For some time we’ve been looking at how our clients obtain, build and manage their lists of mobile numbers.

Most accumulate subscribers by asking people for their mobile number and  manually uploading the details into textburst.

This works well, but does require manual work to get the contacts loaded into textburst.

And it doesn’t easily allow the subscribers to opt out of the list. A person still has to call and request their removal, and in turn our customer has to login and delete the relevant person.

It’s all a bit cumbersome and littered with possibilities for error e.g. not dealing with an un-subscribe request.

What can we learn from email marketing?

Think about how email marketing lists work:

1. You add your email address on a form
2. You receive an email confirmation
3. To opt out you click a link at the bottom of an email

The whole process is fully automated and controlled by the person joining the list, it puts the end user in charge of their subscription, and makes it far easier for the list manager.

This has become the standard for email marketing and justifiably so. It’s quick, easy, requires no manual intervention, is fool proof, and very cheap.

Let’s do the same with SMS Marketing

To bring the same standards to SMS marketing we’ve made a few changes to our online SMS product textburst.

1. You can now login and set your own keyword or keywords on the shortcode 84433.
2. Configure your own automated responses.
3. To join your list a subscriber texts your keyword to 84433.
4. The subscriber receives an automated SMS response to confirm your subscription, and instructions of how to opt out in future.
5. To opt out a subscriber simply texts “STOP” to 84433 at any time. It’s fully automated.

So now a business owner can put up a sign, advertise, ask, or by however means they wish, advertise they offer an SMS marketing list.

All their clients do is send a text in to join the list, and send a text to leave.

Our clients can login to textburst, see how many and who’s in the list, and send text messages to everyone.

So what’s the big deal?

Auto responses and opt outs are nothing new in the SMS market, so what’s the big difference here?

First off, we’ve automated everything, from choosing your keyword to setting the auto response and managing opt outs.

And secondly, with this level of automation we can pass the savings onto our customers.

We will only charge you for the messages you send to the subscribers.

• Access to the shortcode is FREE
• Choose a keyword, or as many as you like FREE
• The auto response to the subscriber FREE (yes, a free text message)
• The opt out mechanism FREE

With this update you can actually now build a database of mobile numbers completely free of charge, the only time you’re charged is when you send out marketing information.

So now there’s no excuse, login to textburst, click “campaigns” and reserve your keyword for free.

OK so you can communicate in lots of different ways:  talking, writing, print, radio, TV, the internet, the mobile internet, email, texting, tweeting…

But whatever medium you choose, you’ve got to make sure you’re listening. If you’re broadcasting only, you can never know what people want from you.

Text messages get a 97% open rate and are amazingly responsive.

So if you want to do a mobile marketing campaign, send alerts or other staff and customer text updates, it’s just the thing. Especially as you can get replies in real time. What could be better?

How do I send text messages?

Go online and log into our user friendly web app, enter the mobile number you want to send to, pop your message in and send. That’s it.

If you’d like to send to a group rather than an individual, just upload their mobiles to a group from an excel or a csv file, select and send your message.

You can use textburst to send anything from 1 to 20,000 texts to your contacts in one go. It’s a flexible and astoundingly powerful marketing and communication tool.

All texts are 5p each and you can buy them as you need online.  Alternatively we can sort you out with an invoice/direct debit account. Whatever’s best for you.

How do I receive text messages?

You’ll need a virtual mobile number.

These are numbers that are added onto your online account rather than a mobile phone. They look like this ‘07123456789’ (just like any other mobile number).  They cost £25/month.

When your customers text your virtual mobile number, their message will go direct to your online account. You can see them and respond to immediately or download and analyse as you wish.

Incredibly easy to add to your account, just email me and I’ll sort it out for you.

2 Way SMS

If you want to keep in close fuss free touch with people, there’s no better way than via their mobile and 2 way SMS.

We first noticed that textburst pages would occasionally freeze a few days before before Christmas and released a temporary fix that solved it for 99% of users.

Unfortunately as with most temporary fixes it wasn’t 100% effective so we’ve been investigating the root cause since getting back from the holidays.

After many, many hours digging through tens of thousands of lines of log files (it’s amazing how much logging a debug mode can create) and tweaking code here and there we at last found the cause yesterday afternoon. And two lines of code later it’s fixed.

For the technically inclined here’s a little more information:

Textburst runs on four web servers, these are set up as two load balanced pairs, one in Derby and one in Manchester. To ensure users stay logged in when switching between servers we store our session data in a MySQL database.

Our MySQL based session store is a slightly tweaked version of the MySQL session state provider which is in turn based on the Microsoft sample session state provider.

Unfortunately it turns out both of these have a bug when handling concurrent connections.

How things are supposed to work

When a page is requested it should should check to see if the session is currently locked by another page, wait until it’s free and then obtain the session data, along with a lock if the page wants write access and then increment an internal Lock ID by one which is used to make sure the same request is locking and unlocking the session.

What was actually happening

Requests that wanted read/write access to the session worked exactly as expected, however read-only sessions missed the all important step of waiting until the session was free and simply incremented the Lock ID. This meant that if a read-only request was processed in between the lock and unlock phase of a read/write request it would never be unlocked causing the next read/write request to freeze.

Luckily the ASP.NET session code is designed for this eventuality and after 110 seconds the stuck lock is forcibly removed, unfortunately our users were stuck waiting for this to happen while everything appeared to be frozen.

Our fix

We’ve updated the session provider to always wait until the session is free. To help out others with similar problems we’ve added this as a comment on the Microsoft sample and will be filing a bug report with MySQL shortly.

During that period everything will work just fine, the techies will be monitoring the platform, online purchasing will be up and running and you can send texts till your hearts content.

If you do need to contact us during Christmas send an email to hello@mediaburst.co.uk or submit a support ticket.

The mailbox and support system will be checked in on in the morning, lunch time, and evenings, hence it may take a little longer to respond than normal.

If all else fails you can email the boss (me, Gary) on gary@mediaburst.co.uk.

(But not for you recruitment consultant. Sorry, but you’re not in our plans, so don’t contact us about this.)

Our SMS API is shipping faster than ever before. Florence, our healthcare app is gaining momentum in the NHS. Textburst is finding an audience like never before, and we’ve got a completely new app on the cards.

But, arhhhh!

We just can’t find the time to do all the stuff we really want to do. We need some help, and you might be what we need.

What we’re ideally looking for is a web app developer.

You need to have some (not necessarily loads of) relevant qualifications and experience.

You definitely need to know some languages and frameworks, not necessarily these, but things like PHP, c#, .Net, Ruby.

Knowledge of MySQL or similar database will also be looked upon favourably.

We’re also big fans of wordpress and have a number of plugins available to our clients. If you know wordpress then you’re already in our good books.

But most important is your desire to get involved in something. We’re not just tapping lines of code out, we’re making products that people use every day of their working life. Your ideas and desire to make things better are what we want, they’re more valuable than your qualifications.

So if you live and breathe the web, spend your spare time dreaming of quirky web apps, playing with open source software or mashing API’s on programmable web, then we need to hear from you.

You can help us

What’s it like to work at mediaburst?

None of us at mediaburst are here to pass the time of day and collect the cheque.

Coming to work is a pleasure, we enjoy what we do. We want to make our products better, gain new customers and take good care of the existing ones.

We’re not here until the wee hours, you’ve got a social life and we respect that. We also don’t want you to wear a suit and tie unless you really want to, but then again, if you did, you probably wouldn’t fit in.

Our office is completely open plan, there are no walls or secrecy, you can chip in if you like and share your thoughts. We want you to make a difference to the things we do and the stuff we sell, you can’t do that well unless you know what’s going on.

We don’t have accolades like Investors in People, or bureaucratic review procedures. If you want something then ask, if you have a problem, speak up.

Salary

Yes we’ll pay you, but the internet is no place to discuss financial arrangements, let’s discuss in private.

How to apply

Get the ball rolling by sending us an email. Tell us about yourself, include your CV if you like, show us your twitter or facebook or last FM or Google+ or whatever you’re on or into.

Send us a link to any projects you’ve been involved in or sites you’ve developed.

And, yeah, let’s talk.

hello@mediaburst.co.uk

We rank about 3 on Google for the search term “first ever text message sent“, just behind Wikipedia, so we picked up a bit of traffic.

I wonder if you can optimise for future questions!?

They’re dead easy to use and fast to set up.

A virtual mobile number routes text messages so you receive them online and into textburst.  It’s 11 digits long and looks just like a standard mobile number 07123456789.  It routes SMS from your customers mobile through the networks and direct to your textburst account to download, analyse and respond to.

