No more free Twitter SMS delivery in Europe? I want a freemium
Update: August 18, today I've received three "offers"
- Jordan thinks about building "something".
- twit_mobile requested to follow my updates
- so did twitsmsco
Wait & see :-)
“[...] 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 [...]”
Posted by Biz via email and twitter blog
It sometimes takes courage to decide against the majority. A fortiori when you are a social network service offering a free and popular service that you have decided to cancel.
It's in the pipe! Twitter will cancel SMS delivery outside US, Canada and India.
Ok, Biz & Co that's fair and a wise decision for the future of twitter.
But it makes twitter more useless. For instance for my account SpeedEnglish based upon ability to receive updates via free sms.
And it will make twitter less useful for my personal account, even if with Slandr or Hellotxt (among many others, both are my favorite ones) it's easy to have a great use of twitter on the go.
That's why, I hope you'll seriously think about a freemium allowing at least to receive DM via sms.
Without negotiating with mobile operators you can find bulk sms between 0,03 and 0,05 cent per sms through the 3 french mobile operators, for example.
So, I am sure you can forge relationships with french mobile operators that benefit all of us, for updating (which is useless feature for me) for receiving DM and for making twitter revenues. Even if paying for receiving an SMS is absolutely contrary to french practice.
That's easy to build:
- Just select from who we are willing to receive DM by sms.
- Just select the number of sms/amount we allow per week.
- Just select the credits we allow to be charged
- 100 sms mini for 3 euros max
- 50 sms mini for 2 euros max
that we can pay ... by taxed sms! No monthly subscription. When it is done, we can buy some again, or not. - Just put a simple button to enable/disable "I want/do not want to receive my selected DM via SMS".
Make it simple, make it easy and don't create a Shark fail, make it work! ;-)
And voila!
