SMS Alert Help

October 18, 2008 1:14 PM

I need a group SMS service similar to this or this, any suggestions?

I've tried using gupshup, but I don't get the Texts. We have considered using Twitter but each account is tied to only one phone number. It would work great if the one who hears about it is at their computer, but not if we are mobile.

We are trying to get SMS alerts if there is a re-release of tickets for a concert. There are about 20 of us and we all want to be able to get the alert if one of us notices that there is a second allotment of tickets.

Thanks!

posted by aburd to Technology (4 answers total)

Best answer: Does this take care of your Twitter problems? It does say it can take up to 30 minutes to get the message out, which may or may not be a deal breaker.

One other idea off the the top of my head is to use an email address that will automatically forward the message to everyone's phone. When someone sees that tickets are available, they shoot a message off to the email account which will pass it on to everyone else. Listserv 2.0, as it were.
posted by niles at 1:23 PM on October 18, 2008

Response by poster: Niles - The twitter group is a good idea but the 30 minute delay is a big problem. The tickets won't last long, they sold out in about 20 minutes when first released.

I love the idea of forwarding to multiple phone from gmail, but it doesn't seem to be working. I just tried it with my phone and gmail doesn't accept phone numbers as a forwarding address. I've tried the using the Mobile Network email address to my phone and I still haven't gotten the alert 5 minutes later.
posted by aburd at 1:39 PM on October 18, 2008

Response by poster: Someone else in our group just found the answer. In case anyone needs this in the future the service is TextMarks. It's pretty simple. Hopefully they won't start spamming us with ads.
posted by aburd at 2:01 PM on October 18, 2008

Best answer: The article is a little confusing, so you might not have caught this, but you can't actually put your phone number in the "Forward to" box (the picture incorrectly shows this). The relevant part is

Here is a list of the text messaging addresses for common US wireless providers:

Verizon: [e-mail]
AT&T: [e-mail]
Sprint: [e-mail]
T-Mobile: [e-mail]
Nextel: [e-mail]
Cingular: [e-mail]
Virgin Mobile: [e-mail]
Alltel: [e-mail] OR message.alltel.com
CellularOne: [e-mail]
Omnipoint: [e-mail]
Qwest: [e-mail]

posted by niles at 2:12 PM on October 18, 2008 [2 favorites]