It’s a pretty tasty bit of kit for any mobile marketer.

You can use it to set up inbound text marketing campaigns and listen to what your customer’s got to say.

 Why do I need a virtual mobile number?

1. So people can text into it and sign up for special offers.
2. Maybe you’ve sent an appointment reminder out to me. I can’t actually make the appointment. How quick would it be if I could just hit reply and text you so to save you a bit of time and money?
3. A text to confirm delivery tomorrow afternoon?  I’m still not available, and a simple text back to say so and confirm when I will be, would be neat.
4. A text vote – the fastest way to get a vote in and easily counted.
5. Request for customer service feedback by SMS.
6. Competitions.

OK there’s a lot more too but you get the picture. If you can think of any suitably astounding uses, I might even send you a beautiful mediaburst mug (they’re pretty hot property).

If you really want to engage and help your customers, it’s got to be a two way conversation.Virtual mobile numbers let your audience text you within seconds. They can tell you what they want right now.

There’s some cool ideas here of how you can use virtual mobiles to build an SMS marketing database of your customers numbers.

How can I set one up?

If you’re interested in finding out more about virtual mobile numbers and how they can help you, then drop me a line.  If you’d like to get one set up on your account I can sort it out for you too.

We asked a free form question so we’d get the information in their own words. Then, we put the results into wordle.net.

Interesting eh?

This year I’m starting earlier and getting organised!

I know it’s only Mid November but in this article I’ve have gathered some ideas to help you generate additional business and customer loyalty during the festive period.

1. Send your party invites

Christmas is a time for partying, but arranging the annual work do can be hard going. This Christmas I’m going to send my invites out by SMS. It’s quick and easy to do, and best thing is you can get an instant RSVP back.

2. Send a greeting card

Writing Christmas cards takes ages. Each year I get the fancy pens out and spend hours perfecting my handwriting. This year I want to do something a bit different. Everyone’s got a mobile so I am going to use MMS to send a greeting card, maybe a picture, or a classic Crimbo tune. It’s more personal and saves trees!

3. Personalise your messages

For some it has been a long and tough year. If like me you are feeling festive put a smile on someone’s face by sending them a personalised Christmas wish by text message. Come on, join in, spread the joy of Christmas.

4. Request a catalogue

I love shopping and I’m already thinking about what gifts to buy. For retailers it’s the busiest time of year and many will produce a Christmas catalogue or brochure. But how do your customers get them? How about texting a shortcode (e.g. text “XMAS” to receive our free Xmas catalogue) with their name and address and send one straight to their door.

5. Issue mobile vouchers

Christmas can be so expensive and many of us will be watching the pennies. Wouldn’t it be nice to receive one directly to your mobile from your favourite store?

If you’re planning a Christmas promotion you could send a special code by SMS. It’s a great way of driving people in store or online.

6. Circulate opening times

During the countdown to Christmas it’s work is so busy it’s difficult to fit everything in. That;s why most shops stay open later leaving your weekends free to spend time catching up with friends and family. So if you’re changing your opening hours this Christmas make sure you let your customers know by sending them a text message!

7. Inform people about closures

Last winter was a nightmare! I struggled to get my son to Nursery in the morning only to find it was closed! If only they had sent me a text. If you had to close your business due to snow how would you tell everyone?

Don’t delay, the cold weather is on its way!

8. Keep your customers updated

House bound by the snow last year I did most of my Christmas shopping online. I waited for that special party outfit, but I had no idea when it would arrive. A few more days, more snow and I phoned the retailer to chase it up.

You can reduce calls to your contact centre and keep your customers happy by sending them regular delivery status updates by SMS.

9. Promote a text to win

How about continuing the Xmas sales uplift into the New Year with a post Christmas promotion. Maybe a point of sale or an on pack text to win, giving your consumers the chance to win some fabulous prizes.

10. Take some photos

I never take my camera out anymore. Now I have an iPhone I send my pics to friends using MMS or upload them to Facebook.

If you don’t have a smartphone you can use your mobile to take photos at your Christmas party and send them straight Twitter using Snappr.

11. Collect some data

I never stick to my New Year’s resolution but this is one I think you should, more Mobile Marketing!

With all the additional custom during the Christmas period it’s by far the best time to ask for customers mobile numbers for future marketing campaigns.

12. Confirm bookings

Things to do at Christmas: holidays, weekends away, pantos, concerts, meals out, haircuts. Once it’s booked get them confirmed and make sure they turn up by sending a text message.

If you’re still stuck for ideas then get in touch, or maybe just call to say Happy Christmas!

We’d fought off competition from a plethora of iphone apps by the likes of Tesco, Manchester City FC, Racing Post, and Waitrose.

Apparently the standard of entry was exceptionally high but Florence stood out way beyond the competition.

I guess no matter how cool your iphone app is, or what latest trendy technologies you use, you can’t beat the simplicity of SMS, and you can’t beat savings lives.

Happy days!

As we were re-writing it we took the chance to make a few other changes too, don’t worry though, if you’re already using the API we haven’t changed anything, all the old URLs and parameters will still work.

Url Changes

From now on all API addresses are on api.mediaburst.co.uk rather than sms.message-platform.com, we feel it makes more sense as you can instantly tell it’s the mediaburst API.

All examples now use SSL for added security, you’re still able to turn it off though.
We have no plans to disable the old sms.message-platform.com.

So the URL for sending through our simple HTTP API becomes https://api.mediaburst.co.uk/http/send.aspx

Delivery Receipts

We’ve renamed a few of the merge parameters for consistency, when you send a text message you use the To parameter for the mobile number, and now the delivery receipt will too. Don’t worry though all the old names still work.

Simple HTTP API

We’ve clarified which features are available through the HTTP API. If you want advanced features they’re all available through the XML interface.

Our new simple parameter list now consists of:

• Username
• Password
• To
• Content
• From (Optional – Message originator)
• Long (Optional – Allow up to 459 characters)

Email to SMS address changes

Again to tidy things up, we’ve changed all email to SMS email addresses to use mediaburst.co.uk rather than message-platform.com.

The new addresses are:

1. The humble SMS increased by 24% in 2010, to an amazing 129.1 billion texts.
2. Nearly 80% of adults in the UK text every day.
3. 66% of people have their mobile switched on even when in bed. (That figure goes up to a staggering 81% for adult smartphone users).
4. 1/3rd of adults use smartphones, but that means 2/3rds are currently using standard mobiles.
5. However, smartphone adoption is high and accounts for 48% of new sales.
6. Interestingly 65% of the growing smartphone audience opt to receive offers on their mobiles.
7. The favoured channel for receiving mobile offers is via SMS.  75% prefer SMS as opposed to other mobile channels like mobile internet or apps.

Sources: 1-5 Ofcom Communications Market Report 2011, 6,7 Mobile Marketing Infographic via YouGov and Upstream

Prior to these plugins the applications we’ve developed rely on the sender of the text message to input the mobile phone number, just as you do when you’re sending a text message from your mobile phone. You, as the sender, type in the recipients number.

This is generally foolproof because the sender has an inherent understanding of the number format required to send the text message.

With an eCommerce plugin we have another party to consider. The purchaser or “receiver” of the text message is the one who inputs their mobile number.

And they do so without any knowledge of the format the store owner needs to actually send the text message.

e.g. ask someone to fill in a form with their UK mobile number and you’ll get things like:

07741234567

07741 234567

07741 234 567

447741234567

447741 234567

+447741234567

44(0)7741234567

and so on, I think you get the picture.

Couple this with the international reach of most eCommerce applications and you’ve got people from all over the world inputting mobile numbers in all sorts of formats, and both the purchaser and their store owners expecting to receive text messages.

The answer is relatively simple, we need to convert any mobile number into a valid international format. That way we’ll have consistency in the data and our SMS API can route the messages to the appropriate country.

Here’s how we currently do it:

To do this you’ll need a table of international dialling codes. We use one hacked together from Wikipedia. Here’s the PHP code.

1. Strip out any leading zeros.
2. Remove any numbers within parentheses
3. Strip any spaces or non numeric characters.
4. Take the country of residence of the purchaser. If the purchaser didn’t input a country then use the store default, and look this up on the table of dialling codes.
5. If the mobile number starts with the dialling code then great, you’re good to go.
6. If not then add the dialling code to the start of the number, and then your good to go.

We are aware that this could be improved.

For instance, if the number starts with a ‘+’ then we could take it that the user has already supplied the country code.

We could also do this if the number starts with ’00′. That is for the UK though, other countries have other codes to dial an international number.

We will be looking at improving the process as we go on.

