Mobile Web, I don’t seem to be able to find it

Posted on September 21, 2007
Filed Under Uncategorized | | Written by Gary Reid

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We are getting close to beta testing the SMS plugin on the demo site.

It’s looking fantastic, you will be able to enable/disable whether users can

You will also be able to choose whether SMS usage is

There are lots of other features too.

A challenge we are working through right now is which SMS gateway, we’ve built the plugin using Clikatell’s gateway, their outbound charges are reasonable but inbound costs are high and they have a limited range of global numbers for inbound, such as UK, South Africa and USA.

After 3 days I’m still awaiting a response from them to clarify some of the possible routes to solve this.

In the meantime we have pressed on and also looked at alternatives. There seems to be a lot of small players who provide inbound sms but it’s difficult to gauge their reliability and some have really high costs.

Me thinks an opportunity to create a truly global two way sms gateway, anyone got a few million dollars, actually it may not even cost that much.

I can’t believe that SMS integration hasn’t moved up a gear in the last 5 years, the only ‘new wave’ service I could find was Zong, after reading through their site at midnight yesterday I was left feeling old and out of touch :) - must check back in daylight.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts

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Comments

4 Responses to “Mobile Web, I don’t seem to be able to find it”

  1. Karl on September 23rd, 2007 5:07 pm

    Hi Gary, nice blog
    Thinking of buying your “folkstr” micro social bloging script. but waiting for you to finish with plugin, can see you getting there, good work thank you.

    I have few questions regarding the SMS plugin, Have you tried Zong to see if they will be useful?

    it’s very important that the SMS inbound gateway be very cheap because some of us may be making it free, so in order to make service cheap the cost should very cheap (Almost free) to us. Any progress?

    When is the next release of Folkstr will introduce XFN include auto-sync of friends and export/import of user profile from and to other sites?

    hope to read your reply soon.

  2. Gary Reid on September 23rd, 2007 6:18 pm

    Hi Karl, we have been looking at Zong - probably as an alternative plugin rather than instead of the SMS plugin.

    I hear you about the pricing, we are looking at building our own wholesale sms gateway so that we can do just that and provide low cost sms.

    Once the sms plugin is released we will release the next update at the same time, with XFN (Folkstr side), then the import/export will follow very shortly.

  3. karl on October 1st, 2007 8:04 pm

    Hello Gari,
    Well i hope there is progress on SMS Integration?
    Anyway it just occured to me that it might be nice if you consider using/looking into Kannel open source SMS gateway (http://www.kannel.org) as an option for inbound SMS. and PlaySMS (http://playsms.sf.net)

    Because as you already know some people will be using your software in other countries and it will not be wise using a UK number when my service is designed for say India or China people. But with Kannel SMS and Wap Gateway, people will be able to get the shortcode for the local market they are in and use numbers/short code for that country.

    person like me, i will want users of mysite say in china to SMS My folkstr using micro blog using China short code and someone in India to Send in SMS using India Shortcode, This can be achived with Kannel while Outbound SMS can then go through other gateways like Clickatell

    Please also look into Kannel SMS and WAP Gateway (http://www.kannel.org) Or is the SMS Plugin designed in a way that can work with any SMS Gateway?

    I hope i am making sense?
    Please get back on that.

  4. Gary Reid on October 2nd, 2007 4:57 am

    Hi Karl, I hear you, there are lots of challenges regarding inbound (MO) SMS.

    As far as Folkstr is concerned you will be able to make changes and add your own gateway with the source code version and we will probably ship the plugin with a choice of 3 gateways.

    Kannel is just an open source gateway, it allows you to setup your own gateway, whereas the code in the Folkstr plugin is for connecting to a gateway. To setup Kannel as an inbound (MO) gateway you need access to an SMSC, virtual or dedicated numbers and or short codes. The costs for this can be very high, some people attach a GSM phone to Kannel and use it as an SMSC but this isn’t a commercial option.

    We have already negotiated a deal to provide our own gateway, which we are finishing development of right now. This will be available to Folkstr users as well as the wider development community. Our aim is to simplify inbound SMS for developers.

    As for inbound numbers, choice will always be small, very few mobile operators offer virtual numbers, which means most country code numbers have to be SIM hosted, very expensive. For some countries we had quotes of over $10,000 per number. Some have laws and regulations that don’t allow or make it difficult for inbound sms.

    So, it’s a balance of cost and ease of use, bearing in mind Twitter started with just a UK inbound number, Jaiku use a Finish number for international.

    In essence the Folkstr sms plugin will give you a wide choice of gateway options and the ability to add others, how much you want to invest in short codes, inbound numbers etc will be your choice, so if you can afford and need a short code for a specific country you will be able to do that.

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