Twitter in Canada via Bell Mobility

Anthony Coppedge — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 23:23:30 +0000

Recently, Twitter worked out a deal with Bell Mobility, a cell service provider, to allow Twitter’s SMS messaging to go through without any fees. Twitter is working with other providers in Canada to ensure full SMS functionality is available for those who use Twitter in that country.

Outside of the U.S., there have been limitations on SMS messaging (which Twitter uses for sending mobile updates – “Tweets”) by service providers that were charging Twitter per Tweet. With millions of users and many more tweets per day, the cost was too great for Twitter to absorb. Fortuantely, Twitter is working with cell providers to show them the value of selling SMS packages to their subscribers (offsetting the cost to Twitter and making Twitter attractive for people to use).

It’s widely thought that the size of the Twitter network (over 752% growth in 2008 alone) will make working with the new social networking giant a lucrative partner in mobile text messaging plans overseas.

So, this is good news for Canadians – at least those who use Bell Mobility.

Twitter Limitations Outside the U.S.

Anthony Coppedge — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:31:24 +0000

As great as Twitter is, there are some limitations on SMS texting in countries other than the U.S., Canada and India. Biz Stone, one of the co-founders of Twitter, explained why this is and how to get around this limitation in an article on his blog. I have re-posted most of his explanation below. I’d also recommend reading a helpful article by MG Siegler at VentureBeat.com about the subject.

Why Stop Sending SMS To Some Countries?

Mobile operators in most of the world charge users to send updates. When you send one message to Twitter and we send it to ten followers, you aren’t charged ten times—that’s because we’ve been footing the bill. When we launched our free SMS service to the world, we set the clock ticking. As the service grew in popularity, so too would the price.

Our challenge during this window of time was to establish relationships with mobile operators around the world such that our SMS services could become sustainable from a cost perspective. We achieved this goal in Canada, India, and the United States. We can provide full incoming and outgoing SMS service without passing along operator fees in these countries.

We took a risk hoping to bring more nations onboard and more mobile operators around to our way of thinking but we’ve arrived at a point where the responsible thing to do is slow our costs and take a different approach. If you don’t live in Canada, India, or the US, then we recommend receiving your Twitter updates via one of the following methods.

m.twitter.com works on browser-enabled phones

m.slandr.net works on browser-enabled phones

TwitterMail works on email-enabled phones

Cellity works on java-enabled phones

TwitterBerry works on BlackBerry brand phones

Twitterific works on iPhones

Twitter SMS by The Numbers

It pains us to take this measure. However, we need to avoid placing undue burden on our company and our service. Even with a limit of 250 messages received per week, it could cost Twitter about $1,000 per user, per year to send SMS outside of Canada, India, or the US. It makes more sense for us to establish fair billing arrangements with mobile operators than it does to pass these high fees on to our users.

Twitter will continue to negotiate with mobile operators in Europe, Asia, China, Australia, The Americas, and other regions to forge relationships that benefit all our users. Our goal is to provide full, two-way service with Twitter via SMS to every nation in a way that is sustainable from a cost perspective. Talks with mobile companies around the world continue. In the meantime, more local numbers for updating via SMS are on the way. We’ll keep you posted.

Twitter For Churches » SMS

Twitter in Canada via Bell Mobility

Twitter Limitations Outside the U.S.