In the face of a credit crunch and global recession, achieving success in the competitive world of residential property lettings is no mean feat. Ali Baylav, MD of Cavendish Lettings, Nottingham tells us how he does it.

Take a specialist approach

Ali set up Cavendish Lettings in 2006, working with private and corporate landlords, in particular those who had suffered problems letting and managing their portfolios. Cavendish Lettings take a specialist approach, guiding Landlords through increasing legislation and helping them land long term lets on maximum rents.

“We’ve got twelve staff focused on one service. We don’t act as sales agents, if someone wants to sell their property we’ll recommend a good estate agent. We’re about letting properties, that’s our expertise and we stick to it. That’s what gives us the edge, we’re not dabbling in everything chasing different agendas.”

Manage lettings with Gemini Software

Right from the start, Ali used VTUK’s Gemini software to manage their Lettings. With over 220 landlords, 350 properties and 800 tenants, they’re not dealing with the kind of numbers you can manage on a spreadsheet.

“It’s an excellent piece of software; we’d be lost without it. We’ve grown from nothing to over 350 properties and Gemini’s been with us all the way, it’s particularly good for communication. It’s not easy staying in touch with so many different people, there’s a lot of ‘FYI’ stuff to get out there. For example; confirmations of viewings, letting people know repairs are happening or what time a contractor will arrive, new availability, the list is endless, just lots and lots of good information.

Use SMS to communicate

We picked up on the SMS functions early on. We noticed this box that said ‘SMS’, rang up tech support and they got us going. Now we send everything by text, you just can’t beat that instant connection, and it’s a lot less intrusive”

Ali is relaxed about mobile phones. Cavendish Lettings use email just like we all do, but they understand that not everyone is sitting at a PC or carrying the latest smartphone.

“We actually text landlords to let them know we’ve sent an email, if feels counter intuitive but it’s actually complimentary. We get a response to the email much quicker if we send a text.”

“Both Landlords and Tenants want to know everything that’s going on, you can’t ring everyone, you’d need a full call centre. That’s why SMS is so valuable, it’s a fundamental part of our business.”

Refreshing news

It’s always refreshing to speak to a business that has prospered through a recession, and it’s great to think that our SMS service has helped Cavendish Lettings achieve just that.

This one produced by smsglobal highlights mobile messaging stats and facts for 2011. The highlight for me was obvious but, a mobile coupon is 10 times more likely to be redeemed than an equivalent in the mail.

Preamble:

It’s very basic really, you set up Contact Form 7 to send and email to mediaburst’s email to SMS function and it’s automatically converted to SMS and sent to the relevant network/ mobile phone.

I’ll assume you have Contact Form 7 installed and have a mediaburst SMS API account. If not, then you’ll need to do those tasks first.

The Setup:

So here we go, Contact Form 7 SMS, you’ll need to include

• The destination mobile phone number in the “To” field as part of an email address as follows: 07741234567@sms.message-platform.com
• Your email address in the “From” field. The one you signed up to mediaburst with. We need this to identify the incoming email.
• Your mediaburst API password in the “Subject” line.
• The text message content in the email body (ideally less than 160 characters).

You can see this in action here.

I’ve used the Mail (2) section of Contact Form 7 because I only want summarised information sent via SMS to my mobile, the full contact form submission is still sent via email as usual.

And the second answer is also “Yes”. Mediaburst can send the message to just about any country in the world, just make sure you prefix your mobile number with the relevant international dialling code.

And that’s how to set up Contact Form 7 SMS, couldn’t be easier.

In theory you could concatenate 255 SMS to produce one long SMS, but in practice this is likely to crash a mobile phone, incur significant costs, and annoy the recipient.

Our statistics show that most long SMS contain less than 306 characters (the limit of 2 concatenated SMS), and very few exceed 459 (3 concatenated SMS). For this reason both our web application textburst and our SMS API allow you to send up to 3 SMS that can make up a single long SMS.

If you’re looking for a more in depth technical discussion then refer to our article on Concatenating SMS. It covers the technical requirements and use of the UDH (user data header) to form the long SMS.

For this graphic we’re focusing on shopping environment and how retailers need to consider mobile habits of their customers. We can see massive increases of people scanning bar codes, SMS being the most used application (as always), and a quadrupling of purchases made from mobile phones.

Why not a nice round 100 or 200? Such an arbitrary figure on the face of it.

It’s all down to a German guy called Friedhelm Hillebrand.

It was a different world then. It was 1985, back in the day, before computers were everywhere (I just about remember them..).  Friedhelm typed out random sentences on a typewriter and then counted.  He discovered the average sentence was almost always less than 160 characters. When postcards were looked at they often contained fewer than 150 characters too.

160 came out as ‘the’ number ‘perfectly sufficient’ he thought.

Why the limitation Friedhelm?

Text messaging was originally an afterthought to voice calls, and was bolted onto a bit of spare bandwidth. There wasn’t much of that bandwidth around so there was a cap to how much could be fitted in.

In fact the developers had to work really hard to make it more than 128 characters and only managed it by limiting the character set and symbols available to put in your text. You will notice even today if you put a € sign in your SMS it will take up two character spaces of you 160 allowance.

What happened next?

It went global from one message in 1985 to billions today

As a knock on effect he’s also the reason why your tweets are 140 characters.

Twitter always accounted for people updating  via the 160 character text message. To keep users phone bills down and to stop multiple text’s being sent by mistake, Twitters engineers limited Tweets at 140, to leave room for a username at the front of the Tweet

Was a 160 character SMS right?

Friedhelm had a puzzle to solve, a meaningful amount of words were wanted to make an SMS worthwhile and understandable. He only had a small packet to fit them into.  In essence, the answer to why are sms 160 characters is because they fit.

Friedhelm made a pretty good call on 160, there are billions of people a year texting so.

If you want to beat the system and know how to get a longer text message out there check out concatenated SMS.

We’re not just talking about getting notified by SMS when you receive new tickets, you can configure a wide range of events to trigger the SMS. Maybe changes in ticket status or when a ticket is assigned to you. Pretty handy if you run a small company and can’t be sat in front of a screen on a permanent basis.

I’ll run through a basic set up here, but if you need any assistance just give us a call.

I’ll assume you have a Zendesk account, if you haven’t already you’ll also need a mediaburst SMS API account.

Zendesk SMS Setup

First you need to setup the target in Zendesk:

Under the ‘SETTINGS‘ menu item select ‘Extensions‘.

Click the tab ‘Targets‘ and then ‘add target‘.

You’ll be given a load of options, you want the one titled ‘URL Target‘.

You now have a set of options that looks like this:

Title: We called ours “mediaburstsms” but feel free to call it what you want.

Url: We’ll come back to this in a second.

Method: select ‘GET’

Attribute Name: type the word ‘Content‘ into this box.

Url: The Url field is where the most important info goes including:

• your username and password for the Mediaburst SMS API, and
• the mobile phone number where the notifications will be sent to

You need to copy and paste the following line of code, but replace some parts with your security information. Don’t worry you don’t need to be techy, just read through the code and replace:

YourMediaburstUsername

YourMediaburstPassword

YourMobilePhoneNumber

Replace these words only, nothing before or after them, don’t replace any ‘=’ or ‘&’, literally just those words above.

Here’s the code:

http://sms.message-platform.com/http/send.aspx?Username=YourMediaburstUsername&Password=YourMediaburstPassword&To=YourMobilePhoneNumber&From=Zendesk

Once you have put this code in the Url field you should be able to select ‘Test target‘ and you’ll receive a test SMS.

Save the settings before you click away from this page.

Now you’ll need to set some triggers i.e. events that will give rise to an SMS being triggered. You’ll find them in Zendesk in the main menu under ‘MANAGE‘, then ‘Triggers‘ and ‘mail notifications‘.

I set up a trigger to notify me when we receive a new ticket. To make the information more useful I’ve included the requesters name and the subject field in the SMS.

Here’s a screen shot of my trigger configuration, and the resulting SMS.

And that’s it, I accept the URL mechanism isn’t the most user-friendly for non techies but it’s flexible and, as I said above, if you need any help then give us a call.

It’s interesting to see 83% use their phone to take pictures. You can imagine how this fuels the rise of photo sharing, and how imagery seems to be so prevalent on social networks.

Here’s how to add in an originator with a couple of simple moves:

Decide on your originator:

1. It needs to be 11 characters max if it’s an alpha, or 12 max if numeric.
2. You can send from either a name, for instance a company or promotion name, or a mobile number if you want to get replies.
3. We advise not to use spaces or punctuation in your from field, some handsets don’t read them very well.

Check out additional information on originators if you are sending SMS internationally.

