66 ms·

Twilio Adds Low-Cost, Two-Way MMS Picture Messaging to Its API Cloud

131 points by matts9581 12y ago

josh2600 12y ago
This is an amazing biz dev achievement. Twilio seems to be getting closer to aggregating all of the hard stuff in telco land every day. It's hard to overstate just how hard this is to do. This isn't as simple as going to an aggregator and getting SMS done, MMS has been one of the last bastions of exerted carrier influence and it's slowly being democratized. This is the first time I can recall someone getting this level of access to MMS services within operators (please correct me if I'm wrong).
- RobSpectre 12y ago
  Much obliged Josh. Took a while, but we're having a lot of fun with it. Text a pic of yourself to (646) 846-8238 - you should get a sweet mustache back.
  - megrimlock 12y ago
    Old unit testing habits compelled me to txt a photo that already has a mustache. Result? Better mustache. Test passed.
  - x13 12y ago
    too cool. thanks.
- yid 12y ago
  > This is the first time I can recall someone getting this level of access to MMS services within operators (please correct me if I'm wrong). Would Mogreet qualify? I've used their MMS support for a side project more than a year ago, and found that it works well across carriers in the US. https://developer.mogreet.com/ https://developer.mogreet.com/
  - justsomedood 12y ago
    Mogreet only does short codes for MMS, though. I've been looking for a service that has MMS support for long codes/full phone numbers for a while so seeing this news today was pretty exciting for me!
- iconicaapl 12y ago
  It seems like it would be the first time someone has done it properly. What is so beautiful about Twilio is their attention to detail for developers - amazing documentation, samples, etc so I am assuming their MMS implementation will be as clean. Here's hoping. mBlox, OpenMarket, Mobile365 all tried to implement the half assed MMS implementation forced on them by the carrier market and it was an absolutely nightmare. I'm surprised noone in the tech press ever did a deep dive expose on just how archaic the whole certification process was, and the user experience was terrible. Summary: this is not the first time the carriers have opened up MMS. Hopefully it will be the first time developers can leverage MMS the way it was intended.
  - RobSpectre 12y ago
    Kind of you to say - we work pretty hard on it. If you want a quick intro to the interface, we've but up examples in six languages for you to take a look at: https://www.twilio.com/blog/2014/09/getting-started-with-twilio-mms.html https://www.twilio.com/blog/2014/09/getting-started-with-twi...
aroch 12y ago
I've played wit Twilio and have used it to extend some of the hooks I previously had in IFTTT. Additionally I've been toying with porting my number out of Google Voice for compatibility (ie. no MMS) and privacy reasons. My question is, how hard would it be to build your own personal Google Voice like service around the twilio API, or has anyone done this?
- zrail 12y ago
  I set up a quick and dirty version of GV with one of their provided Twimlets[1]. All it does is record a message, transcribe it, then send the results to my email address. My wife and I used this, for example, when looking for a mortgage loan (they never. stop. calling.) I've thought long and hard about building something more complicated but I was always sort of stopped by the lack of MMS and my (apparently faulty) understanding of how their Caller ID works[2]. Not anymore! [1]: https://www.twilio.com/labs/twimlets/voicemail https://www.twilio.com/labs/twimlets/voicemail [2]: Previously I had thought you could only set registered numbers as caller ID, but turns out if you dial out while processing an incoming call you can set the caller ID as the incoming number. See here: https://www.twilio.com/docs/api/twiml/dial#attributes-caller-id https://www.twilio.com/docs/api/twiml/dial#attributes-caller...
  - mmastrac 12y ago
    I did the same thing: I wanted something like Google Voice, but it was impossible to make it work here in Canada. I also have a tiny little HTML page you can use to retrieve your voicemail and transcriptions: https://github.com/mmastrac/snippets/tree/gh-pages/voicemail https://github.com/mmastrac/snippets/tree/gh-pages/voicemail Obviously you'd want to host that yourself somewhere private and possibly hard-code the keys.
  - aroch 12y ago
    Ha, I've setup the very same twimlet. My hangup was also the same as yours, I couldn't justify spending the time to figure out the, often confusing, API just to have no MMS still. I guess it's time to find some free time to hack one together!
- 12y ago
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- RobSpectre 12y ago
  Twilio MMS is 2 cents to send, 1 cent to receive. More pricing info can be found here: https://www.twilio.com/sms/pricing https://www.twilio.com/sms/pricing
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
blocke 12y ago
Twilio's test MMS (or any Twilio SMS) messages have never worked for me on the AT&T and Tmobile MVNO Straight Talk which uses Tracfone's MMS servers. I'd be curious what other MVNOs lurking about in the US are not handled by this. Does Cricket work?
- RobSpectre 12y ago
  Would love to learn more about why these messages are failing for you. Reckon you could shoot us some of the failed SmsSids to help@twilio.com? I'd be much obliged.
  - blocke 12y ago
    I'm not using the API only the "see for yourself" link on the MMS page at https://www.twilio.com/mms https://www.twilio.com/mms. Webpage says it's sent but nothing ever arrives to the phone. I'll send an email to help@twilio.com with my phone number if someone over there wants to try a few test sends for debug info. As a side note I just tested using the SMS page and it seems to work now. When I last tried it a couple months ago when swapping SIMs and trying to test SMS it silently failed with both sets of phone numbers and SIM Cards while every other SMS source I could try worked fine. That appears to not be an issue anymore so it's just MMS. MMS to and from the phone works fine with Verizon and AT&T cellphones so I'd imagine there is some plumbing somewhere going wrong in my case. Thanks.
