Bulk SMS solution

June 2, 2006 7:00 PM

What's the cheapest/best way to send a text message to about 100 people?

Wow, I'm so excited to be asking this question!

I live in a small college town. What started as a love of dancing and music has somehow become my own very small promotions company for local parties and clubs.

I promote mainly via SMS (text messaging) and myspace. I currently have about 40 people on my SMS list and its growing by about 5 people a day! These are all people that I know or have met in passing who asked to be added to my list.

Now that sending all those texts on my own cellphone is growing impractical, what's the best software or company for bulk SMS messaging?

I send out about 1-2 messages a week to the people on the list.

Thanks so much for any help in advance!!!!

Oh...and a totally unrelated sidenote to *anyone* reading this. If you are working at a job you hate, please don't be afraid to chase after doing what you love...it's so profoundly worth it. Start small and keep your current job, if you have passion, you can't fail. :)

posted by skjønn to Technology (11 answers total)

you could maybe get their carriers and send emails to the phone emails (a la [e-mail] for t-mobile).
posted by cellphone at 7:05 PM on June 2, 2006

AIM lets you SMS people. Send an AIM to +1(the number), as in 12122223945 (which might get you a Trump Tower number, not sure; it's a variation on the number of the penthouse I stayed in :-)

Add them to a contact list or group in Trillian and mass-message all of them. (You can shift/ctrl+click to select more than one name in Tril, and send a number. You can also add cell phone contacts into your AIM buddy list. Voila!)

You may need Trillian Pro for the mass-messaging aspect; I'm not positive. And you should probably let everyone know that they'll get a text from a slightly funny number, but it says your AIM name right at the beginning of the message.

More fun on trying this through scripting and such in my previous question here, which probably doesn't apply to you.

Good luck.

(And I *am* working at a job I love. Owning your own business is the best. :-)
posted by disillusioned at 7:28 PM on June 2, 2006

Oh, don't forget the + in front of the number. I missed it in my second example.

Try it with your phone.

(AIM *might* start to restrict your sending-to-SMS capabilities at a certain point, but that's complete speculation with no basis in anything. Just a thought.)
posted by disillusioned at 7:29 PM on June 2, 2006

AIM has rate limiting, and will deny you after a while for IMs. I believe this is a global rate limit, not just for IMs, since I run into problems when I try to delete 100 people from my contact list.
posted by cellphone at 7:31 PM on June 2, 2006

you should look into Text Mob
posted by dieguido at 7:36 PM on June 2, 2006

I'm not sure if it's rate-limited, but Google has a web-based SMS sending interface. You'd still need to know each user's cellphone carrier, though...

There's also TeleFlip, which claims to provide universal email addresses for any SMS-capable cellphone number; you'd just email [number]@teleflip.com (e.g., [e-mail]), and TeleFlip routes it to the right place. Again, no clue if they do any rate-limiting, but in theory you can set up a mailing list of all the people who want to receive your messages.

One thing: be sure sure SURE that you provide people with a way to unsubscribe. SMS costs people money, and I can imagine that you'll have the occasion where someone doesn't want messages from you anymore, can't figure out how to tell you to stop, and calls your cellphone provider instead -- getting your account terminated. If you think ISPs have itchy trigger fingers in response to spam complaints, you should see cellphone providers...
posted by delfuego at 7:40 PM on June 2, 2006

Oh, wow -- TxtMob might be the exact way to go for you. It provides a bit higher barrier to entry for the people who want to sign up for your service, but that's the protection you need to prevent people from getting your messages who don't want them.

Yeah, go with TxtMob.
posted by delfuego at 7:43 PM on June 2, 2006

disillusioned's strategy (aim) is the right way to go, but cellphone's point is also valid. You can write a self rate-limited aim perl script using Net::AIM to get around the restriction he pointed out. Alternatively you could just use some (non-module) perl and script it in GAIM.
posted by datacenter refugee at 7:44 PM on June 2, 2006

Why not just use your e-mai program to send messages to their cellphones? You could create a mailing list made up of everyones' numbers and carrier extensions (such as [e-mail]) and then simply send an e-mail to your mailing list.
posted by richardhay at 7:44 PM on June 2, 2006

Dodgeball.

Also, UPOC.
posted by softlord at 6:18 AM on June 3, 2006

So, skjønn, how are you going to handle unsubscribe requests?
posted by Mr. Gunn at 10:55 AM on June 3, 2006