4 ms·

My new little project aimed at taking the complication and expense out of programatically sending SMS messages.

• nixme 17y ago
  How do you manage to provide such a low rate? I also can't seem to find the TechCrunch mention that's claimed at the bottom of the front page. Can you provide a link?
  • lurkinggrue 17y ago
    They are going to make up for it in volume?
    • stirman 17y ago
      That's the plan :)
      • moe 17y ago
        So it seems you're using a bunch of GSM-modems with SIM-cards on "sms flatrate" contracts. Apart from the obvious scalability concerns I really wonder whether (or rather: for how long) the carriers will let you get away with that?
        • stirman 17y ago
          No, we went down the GSM modem path a while back with ohdontforget.com. Not scalable, affordable, or customizable :)
          • moe 17y ago
            Then how do you realize the low rate? It's so much lower than what even the high volume gateways can afford that you're obviously not working on regular contracts. Abusing their E-Mail/Web interfaces? Sorry for coming across negative but I'm very wary about the reliablity here. SMS sending is most often used for some sort of user-validation and usually during a critical phase of the conversion process (signup, transaction checkout etc.). Reliability is crucial at that point, which is why most SMS gateways offer fairly strict SLAs. Do you provide any kind of guarantee that my penny transaction will result in an actual delivery? I'm asking because random hit & miss or "sorry, the t-mobile web sender was acting funny the other day" doesn't bring my lost customers back.
            • stirman 17y ago
              All valid concerns, and I'll tell you that we take reliability very seriously. We have been in business, as ohdontforget.com, for over 4 years, and have learned a lot in that time. We are not abusing e-mail or web interfaces. We spent months getting contracts set up so we could access the same data that major cell carriers use to route their text messages. For one cent a message, give it a try, I think your concerns will be remedied :)
              • moe 17y ago
                Okay, thanks for the insight. Although I'm still wondering what volumes of messages you are pushing to get a 1cent/message rate. Last time I checked even large scale contracts (>10k messages/day) would be billed at least five times that amount. Plus fixed fees...
  • stirman 17y ago
    Penny SMS is the API from a site I built a few years ago, www.ohdontforget.com. TC mentioned it here: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/27/mobaganda-a-dead-simple-invite-site-built-on-googles-app-engine/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/27/mobaganda-a-dead-simple... CrunchBase Profile for ODF: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/ohdontforget http://www.crunchbase.com/company/ohdontforget My CrunchBase Profile: http://www.crunchbase.com/person/jason-stirman http://www.crunchbase.com/person/jason-stirman I wanted to use the press mentions for ODF, since it's the exact same technology, which is why I mentioned "The PENNY SMS technology has been featured on" Does it come off as bad form?
    • mildavw 17y ago
      Bad form? Nah. How do make money with such a low rate?
• jd 17y ago
  Does your service work for European cell phones?
  • stirman 17y ago
    Not yet, but I am working on it!
    • hellweaver666 17y ago
      any idea on a timeframe? I have a project that would really benefit from this!