    - RobSpectre 12y ago
      Thanks for that - will definitely check it out.
    - timewasted 12y ago
      I just tried this as well using my AT&T Straight Talk phone number, and the result was the same (message reports being sent, but never shows up on my end). I'll also fire off an email so that you can have at least two numbers to test with.
      - 12y ago
baghali 12y ago
Well, all the kudos should go to Bandwidth.com the primary carrier of of Twilio, Plivo, Google Voice, etc ...
- tmoullet 12y ago
  Don't forget Republic Wireless as well.
- joshpadnick 12y ago
  Can you elaborate on the relationship between Twilio and Bandwidth.com? I actually have very little understanding of what happens once Twilio receives an API request.
  - baghali 12y ago
    Bandwidth.com being a wholesale carrier of VoIP services is the primary carrier for Twilio, Plivo, Google Voice, etc... Bandwidth delivers SMS over SMPP. Initially the MMS launch was due for mid October, seems they launched it ahead of time. In the following weeks you'll see lots of different providers announcing their MMS capability. Bandwidth should get the credit for their brilliant work.
    - RobSpectre 12y ago
      Bandwidth are indeed a bunch of bright folks that do good work and we work with them on a number of products, but to be clear we are not reselling their messaging. Lot of effort by a large crew of committed developers and the helpful participation of our carrier partners are what brought Twilio MMS to market on US phone numbers. Were MMS as easy as wrapping another product in a HTTP request, I imagine it would be a more common offering. Want to make sure the effort of the Twilio engineering crew is given its due.
- kevinburke 12y ago
  Cool, next time you spend three years and literally thousands of hours bringing a product to market, I'll be sure to assign the credit to someone else
nathancahill 12y ago
Now if we could just get Google Voice to support it, that would be awesome.
- jewel 12y ago
  It seems like with the hangouts/google voice merger on android that it does now support it, but I haven't tested myself personally to see.
- sunsu 12y ago
  Google Voice numbers are powered by Bandwidth.com. Bandwidth announced that they were working on support a couple of months ago. So, at least its in the pipeline.
cmalpeli 12y ago
Does this apply to all Twilio numbers, or just short codes?
- hox 12y ago
  All US Twilio numbers.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - spountzy 12y ago
    Someone knows, when it would be available in Europe? Is there any information available?
teyc 12y ago
Can someone explain a little bit more? I think I've been spoilt rotten by the web API world. Don't telcos provide MMS gateway like how they provide SMS gateways? What is actually happening under the hood here?
- iconicaapl 12y ago
  Lots actually. MMS is hard - multiple devices with no consistency, different interconnect gateways that can mangle messages along the way. An easy to use, reliable and pervasive MMS gateway isn't as easy to implement as some might think and the carriers haven't made it a priority. In fact the US carriers completely messed up their early MMS implementations with Washington-style regulation that made the user experience beyond horrible. Here's hoping Twilio makes some progress with this and I wish them much success. EDIT: I realized that I didn't actually answer your question. MMS can be supported by carriers in different ways but the most typical interface is MM7 which is SOAP over HTTP. There are many MM7 gateway vendors and they all handle MIME boundaries, payloads, transcoding, etc different - subtle differences, but enough to make testing against a large matrix of devices very, very hard.
  - RobSpectre 12y ago
    Definitely agree - MMS is a deceptively complex product to deliver.
  - fletchowns 12y ago
    Interesting, I had no idea it was so complex. What could have been done differently way back when to avoid such a mess?
Vivtek 12y ago
Man, if they'd just add fax they'd have basically every possible telephonic service there is.
- zrail 12y ago
  Just FYI, there's a fax API service similar to Twilio already named Phaxio[1]. Not affiliated, just a fan[2]. [1]: https://www.phaxio.com https://www.phaxio.com [2]: https://www.petekeen.net/command-line-faxing https://www.petekeen.net/command-line-faxing
  - Vivtek 12y ago
    Hey - thanks! I've been using faxaway for years with their email interface, but this is handier. But I'd still like to be able to handle voicemail and incoming fax on the same number and nobody can give me that yet. (As far as I know.)
sologoub 12y ago
Looking on the site, I see SMS/MMS support on all LOCAL US/Canadian numbers, but TFNs remain SMS-only. Just curious, any plans to add MMS to toll free numbers? PS: still amazed that you got SMS working on TFNs, though I guess that's more of the SMS/800 (the organization charged with managing TFNs in North America, not to be confused with SMS messaging...)
- RobSpectre 12y ago
  Awesome - stoked to hear SMS on toll-free numbers is working out for you. We're keen to extend MMS to them as well - don't have a timetable to share on that score.
- patio11 12y ago
  SMS works on toll-free numbers now?! That just made my day.
sinak 12y ago
This isn't related to the MMS announcement, but I'd like to give Twilio big, big props for being one of the most developer and technology-friendly companies out there. Not only is their API easy to use, constantly improved, and impeccably supported, but over the course of the last year, they've donated thousands of dollars worth of free credit to technology activists including the EFF, Taskforce.is, and Fight for the Future. They've even modified their privacy policy to make it possible for my team at EFF to use Twilio on campaigns we run. Rob Spectre, who's replying to comments in this thread, has been amazing too - offering hands-on support when we run big campaigns like The Day We Fight Back and last week's Battle for the Net. Thanks to all the Twilio team. You rock.