Add your originator:

1. Enter the originator into your request, using the ‘from’ parameter
2. Here’s a sample HTTP request using “mediaburst” as the originator:

http://sms.message-platform.com/http/send.aspx?Username=my_user&Password=my_pass&To=441234567890&From=mediaburst&Content=Hello

And that’s it.

Setting a default originator:

If you’re feeling tired of all that coding, you can ask us to set a default originator for you. The default will be used if you don’t complete the ‘from’ field in a request.

Just email hello@mediaburst.co.uk and we’ll sort it out.  You can override the default by specifying the ‘from’ parameter on those occasions you’d like your text to be from something different.

All in all, easy to set, and easy to change.

But if only people would have a touch more consideration when using their phones. I personally only ever use vibrate mode for incoming calls and get particularly hacked off when people leave their ring tones on max volume when they’re on the train.

It’s a mashup of both electronics and a C# application that accesses the mediaburst SMS API. The result is a text message being sent to his mobile every time the door is opened. Simple, but effective.

You can read the full details and spec on Damien’s blog

If you know if any creative uses of our SMS API then get in touch and we’ll do a write up.

It’s called Snappr and lets you send photos to twitter via MMS. We’ve launched a product website with full details here MMS to twitter.

We did some research and were surprised to see only Orange currently offering a similar service to their UK customers.  Twitter don’t do anything directly with MMS, although I imagine it’ s on their radar.

We’d love to expand this worldwide, we know how to do it, but you’ve got to start small, and hence, we’ve included all UK networks utilising our shortcode 84433.

Try it for yourself:

Text PIC (followed by your twitpic email address) to 84433 to register.

We didn’t want to get involved in image hosting, the legalities for one thing are both a nightmare and a hot topic. As twitter don’t provide image hosting our project submits photos to twitpic who in turn post the tweet.

There’s been a huge rise in photo orientated social media applications, facebook and flickr have clearly paved the way but more innovative applications like instagram and hipstamatic are on the rise as more people get into photo sharing.

Snappr is our attempt to jump on the bandwagon by making it easy for you to tweet a photo no matter what phone you have or where you are.

So there it is, you can now take a photo and send it to twitter via MMS.

We hope you find it useful.

Some case studies need no editing, this is what Simon said, word for word.

“I realised a short while ago that the HTML sales e-mails I have been sending to our inactive clients have ended up being caught by their spam filters so thought I would try contacting the same client list using SMS and came across Mediaburst.

The process was simple, I uploaded names & numbers from Excel and sent a short message offering a discount to 500 clients and within just a few hours of sending we had over 10 confirmed bookings, not bad for a cost of £25!

Shortly after one of their (mediaburst) account managers contacted me to offer assistance should I need any. Could not be happier with my experience, I will certainly be using them for our next campaign, thanks Mediaburst!”

Naturally we want to expand this valuable SMS project but with healthcare there are steps you have to take, you can’t expect to launch a system that medical staff and patients can rely upon without some kind of 3rd party validation or independent assessment.

In the case of Florence The Institute of Digital Healthcare based at Warwick university will be conducting the evaluation.

The evaluation project is being led by Jeremy Wyatt, an experienced hand who’s worked in health informatics for 25 years. His research explores use of evidence and new models of care to innovate in clinical practice.

Using SMS for healthcare is so cheap yet effective that we’re confident Florence will fit the bill.

To help us understand the Institutes’s approach we asked Jeremy a few questions:

Have Warwick evaluated any other significant telehealth systems?

Yes, we have looked at a number of telemedicine and similar systems, eg. teledermatology to reduce unnecessary clinic referrals and an instant messenger channel to communicate with NHSDirect nurses. We are also looking at telestroke in Scotland and persuasive web sites for promoting exercise and the NHS Organ Donation register.

What in particular interests you about Florence?

The fact that it is quick and easy for people to sign up to with almost no technology, is very flexible, and is strongly supported by West Midlands NHS.

What approach will you take to evaluating Florence?

We always try to match our evaluation approach to the questions or decisions that need to be made. In this case, the key questions are around acceptability and impact on the use of GPs and other services.

We are starting with a simple form for every patient using Florence and their community based nurse to fill out, and will then validate the responses with data collected by Florence and by the West Midlands data warehouse. We will also planning some specific studies around certain patient groups, aiming to explore the different methods Florence uses to alert care givers.

We’re confident Florence will pass with flying colours, so as soon as the evaluation is complete we’ll let you know the results.

Hopefully we can assist. Each Monday we’ll be publishing the best infographics we’ve stumbled across,  they’ll have every statistic you could ever need and cover everything from SMS to QR codes, from apps to txt spk, and the odd splattering of humour.

1st is this little beauty from Upstream in association with YouGov.

Since VTUK introduced SMS into their apps, hundreds of estate agents have embraced text messaging to run more efficient offices. Caroline’s run’s Alphabet City and has become an advocate of text messaging, it’s had such a positive effect on their business you can’t help but take notice.

So we spoke to Caroline to see what we could learn:

How was the transition to SMS?

Very smooth, all our tenants and prospects are happy to leave a mobile number for contact. People lead busy lives, traditional mail is too slow, with email you’re fighting to get noticed amongst the endless stream of work emails and spam. That’s why SMS is a winner, it’s so immediate it works perfectly.

We started using SMS to notify of rent arrears. In a short space of time it’s revolutionised how we collect rent. No more postal reminders and chasing by phone. We send polite text message reminders to everyone who misses a payment.

Most have genuine reasons for late payment, they tend to ring us within 30 minutes apologising and pay on the phone. We know we have a problem with the ones that don’t call, and that’s where we focus attention.

Managing arrears in this way is the most efficient we’ve ever been, the money comes in quicker and we identify and focus on problems with ease, we couldn’t work like this without SMS.

The bonus with SMS is reviewing and due diligence, we have a record of every text message, they’re only short bursts of information, it’s easy to go back over the account to get a full picture.

How else do you use SMS for the business?

We use SMS to match tenants to new listings. To be successful you have to get quality tenants into properties as quickly as possible. We’ll normally match a new property with 15 to 30 applicants and send a single SMS blast.

It’s amazing to think before SMS we’d ring around individually, 30 phone calls would be your whole day, now it’s a 5 minute job. Even better those that are interested will contact us immediately. Seriously, we can identify a list of genuinely interested prospective tenants within an hour of listing a property.

It’s these small things that add up to competitive advantage, both our tenants and landlords receive top class communication, we keep them all happy.

Any tips for anyone considering SMS?

It’s definately the most direct form of communication and gets instant results, the advantages are obvious. So I’d say stop worrying, just give it a go.

If you’re interested to know more about how Estate Agents use SMS then you can also read about how Walton Robinson use SMS to Boost profits.

VTUK integrated SMS by using the mediaburst SMS API.

Do you use mediaburst for SMS and have an interesting story to tell? Get in touch, let’s do a case study.

It certainly indicates we need more information on the website about our international credentials, but while we prepare something here’s a taster:

Basically sending internationally is as easy as sending to UK destinations, you just need the international prefix (e.g. 44) on the mobile phone number. Line your messages up and watch them deliver round the world. They’ll be just as happy zipping down the road and to the next city too.

Get the code

There’s plenty of useful stuff in our SMS API code kits that will help you with integrating. There’s C#, PHP, Perl, ASP plus a Ruby Gem if that’s your thing.

If you need expert help, we’ve got that too. Our techies have years of experience.  They’re also the guys watching your back and maintaining our platform 24/7.

A couple of tips for you

1. Some international networks block alpha originators or company names.  Use the ‘from’ field parameter to set a numeric originator when sending outside the UK.
2. Just use the international country code. There’s no need for the ’00′ or ‘+’ with our SMS API

Any questions, just let us know, always here to help.

Out there in the real world:

7am –  I’m on auto pilot getting ready for work. My phone’s bleeps. It’s a text message to remind me about a dental appointment first thing. OMG, glad I said yes to that alert service… else I’d have forgotten….

Later that same day:

7pm – John’s been out all day and is hungry for some substantial food (possibly a curry).  His phone pings a new text:

‘Free starters with any main meal at the Gorgeous Food Restaurant’.

He’s pretty chuffed because he opted in to receive offers by text from this restaurant.. he’s off to get some food.

Take it easy

Textburst scheduling is a boon for anyone who’s thinking about when their customer wants to receive alerts and updates by text.

You just book the slot (date and time) when you set up your text message.

It all seems really straight forward and that’s because it is. Textburst makes it easy for you.

Just click into schedule

NB   No text messages were harmed in the creation of this blog. Textburst is happily sending text messages for people just like you right now.

