that $15/month per mailbox is too expensive.
- rcavezza 16y agoI pay $40-$50 per month to allow internet usage on my Blackberry which is required to receive the blackberry email feed from my gmail account.