131 points by matts9581 12y ago

This is an amazing biz dev achievement. Twilio seems to be getting closer to aggregating all of the hard stuff in telco land every day. It's hard to overstate just how hard this is to do. This isn't as simple as going to an aggregator and getting SMS done, MMS has been one of the last bastions of exerted carrier influence and it's slowly being democratized. This is the first time I can recall someone getting this level of access to MMS services within operators (please correct me if I'm wrong).

RobSpectre 12y ago
Much obliged Josh. Took a while, but we're having a lot of fun with it. Text a pic of yourself to (646) 846-8238 - you should get a sweet mustache back.
- megrimlock 12y ago
  Old unit testing habits compelled me to txt a photo that already has a mustache. Result? Better mustache. Test passed.
- x13 12y ago
  too cool. thanks.
yid 12y ago
> This is the first time I can recall someone getting this level of access to MMS services within operators (please correct me if I'm wrong). Would Mogreet qualify? I've used their MMS support for a side project more than a year ago, and found that it works well across carriers in the US. https://developer.mogreet.com/ https://developer.mogreet.com/
- justsomedood 12y ago
  Mogreet only does short codes for MMS, though. I've been looking for a service that has MMS support for long codes/full phone numbers for a while so seeing this news today was pretty exciting for me!
iconicaapl 12y ago
It seems like it would be the first time someone has done it properly. What is so beautiful about Twilio is their attention to detail for developers - amazing documentation, samples, etc so I am assuming their MMS implementation will be as clean. Here's hoping. mBlox, OpenMarket, Mobile365 all tried to implement the half assed MMS implementation forced on them by the carrier market and it was an absolutely nightmare. I'm surprised noone in the tech press ever did a deep dive expose on just how archaic the whole certification process was, and the user experience was terrible. Summary: this is not the first time the carriers have opened up MMS. Hopefully it will be the first time developers can leverage MMS the way it was intended.
- RobSpectre 12y ago
  Kind of you to say - we work pretty hard on it. If you want a quick intro to the interface, we've but up examples in six languages for you to take a look at: https://www.twilio.com/blog/2014/09/getting-started-with-twilio-mms.html https://www.twilio.com/blog/2014/09/getting-started-with-twi...