This time 160characters, the SMS and mobile messaging association has selected us from an international line up to win the prestigious “Effective Use of Mobile Messaging for Healthcare”.

This is the first time Florence has been put into a global award scenario, entries were literally from all around the world so taking a prize was no mean feat.

We also got a “highly commended” in the Innovation in Messaging category.

Here are the winners logo’s:

What’s particularly cool is, this is the second award for Florence in a single week, having scooped the award for “Best Public Sector Project” at the Big Chip Awards last Thursday. In the case of the Big Chip Awards we were up against not only SMS Providers but also digital agencies from all over the North of England.

As I always say, we’re not in this for the awards, but undoubtedly recognition from your peers is a great motivator and will help spur us onto even greater wins, which, in this case is improving patient lives and saving the NHS heaps of money.

So a glittering prize studded week at mediaburst, happy days!

This is great news for us, although we don’t work for awards, gaining recognition in this way is a welcome pat on the back, and helps motivate us through the next stages of development.

We fought off stiff competition but ultimately the judges loved our application  and could see the benefits it brings to both patients and clinicians in the NHS. The judges said of Florence:

“The winner in the Best Public Sector category is a deceptively simple yet innovative application of SMS technology, which delivers significant cost-saving benefits to the commissioning client and potentially life-saving benefits to its users.”

It’s still very early days for Florence but we’ve already managed to signup 14 primary care trusts, and as their patients start using the system we’ll have success stories to share of not only big savings for the NHS but also quality of life improvements for their patients.

And to top it all off, I received a note from the 160 Characters organisation just this morning to say we’ve been short listed for their Global Messaging Awards too, fingers crossed there’ll be more recognition to come.

Here’s some photos from the night.

How does it work?

We simply maintain an access database against your account and block anything outside of your named range. It might not be the most exciting thing, but it could be crucial.

For an added level of security, you can also set your system to allow our named range of IP’s for the mediaburst SMS API, which are as follows:

CIDR                                      Netmask                              Address Range

89.248.48.192/27              255.255.255.224                89.248.48.192 – 89.248.48.223

217.20.43.96/27                255.255.255.224                217.20.43.96 – 217.20.43.127

How do I lock it down?

Just send us an email to hello@mediaburst.co.uk with your account details and your named IP ranges and we’ll do the rest.

If you’re constantly out of the office or away from your computer then receiving your email on your phone is pretty handy, particularly if it comes in as an SMS because it’ll simply pop up on your screen, vibrate in your pocket, play Crazy Frog, or in general do what ever your phone does when you get an SMS, it’s a matter personal preference.

Users of smartphones may be reading this wondering why you’d want to receive emails as SMS. Well despite all the media hype not everyone has the latest smartphone, and even then some people do prefer SMS.

So, lets look at Outlook Mobile Service and their “Mobile Notification” settings.

Mobile Notifications will forward incoming Outlook items as a text message (SMS). Here’s a run down of the functionality:

Firstly, the settings are located in your Outlook Options, under the “Mobile” item.

In Outlook 2010 it looks like this:

Next up is selecting “Forward Outlook Items”, the button handily says “Configure Forwarding”.

Click it and you get the full options.

Using these options you can:

1. Set the phone number. You can send the SMS to any phone; yours, your mums, the bosses, any. It could be handy when your on holiday to have certain emails forwarded to you or your boss.

2. Select whether you want Outlook to forward any meeting requests or updates to existing meetings in your calender.

3. Specify which emails should be forward as SMS messages.

For this you have a fairly wide choice of settings. You can run with receiving all emails, or configure something more complex that only sends the most important.

“When my Name is”

You can select to only receive those emails you are a direct recipient of i.e. you can eliminate all those pesky CC’s you get every day that clutter your inbox. You can even select to receive the SMS if you are the ONLY recipient of the email. This will eliminate all those non-urgent company wide emails or general updates.

“From People or A Public Group”

Now you can get really specific here. This is where, if you’re expecting a certain customer or prospect to email you, maybe you’re are waiting to hear you won a multi million contract, or have a particularly sensitive client or member of staff. Yep, you can add them in and you’ll get an SMS the minute they email.

“With Specific Words in the Message Subject”

Maybe you’ve an ongoing legal battle with a case reference, or have a specific project name that’s always included in the email subject. Include this field and again you’ll get an SMS as soon as an email comes in.

“Marked with High Importance”

Tread with caution here, this option opens you to abuse by the very people sending you emails.

It’s the sender who marks emails as high importance, and what is important to them may not be to you. So tread with caution on this and certainly don’t tell anyone if you do configure it, or they’ll know exactly how to get an SMS to you, no matter where or what you are doing.

Further Reading

You may also be interested in learning How to Receive Calender Appointment Reminders by SMS.

So here’s what the new “send page” looks like: (click the image to enlarge it)

and here’s what it used to look like:

Yep, I know, not massively different, the changes are subtle, but we hope lead to the application feeling just that little bit more friendly to use.

Improved campaigns screen

The most significant change is on the “Campaigns” screen where users of keywords and shortcodes will now see an improved summary of their results. This includes information such as the total number of subscribers, how many have unsubscribed, and a pretty graph which provides an “at a glance” view of what’s happening.

Here’s a screen shot of the improved campaigns screen:

We hope you like the improvements, everything we do is orientated around making textburst simple to understand and easy to use. So do send us your feedback and let us know what you think?

Coming soon…

And finally, we don’t normally go for teasers but this design update is a precursor for some new functionality in the coming months. We’re very excited about the next update because we’ll be offering something no other SMS provider currently offers and will have huge appeal to you SMS marketeers out there…stay tuned.

The idea is that by collecting a database of subscribers we are obtaining their prior permission before we actually send them any marketing information. It means the people you send to will already know you, they have already told you they are interested in what you have to say. It’s called permission marketing, loads of books have been written on the subject, if you want one try Permission Marketing by Seth Godin.

If you signed up to our 4 part beginners guide to SMS marketing then I apologise in advance, some of this may sound familiar.

Don’t buy them

Don’t be tempted to  part with money for a list of mobile phone numbers. Purchasing a list of mobile numbers and then sending out messages is regarded as spam.

Nobody wants to receive spam, expect to receive text responses containing a range of four letter swear words; don’t expect to get any new customers.

By way of an example, we know a charity who bought 40,000 mobile numbers.

With a modest 1% response rate you might expect 400 new donors.

But, alas no, they got ONE.

And complaints, they got thousands. Messages like, “Where did you get my mobile number?” and “Do not send me anymore SMS, ever!”

They also got a heap of complaints via phone, some rang their network providers and complained, who in turn spoke to the charity. Dealing with the fall out was messy, don’t fall into the same trap.

The short and long is this: No matter whom you are or how cool your offer is, unless they know who you are they don’t want it.

And let’s face it, is it not better to be talking to people who’re interested in what you have to say?

Put a notice up

This is very obvious method number one.

Signup for some SMS marketing software and get what we call a long number (some call it a virtual mobile number. It’s just a mobile number).

Now go and put a sign up, nothing fancy and expensive. Just print something on a sheet of A4, if you don’t have a printer then a chunky marker and the back of some junk mail will do.

What you write is this, or something like it:

“To receive cool offers from us just send a text to: 07712 345 678″

(Obviously replace long number with then one you got with your SMS marketing software)

Stick the notice somewhere people will see it. Maybe on a wall behind a counter, in front of the till, on card on the table, on the menu, on the receipt, on your website, just somewhere it can be read by as many people as possible.

Now sit back and wait.

People will text in, put that notice somewhere prominent, you’ll be surprised.

Everyone who texts in will be recorded in your SMS software, and hey presto, you have a database.

Ask people

This seems obvious really but you’ll be surprised at how many of us lack the confidence to ask or completely forget.

If you own a shop, ask everyone who comes in. Own a restaurant, ask your diners. Own a hotel, ask everyone who stays over.

Make it part of the service patter:

“Hey, thanks for visiting, did you know we send out offers occasionally by SMS….I can get you on the list if you want to receive them?”

If you’re uncomfortable with this idea try this: don’t think of it like you’re asking for their mobile number, consider you’re doing them a favour, letting them know there are discounts and offers to be had. No one will be upset with if you’re informing them of possible discounts.

Keywords and Shortcodes

Finally, it’s worth mentioning shortcodes and keywords.

Shortcodes and keywords are easier to remember than long numbers and easier for your customers to text, use a shortcode and you should get more subscribers.

A basic example would be:

Text “CAFE” to 84433

The same principles of collecting a database apply. You need to draw people attention to the keyword and shortcode, do this by asking or putting up a notice.

