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Facebook May Bust Up the SMS Profit Cartel

17 points by kevin_morrill 16y ago

sanj 16y ago
How is this different than Blackberry Messenger? http://us.blackberry.com/apps-software/blackberrymessenger/ http://us.blackberry.com/apps-software/blackberrymessenger/
- mayank 16y ago
  More people use Facebook than Blackberry.
  - patrickk 16y ago
    I'd imagine many people would be excited at the prospect of sending free texts to all their Facebook friends. The main stumbling is how to get free/really cheap data plans to get younger users online on smartphones so they can send the texts via Facebook. I might actually view Facebook as useful if they pulled this off. The downside would be even more worrying implications for privacy - would you trust Facebook with your intimate texts?
- pocketmoney 16y ago
  It has the ability to work on Android, iOS, WebOS, and any future platform. Which part of that benefit wasn't obvious to you?
profquail 16y ago
Link to the actual article mentioned in the linked /. post: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/04/facebook-takes-aim-at-the-text-messaging-cartel/ http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/04/facebook-takes-aim-at...
Qz 16y ago
The first website I legitimately want to share with someone else (my roommate was talking about this exact idea the other day, he's not even a techie), and there's no share button to be found (referring to belugapods.com itself, not this article).
- thwarted 16y ago
  http://www.facebook.com/share_options.php http://www.facebook.com/share_options.php Should work with every site, if they have a like/share button or not.
Pooter 16y ago
Does anyone know anything about the actual product Beluga made? The Slashdot post and CNN article don't contain much information about the actual product, so it's hard to tell, but it sounds like it's either a fancy SMS gateway or a dedicated group messaging system (that doesn't use SMS to deliver messages).
prostoalex 16y ago
Not so fast. 1) Push notifications are not free if you're on metered data plan. 2) SMS notifications are still the lowest common denominator, unless you know for sure the receiving party has a smartphone.
TheCarlyle 16y ago
So Beluga is like Google Voice...only worse

17 points by kevin_morrill 16y ago

sanj 16y ago

How is this different than Blackberry Messenger? http://us.blackberry.com/apps-software/blackberrymessenger/ http://us.blackberry.com/apps-software/blackberrymessenger/

mayank 16y ago
More people use Facebook than Blackberry.
- patrickk 16y ago
  I'd imagine many people would be excited at the prospect of sending free texts to all their Facebook friends. The main stumbling is how to get free/really cheap data plans to get younger users online on smartphones so they can send the texts via Facebook. I might actually view Facebook as useful if they pulled this off. The downside would be even more worrying implications for privacy - would you trust Facebook with your intimate texts?
pocketmoney 16y ago
It has the ability to work on Android, iOS, WebOS, and any future platform. Which part of that benefit wasn't obvious to you?

profquail 16y ago

Link to the actual article mentioned in the linked /. post: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/04/facebook-takes-aim-at-the-text-messaging-cartel/ http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/04/facebook-takes-aim-at...

Qz 16y ago

The first website I legitimately want to share with someone else (my roommate was talking about this exact idea the other day, he's not even a techie), and there's no share button to be found (referring to belugapods.com itself, not this article).

thwarted 16y ago
http://www.facebook.com/share_options.php http://www.facebook.com/share_options.php Should work with every site, if they have a like/share button or not.

Pooter 16y ago

Does anyone know anything about the actual product Beluga made? The Slashdot post and CNN article don't contain much information about the actual product, so it's hard to tell, but it sounds like it's either a fancy SMS gateway or a dedicated group messaging system (that doesn't use SMS to deliver messages).

prostoalex 16y ago

Not so fast. 1) Push notifications are not free if you're on metered data plan. 2) SMS notifications are still the lowest common denominator, unless you know for sure the receiving party has a smartphone.

TheCarlyle 16y ago

So Beluga is like Google Voice...only worse