aroch 12y ago

I've played wit Twilio and have used it to extend some of the hooks I previously had in IFTTT. Additionally I've been toying with porting my number out of Google Voice for compatibility (ie. no MMS) and privacy reasons. My question is, how hard would it be to build your own personal Google Voice like service around the twilio API, or has anyone done this?

zrail 12y ago
I set up a quick and dirty version of GV with one of their provided Twimlets[1]. All it does is record a message, transcribe it, then send the results to my email address. My wife and I used this, for example, when looking for a mortgage loan (they never. stop. calling.) I've thought long and hard about building something more complicated but I was always sort of stopped by the lack of MMS and my (apparently faulty) understanding of how their Caller ID works[2]. Not anymore! [1]: https://www.twilio.com/labs/twimlets/voicemail https://www.twilio.com/labs/twimlets/voicemail [2]: Previously I had thought you could only set registered numbers as caller ID, but turns out if you dial out while processing an incoming call you can set the caller ID as the incoming number. See here: https://www.twilio.com/docs/api/twiml/dial#attributes-caller-id https://www.twilio.com/docs/api/twiml/dial#attributes-caller...
- mmastrac 12y ago
  I did the same thing: I wanted something like Google Voice, but it was impossible to make it work here in Canada. I also have a tiny little HTML page you can use to retrieve your voicemail and transcriptions: https://github.com/mmastrac/snippets/tree/gh-pages/voicemail https://github.com/mmastrac/snippets/tree/gh-pages/voicemail Obviously you'd want to host that yourself somewhere private and possibly hard-code the keys.
- aroch 12y ago
  Ha, I've setup the very same twimlet. My hangup was also the same as yours, I couldn't justify spending the time to figure out the, often confusing, API just to have no MMS still. I guess it's time to find some free time to hack one together!
12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

RobSpectre 12y ago
Twilio MMS is 2 cents to send, 1 cent to receive. More pricing info can be found here: https://www.twilio.com/sms/pricing https://www.twilio.com/sms/pricing
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

blocke 12y ago

Twilio's test MMS (or any Twilio SMS) messages have never worked for me on the AT&T and Tmobile MVNO Straight Talk which uses Tracfone's MMS servers. I'd be curious what other MVNOs lurking about in the US are not handled by this. Does Cricket work?

RobSpectre 12y ago
Would love to learn more about why these messages are failing for you. Reckon you could shoot us some of the failed SmsSids to help@twilio.com? I'd be much obliged.
- blocke 12y ago
  I'm not using the API only the "see for yourself" link on the MMS page at https://www.twilio.com/mms https://www.twilio.com/mms. Webpage says it's sent but nothing ever arrives to the phone. I'll send an email to help@twilio.com with my phone number if someone over there wants to try a few test sends for debug info. As a side note I just tested using the SMS page and it seems to work now. When I last tried it a couple months ago when swapping SIMs and trying to test SMS it silently failed with both sets of phone numbers and SIM Cards while every other SMS source I could try worked fine. That appears to not be an issue anymore so it's just MMS. MMS to and from the phone works fine with Verizon and AT&T cellphones so I'd imagine there is some plumbing somewhere going wrong in my case. Thanks.
  - RobSpectre 12y ago
    Thanks for that - will definitely check it out.
  - timewasted 12y ago
    I just tried this as well using my AT&T Straight Talk phone number, and the result was the same (message reports being sent, but never shows up on my end). I'll also fire off an email so that you can have at least two numbers to test with.
    - 12y ago

baghali 12y ago

Well, all the kudos should go to Bandwidth.com the primary carrier of of Twilio, Plivo, Google Voice, etc ...