Shortcodes and keywords are commonly used on large billboard advertisements, on radio and TV. But don’t let that put you off; they aren’t expensive, about £50 a month, so very affordable if you’re serious about building a database.

I can hear you already, “what’s the problem?”

Here’s the abbreviated story:

One of the recipients (we’ll call him John) wasn’t happy about receiving the text message, he considered it SPAM.

So John picked up his phone and complained to his network provider (Orange). During that conversation John mentioned that the message contained the shortcode 84433.

Orange know that 84433 belongs to mediaburst and so they referred John to us.

When someone complains to us about a text message the first thing we do it search our system. We need to verify the complaint, we check to see when the message was sent, which of our customers sent the message.

Of course in this instance our search delivered no results for John, no text message had ever been sent through mediaburst to John.

And that’s where the confusion starts, we say it wasn’t from us, Orange say it was, John is more inclined to believe orange so thinks we are lying or incompetent. And between us all, we can’t figure out what’s going on.

All this confusion leads to frustration and no one’s reputation is enhanced by confusion and frustration. Then there is wasted time, we had 3 people working on this trying to find out what happened. Orange were working on it, John was spending time on it.

We did eventually get to the bottom of it. A customer of ours had rented a keyword on 84433 but for the purposes of trying to save a few quid had sent the text messages out using a cheaper supplier, a supplier that didn’t sell keywords or shortcodes.

Ultimately it fell back to the customer to explain what had happened, but the fall out has been much larger than I have room for. John was only one of many complainants, there have been dozens of emails, phone calls and conference calls. None of which add value, earn money, or are pleasing to deal with. It’s just hassle and problems form the fall out of mixing SMS providers.

So my advice is this: whether you use textburst, our SMS API, or another provider; please don’t mix your providers, choose one, get to know them, think of it like a long term relationship, share information, explain what you are trying to achieve, work with them, and you’ll reap the rewards.

Is it Facebook and twitter, LinkedIn and Squidoo? What about those exciting new start-ups like Flipboard and Quora, and what about SMS, is it possible the humble SMS fits into this exciting sector?

Note: This is an article I originally wrote for Fresh business thinking.com.

Social media is about the techniques we use in reaching out to people, finding people who’re interested in your products, getting them to hear you, to talk to you, and ultimately buy whatever stuff it is you sell.

Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, and so on. These are all just web applications that help you along the way. Their popularity will shift, some will die, new ones will arrive, and others will raise stupid amounts of money from VC funders in Silicon Valley when they have no viable business model (but, hey that’s another story).

The goal with Social Media is finding an audience and speaking to them, tell them what they want to hear, give them what they want to receive.

And that’s where SMS fits in.

Think about it like this, Facebook is great for connecting with people with a Facebook profile. LinkedIn is great connecting with people with a LinkedIn profile, Twitter for people on Twitter. And so on.

But what about those without a Twitter account, those not on Facebook.

There are circa 24million people in the UK with a Facebook accounts. That means there are 38 million people without a Facebook account. Did you get that? More than half the population of the UK haven’t got a Facebook account.

You may well gasp in shock but these people do have money, and they buy stuff, from shops, from the internet, maybe even from you.

Apparently there are 1.8 mobile phones in the UK for every person, which means there are 122 million phones in the UK. Compare that to 24 million Facebook accounts.

Wow, if you don’t include text message marketing in the mix you could be missing a lot of people.

Then there is the read statistics: 97% of the messages you send will get read. How many of your Twitter followers read all your messages, what is the open rate of your email, maybe 20%?

So why do read rates on SMS knock the socks of everything?

Because when you send an SMS my phone beeps, I pick it up, I read your message. We all do. We can’t help ourselves, it only takes seconds and it’s not invasive or inconvenient.

So why aren’t we all getting excited about SMS?

Well, at 160 characters of black and white text SMS isn’t sexy like the latest Silicon Valley offering. You can’t just signup and start following thousands of people. With SMS it’s harder to build followers, its permission based marketing, and you have to give them a reason to follow.

My guess is 90% of your twitter followers have very little interest in what you have to say. You followed them, they followed you. To generate sales leads from twitter you have to put in a lot of work, you need lots and lots of followers.

Same with LinkedIn, you can find your customers and connected with them, but then a few suppliers will find you and connect, then they started pestering you with their latest offers.

With SMS every single follower is someone interested in your product or service.  And now every text you send goes to someone interested in what your product or service.

Even better, when you hit the send button they will get your message in seconds, it means you can time it to perfection. They read it when you want them to read it, not when they decide to dip into their Facebook or twitter account.

So how does SMS Marketing fit into social media?

Like all those websites it’s another avenue to connect, it might not have the glossy appearance of other applications but it’s an avenue you shouldn’t neglect.

But Paul recognises that not everyone has email, and wanted to update his customers while they were on the move, via SMS.

Originally Paul was logging into a web service to send text messages but it made more sense to send directly from Capsule, hence looking at integrating with mediaburst.

Using the HTTP interface of SMS API he’s got Capsule CRM to send out SMS updates. He’s even produced this step by step guide so other Capsule users can follow in his footsteps.

Paul was very complimentary about mediaburst, “Luckily I found mediaburst….I am now able to send my customers SMS updates within Capsule CRM, something I never dreamed of”.

All messages regardless of coming through the SMS API, from Textburst, or Outlook Mobile Service will be dealt with in this manner. You don’t need to change a thing.

This is a big step forward in deliverability to the USA. The shortcode 43704 is fully registered with the Common Short Code Administration so complies fully with their network and regulatory requirements.

North America has some unique complexities in their SMS industry that mean delivery to mobile numbers in the USA can be problematic. Before this upgrade we could deliver SMS to the USA but had to disclaim the service, which, I admit didn’t feel comfortable.

In addition to our discomfort we are also receiving a greater demand for messaging to the USA, and, have a product in the pipeline that will squarely align our services with a large body of software developers in the USA.

The general problem was messages were classed as arriving from an international destination meaning a recipient of the message could be charged (some pay for SMS received in the USA) the rate of an international SMS.

Not only that but all machine to handset orientated messages in the USA should come from a numerical number (rather than an alpha numeric that we use in Europe) so that the recipient could reply to opt out of receiving further communication.

All our SMS to the USA came from a numerical long number but that wasn’t actually a proper reply path for opt outs.

With this upgrade we are now in the fortunate position of delivering on a dedicated and registered short code, we deliver via a fully registered carrier based in the USA, and can process the opt outs as is the requirement.

A big step forward indeed, if you have any questions at all about SMS delivery to America then get in touch.

1. Personalise – use names in your text messages to get a better response.
2. Fun – Like most forms of social media, it’s OK to use a bit of personality.
3. Originator /From field – Show who the text is from by putting your company name in the “from” field.
4. Permission – Don’t be a spammer, only text customers if they’ve given you permission.
5. Time – Make sure you send bulk SMS marketing messages at a good time in the day for your customer. You can use Textburst schedule function to make sure you’re always sending at the right time.
6. Your message – Be specific; make your words count.  A standard text message is only 160 characters. But if you need to send a longer message it’s OK you can just concatenate it.
7. STOP – make sure your customers can opt out of further texts if they want to. An opt out route should be included in your text.  E.g.  text STOP to xxxxxxxx to opt out of further messages or call xxxxxxxx.
8. Data – keep it up to date. If you haven’t had a delivered message to a mobile number in the last two months, then take them out of your database.
9. Merge – send out unique updates with just one send.
10. Templates – save templates of messages you routinely send out to save time.

If you want to know more about any of the above just let us know.

There wasn’t much debate about which payment gateways to choose. Paypal is certainly the most popular and trusted payment method on the web and Google Checkout is on the rise. If these are the methods you use online then you should be able to use them on our site too.

You can use them on both signup, and repeat purchases from within our online SMS software textburst or the SMS API.

The reason for bringing these two mechanisms on-board is twofold:

1. We’re sick of Sagepay. We’ll continue to run it (for now) for credit and debit cards but the frequent outages don’t make for a good supplier. When they are down it reflects poorly on us, and that’s not good.
2. We wanted to align ourselves with you, we want you to be able to pay by the mechanism that suits you best.

When you visit a restaurant, you can pay by cash or card, you choose. When you buy petrol, you choose, when you buy milk, you choose. So hey, you’re used to choice. So you can choose, debit or credit card, Paypal, or Google checkout.

We hope it makes things easier for you.

You can specify the time for the text message to arrive meaning you can tie it into whatever part of your day works best. Maybe while you’re having your breakfast, just after you arrive at the office, or perhaps 10 minutes before you leave the house.

The functionality is very easy to set up, it should take no longer than a minute or two, as per the following screen shots from Outlook 2010.Go into “Options”

Then click “Mobile”

Then click “Calendar Summary Settings”

And there you have all the options for you to play around with.

Only thing to be aware of is: Outlook Mobile Service must be running to send the SMS. This means your computer must be up and running and Outlook open. It’s not the most environmentally friendly options to leave your PC on all the time, but unfortunately there is no way around it at present.

And if you don’t use Microsoft Outlook then unfortunately Outlook Mobile Service isn’t available to you, you’ll need to use Online SMS Software like textburst.

Give it a go, has it made you more productive or organised?

The fools way to get better results from SMS marketing campaigns is to push for more subscribers, it’s a valid strategy but the intelligent man can do much better.

If you currently manage a 4% response rate (4% of people who get the SMS take advantage of your promotion), a better approach is to think about the 96% who didn’t take advantage, how can we motivate these people?

For example, if you send 1,000 SMS promoting your new range of designer sunglasses, a 1% response rate is equivalent to 10 sales. At £100 a pair your 10 sales could be worth £1,000.

So, let’s think about increasing that 1% to 2% and getting another £1,000 without increasing your database of subscribers.

1. Divide up your database

First thing to do is stop sending to all 1,000 people in one SMS broadcast.

Split the database into smaller units of 250. It doesn’t matter where or how you split your data, do it completely at random, but split it down into smaller chunks.

If you’re sending via textburst make 4 groups of contacts. That way we have 4 defined groups to test with and monitor the results.

By using smaller chunks of data you can test more variables and see what has the greatest effect.

2. Send at different intervals

For this test use the same message, but send it at different times. Different times of day, different times of the week, different times in the month.

It depends a little on what you’re promoting but instead of sending 1,000 SMS once a month, send 250 SMS once a week.

If you’re sending SMS once a week, try sending once a day.

Then watch the results closely. Do you get better results if you send on a particular day, or perhaps during a particular week?

If you get really poor results at certain times, stop sending at those times. If you’ve worked out the perfect week then try and work out the perfect day.

And don’t stop testing, different days, different times, you get the point.

3. Change the copy

I’ll assume you’re beginning to get the feel for the best time to send a text message. Now let’s try different copy in the message.

Following on from my Sunglasses example, let’s assume the original copy is:

“The new designer range of sunglasses is now in stock, get down to Sunglasses world and check em out.”

Some variants you could try are:

“Check out the new Designer Sunglasses range at Sunglasses World”

“Just in, New Designer Sunglasses at Sunglasses World, get them before the sun goes down!”

“Come to Sunglasses world this weekend and try our new Designer Sunglasses range”

I strongly recommend you read this article on How to Write Bulk SMS.

Your objective is to drop the messages that get the worst response. Then tweak the messages that get the best response, even a single word can make the difference.

It’s an iterative process that doesn’t stop, just keep dropping the ones that do the worst, and tweaking the ones that do the best.

In summary

Keep changing things, keep it fresh, keep trying different combinations of message content and times. Things change, people change, so too should your SMS Marketing.

When you’re sending a bulk sms broadcast to a list of contacts you’ll get a more positive response if the message is personalised. The simplist way to personalise an SMS is to merge the first name of your contact into the start of the text message.

With textburst you can personalise the SMS message by merging in any or all of the three fields stored in your contacts list.

How do you do it?

When you’re writing a text message in textburst you personalise by mouse clicking any of the items under the personalise heading:

You have a choice of first name, surname, or custom as you can see below:

The “custom” field is used to personalise with something more specific to each recipient. It could be a unique voucher code, mobile ticket code, a password, a date or time, or anything specific to each recipient of your SMS message. You’ll need to upload the custom field information at the same time you upload your contacts.

Personalising the SMS message goes hand in hand with setting the from field to be your company or promotion name, it’s important to identity yourself to the recipient as it is to address them by their own name.

Upload contacts from Excel spreadsheets

We’ve listened to your feedback about uploading CSV files, now you can upload Excel files directly into textburst without having to convert them.

As with most things there are a few caveats:

• You must be using Excel 2007 or Excel 2010, older versions save in a different format which we can’t process.
• All your contacts must be on the first worksheet.
• Numbers need to start with 44 or 0, if you can’t see either of these at the start in Excel it won’t work in textburst.

Delete sent messages

We want to make sure you’re always in control of your data, so on this note, we’ve added delete buttons to the sent message page.  Simply click this button and it’s gone forever.
Just to make this clear though: The delete button deletes the message, there isn’t a way to get it back.

Works in Internet Explorer 9

Microsoft are well on their way to releasing the new version of Internet Explorer.  Surprisingly, from a web development point of view, it seems like a reasonable browser.   We’ve made a few tweaks to our styling and scripting to remove work arounds previous versions needed, making sure textburst always looks its best.

The latest release of fmSMS puts the mediaburst API on their SMS Gateway list.

Millions of people use FileMaker to manage information on Windows, Mac, and the web. With the fmSMS add-on you can send and receive text messages direct from FileMaker.

It’s more than a basic integration, fmSMS supports single and bulk SMS sends, alphanumeric sender ID, delayed delivery and delivery receipts. It’s a complete package to get text messages direct to the mobile phones of your Filemaker contacts.

In the words of fmSMS:

“We know FileMaker is a great Customer Relationship Management tool so it makes sense to integrate the ability to communicate via SMS within your existing FileMaker solution.

SMS is a great means of direct communication with customers, staff, suppliers, students. It’s personal, quick and more immediate than email/fax/letter.”

This first demo was a simple affair, we manually copied the page HTML, output by textburst, into a few new files and then ran them through a shell script which called sed a dozen or so times to replace anything that didn’t work without the full application behind it.

Since putting the new design live we felt we needed to show off all the features to prospective customers. What really surprised us was just how much work is involved to create a fully featured demo.

Our requirements seem simple at a glance:

• Look and feel like textburst
• Include all major textburst features (except payments)
• Be easy to update
• Don’t really send text messages

For various internal reasons the demo needed to run on the same server as this website, this left us needing to run a C#, ASP.NET web application on a server running PHP and Linux. To make this work we came up with the following steps:

1. Log in to textburst on our development platform
2. Grab a copy of all the relevant pages
3. Run some standard find and replaces to remove ASP.NET specific content
4. Add PHP include files at the top of each page
5. Add in page specific PHP includes
6. Remove any development data
7. Copy this altered page and any includes in to a directory ready for release
8. Create some demo contacts and sends using PHP Sessions for display to users

Just over 800 lines of perl later we have a wonderful jumble of regular expressions and a dozen or so php files that make textburst into the simple demo you can see today.

By automating this step we can just re-run the perl script each time we do a release keeping the demo perfectly up to date and preventing any surprises once you’ve signed up.

We do still have to create page specific include files for some of the pages to show how the product actually works. For example, we add an include to the send message page which displays either a sent successfully or failure message depending upon whether all the form fields were completed. It also adds the sent message to your session so it shows on the sent messages page.

Our Online SMS service textburst provides a useful character count to help you work within the limits, and this article takes a look at how to write short messages that 1. stay within the character limits, and 2. still say what you want to say.

Avoid “Business Jargon”

Unfortunately the language we use in business differs from that which we use at the pub. The tendency to use long, complicated words in an attempt to sound cleverer than the competition is too great for some. Words like “solutions”, “tactical”, and “empowerment” are all overused and misunderstood. Worse still, we group them together into sentences that don’t mean anything.

Would you call this company?

Even if you use them in business they’ve got no place in SMS marketing, they are too long, often misspelt, and hard to read.

So the rule is: avoid the jargon, keep text messages simple.

Don’t use text speak

The common language of SMS for 16 year olds, yes it’s widely used, but it has a time and a place, generally that’s in school, at the pub, at the weekend, to your friends, to your family.

Studies have shown it’s quicker to type an SMS in text speak on your phone but as much as double the time to read the same message in unabbreviated form.

The upshot is sending an SMS in text speak is inconveniencing your audience, it’s making it harder for them to read the very message you’re trying to convey, and that’s not something you want to do.

See how slow it is to read this:

If you sent this SMS it’d be reasonable to expect most being deleted and a high proportion of opt-outs.

Apostrophes and abbreviations

Rather than text speak use legitimate ways to shorten words. Abbreviations, and the use of apostrophes to form contractions are the best tools in your box.

An abbreviation is formed by omitting the end of a word and including a full stop

e.g “Abbreviation” becomes “abbr.”

Contractions are formed by the removal of the middle part of a word

e.g. “Doctor” becomes “Dr.”