tmoullet 12y ago
Don't forget Republic Wireless as well.
joshpadnick 12y ago
Can you elaborate on the relationship between Twilio and Bandwidth.com? I actually have very little understanding of what happens once Twilio receives an API request.
- baghali 12y ago
  Bandwidth.com being a wholesale carrier of VoIP services is the primary carrier for Twilio, Plivo, Google Voice, etc... Bandwidth delivers SMS over SMPP. Initially the MMS launch was due for mid October, seems they launched it ahead of time. In the following weeks you'll see lots of different providers announcing their MMS capability. Bandwidth should get the credit for their brilliant work.
  - RobSpectre 12y ago
    Bandwidth are indeed a bunch of bright folks that do good work and we work with them on a number of products, but to be clear we are not reselling their messaging. Lot of effort by a large crew of committed developers and the helpful participation of our carrier partners are what brought Twilio MMS to market on US phone numbers. Were MMS as easy as wrapping another product in a HTTP request, I imagine it would be a more common offering. Want to make sure the effort of the Twilio engineering crew is given its due.
kevinburke 12y ago
Cool, next time you spend three years and literally thousands of hours bringing a product to market, I'll be sure to assign the credit to someone else

nathancahill 12y ago

Now if we could just get Google Voice to support it, that would be awesome.

jewel 12y ago
It seems like with the hangouts/google voice merger on android that it does now support it, but I haven't tested myself personally to see.
sunsu 12y ago
Google Voice numbers are powered by Bandwidth.com. Bandwidth announced that they were working on support a couple of months ago. So, at least its in the pipeline.

cmalpeli 12y ago

Does this apply to all Twilio numbers, or just short codes?

hox 12y ago
All US Twilio numbers.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- spountzy 12y ago
  Someone knows, when it would be available in Europe? Is there any information available?

teyc 12y ago

Can someone explain a little bit more? I think I've been spoilt rotten by the web API world. Don't telcos provide MMS gateway like how they provide SMS gateways? What is actually happening under the hood here?

iconicaapl 12y ago
Lots actually. MMS is hard - multiple devices with no consistency, different interconnect gateways that can mangle messages along the way. An easy to use, reliable and pervasive MMS gateway isn't as easy to implement as some might think and the carriers haven't made it a priority. In fact the US carriers completely messed up their early MMS implementations with Washington-style regulation that made the user experience beyond horrible. Here's hoping Twilio makes some progress with this and I wish them much success. EDIT: I realized that I didn't actually answer your question. MMS can be supported by carriers in different ways but the most typical interface is MM7 which is SOAP over HTTP. There are many MM7 gateway vendors and they all handle MIME boundaries, payloads, transcoding, etc different - subtle differences, but enough to make testing against a large matrix of devices very, very hard.
- RobSpectre 12y ago
  Definitely agree - MMS is a deceptively complex product to deliver.
- fletchowns 12y ago
  Interesting, I had no idea it was so complex. What could have been done differently way back when to avoid such a mess?

Vivtek 12y ago

Man, if they'd just add fax they'd have basically every possible telephonic service there is.

zrail 12y ago
Just FYI, there's a fax API service similar to Twilio already named Phaxio[1]. Not affiliated, just a fan[2]. [1]: https://www.phaxio.com https://www.phaxio.com [2]: https://www.petekeen.net/command-line-faxing https://www.petekeen.net/command-line-faxing
- Vivtek 12y ago
  Hey - thanks! I've been using faxaway for years with their email interface, but this is handier. But I'd still like to be able to handle voicemail and incoming fax on the same number and nobody can give me that yet. (As far as I know.)

sologoub 12y ago

Looking on the site, I see SMS/MMS support on all LOCAL US/Canadian numbers, but TFNs remain SMS-only. Just curious, any plans to add MMS to toll free numbers? PS: still amazed that you got SMS working on TFNs, though I guess that's more of the SMS/800 (the organization charged with managing TFNs in North America, not to be confused with SMS messaging...)

RobSpectre 12y ago
Awesome - stoked to hear SMS on toll-free numbers is working out for you. We're keen to extend MMS to them as well - don't have a timetable to share on that score.
patio11 12y ago
SMS works on toll-free numbers now?! That just made my day.

sinak 12y ago

This isn't related to the MMS announcement, but I'd like to give Twilio big, big props for being one of the most developer and technology-friendly companies out there. Not only is their API easy to use, constantly improved, and impeccably supported, but over the course of the last year, they've donated thousands of dollars worth of free credit to technology activists including the EFF, Taskforce.is, and Fight for the Future. They've even modified their privacy policy to make it possible for my team at EFF to use Twilio on campaigns we run. Rob Spectre, who's replying to comments in this thread, has been amazing too - offering hands-on support when we run big campaigns like The Day We Fight Back and last week's Battle for the Net. Thanks to all the Twilio team. You rock.