Commas, colons or dashes are also useful. Use them to squeeze a sentence while still retaining the relationship between the component parts.

e.g. “Sale on tomorrow at Fashion Boutique. We are offering 20% off so get there early” could become

“Sale, tomorrow, Fashion Boutique, 20% off, get there early.”

Punctuate

Punctuation helps the reader read. It creates emphasis and clarity in your message. Use it to your advantage.

Have a look at this delivery notification via SMS I received from Kiddicare, see how they have used punctuation to shorten the text message in a fun, creative way.

Cut to the chase

We’re often asked by clients to review their text message content to help them improve response rates. The most common error we see is preamble and waffle. With SMS you don’t have that luxury, you need to get straight to the point. Rather than thinking about using all the 160 characters, think about getting your message across in as few characters as possible. Your customers will thank you.

The following example show how preamble dilutes the message, you have to read the first 4 lines of the SMS before you find out what the offer is.

This could be said much clearer, with fewer words:

Resources:

Here are some resources we regularly use that you too might find helpful.

http://www.oxbridgeediting.co.uk/blog/

http://www.copyblogger.com/

And finally, if you have any thoughts or mechanisms you use to write short messages then please share them in the comments below.

He’s made this video and blog post to show how you can use textburst to “get an instant 97% open rate for your marketing message“.

“It’s a scorching hot day today! Time to get some ice! Swing by our warehousee for a fifty percent discount until 9 0′clock tonight. See you soon!”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVct8TFpfRU

Tell us about the Lothersdale?

It’s a 45 bedroom family run Hotel in Morecambe. Our market is the over 50’s who come to enjoy the great views across Morecambe bay towards the Lake District. For years we focused on coach parties who block book the hotel then sell the beds themselves. But things change, there’s now more money in families and small groups booking directly.

Selling to Coach firms meant staying in touch with a small number of tour operators. But as we shift focus to families and groups we’ve had to align our marketing.

So you got into SMS Marketing?

Yeah, we like to try different forms of marketing from time to time. Over the years we’ve advertised in local papers, run promotional events, flyers, dabbled in email marketing. All with varying degrees of success but nothing like that of bulk SMS Marketing.

We dug around a bit then signed up to textburst, mainly because the interface was well designed and easy to use. We sent some text messages to our own phones and realised how easy it was to get going, far easier than anything we’ve done before.

In our first broadcast we sent 772 texts and within a hours we’d sold over £1,000 of accommodation. We couldn’t get over how successful it was, we’d not seen anything generate results so quickly.

What about getting mobile numbers?

That was surprisingly easy too, we just asked guests that stayed overnight at the Hotel.

None were offended by the request, we explained we’d send them promotional offers via SMS, most were happy to join the database. It only took a few weeks.

We’re mindful the list is people who’ve stayed with us before, so we tailor our SMS offerings to encourage repeat business. The approach is very successful, it’s easier to get more business from existing customers than find new ones.

What about future plans?

We do a side line in Sunday lunches for locals. We’re currently pulling together a list of those customers, we’ll use SMS marketing to encourage repeat business by sending offers if bookings are low.

We’re thinking of something simple, maybe a discounted main meal or dessert on presentation of the SMS. We’ll try sending the SMS at different times to see which generates the best result, maybe sending some on Saturday and some on Sunday mid-morning.

Any other tips or tricks you’ve learnt?

Not so much a tip but what’s interesting is; because we offer holidays on specific weeks to a defined list of guests, those that regularly come have gotten to know one another. It means not only are we a holiday destination but also a social hub, and that makes our offers even more attractive.

Does textburst get results for you? We’d love to hear from you.

Much more light

We have windows both sides of the office and the old internal walls cut the light from one side of the building. The environment is much more open, light streams across the office and our mood is much better.

Collaborative working

You can see we have moved to a huge central desk, we all face each other.

Conversations are held in open plan and everyone is welcome to contribute. It means as a collective we find better solutions to problems and at the same time knowledge is shared. With that we can provide a better service to our customers.

Here’s the time lapse

The future

It’s amazing how much stuff we had accumulated over 10 years, and refitting the office really drew it all out, we need to remove this clutter and clear our workspace.

We also need a break out area. We’re not going for cliché bean bags and table football, we’re much too old for that. We’ll make do with a few sofas and a coffee table.

You need a long or concatenated SMS. This is where you send up to 3 text messages to your customer in 1 text message packet. They arrive on your customers phone as 1 long message.

Textburst is designed to help you send these.

Type in your message and the send screen will update you on the number of  text credits per recipient (depending on your message length).  It will even flash up orange when you go into long message territory, so it’s really clear how many credits you’re using.

The beauty of a short message, just more so.

But there’s a problem brewing, there’s a group of people conspiring to ruin it for you. Even worse, they’re going to succeed. You can be sure of that because they’ve already done it with the internet, so there’s no reason to believe it won’t happen again.

Annoying distractions

You know what I’m talking about, adverts. Adverts on your mobile phone. Popups, banners, buttons, sliding moving flashing annoying distractions getting in the way of us doing the things we really want to do.

They’ve already crept onto mobile websites, they are on apps, sometimes on the end of text messages. But it’s a massive growth market for advertisers so it’s not going to get any easier on us.

Inconvenient

Now let’s face it, you bought the phone so you could check emails, update facebook, send SMS, use maps, play games. What you didn’t do was buy it to read adverts, they don’t make life easier, they’re an inconvenient distraction. Devised to grab your attention from what you were doing and lurch off to show you the latest offer or product or another app or a link to this or that.

Adverts suck

Let’s face it, adverts suck, they just get in the way of doing the stuff you wanted to do in the first place.

What do you think, do you know of any that didn’t distract from the mobile app or website you were using?

SMS Keywords are much easier to remember than full mobile numbers, they are words that can be relevant to your brand, product or service.

You must have seen a car advert on TV, you know the sort, text “CAR” to “84433” for more info.

That said, maybe cars are a bad example as shown in my blog post about how car manufacturers get mobile marketing wrong.

So here’s some guidance on choosing the right keyword:

Avoid the hard to spell

The idea of a keyword is to make to it easy for someone to text in, it’s not a spelling test. So stick to words that are easy to spell, or put differently, unlikely to be misspelt.

There are resources online that suggest common misspelt words and it’s worth a quick glance if you’re thinking of something on the longer side.

Be warned, short words can also be hard to spell too, particularly those that break the normal rules of English such as ‘I’ before ‘E’.

e.g. ‘Weird’

And those where the same sounding word, spelt two different ways, mean two different things.

e.g. ‘Alter’ and ‘Altar’.

Here are some more words that often cause confusion:

Chilli, exceed, gauge, height, liaison, fiery, rhyme, rhythm, seize, until.

Keep it short

This is common sense, short words are quicker to type, easier to remember, easier to spell.

Do I really need to justify this further?

Review predictive text alternates

Switch predictive text on and start typing words, type one word and hey presto, you get another:

Here are some interesting alternates:

Cool = Book
Kiss = Lips
Fat = Eat
Pint = Shot

The same goes for smartphones which auto correct spelling, but not always to what you intended.

This is what my iphone did to some well-known brands:

Addidas = Affords
BT = By
Nokia = Milia or Nolia
Prada = Leads
Moet = Mote

Make it memorable

Words that directly relate to your brand or product are the obvious selection, but so too are words that draw association to your brand or product.

You might also find inspiration in the advertising slogan or product description.

For example, if Kellogg’s were advertising Rice Krispies then either Snap, Crackle, or Pop maybe a better solution than Kelloggs or Krispies.

Also popular are adjectives that describe the product, perhaps its appearance, colour or smell. Or even verbs that suggest activities related to the product (Nike : Run).

Further reading

If you found this useful then you’ll also find some good ideas in our post on SMS Marketing Tips.

This is a longer term project which can be broken down to smaller parts, the first of which has just been released.

This first part is a bug fix where if we can’t deduct credit or charge you for the messages then we provided an “insufficient credit” error.

With this release you will now receive “internal error”.

If you do receive “internal error” then we recommend you retry after one minute.

You can read more detail about error handling on this page of the SMS API Documentation.

Neil, 22 years old at the time simply sent “Merry Christmas” from his PC over the Vodafone network….and with that simple step a whole sub-culture, language, social media, and SMS industry spawned.

The irony is that SMS was actually intended for business use due to the expense, yet 18 years later it is very much the norm for the public and the business community is still just getting to grips with its use.

Anyway, not massively interesting, but it’d seem odd for us not to mention today.

If you want something more interesting try our list of SMS marketing tips

Thanks Neil, and Merry Christmas.

A number of our customers have a large focus on students so it’s worth posting a link to this article on eMarketer.

A recent survey of undergraduate students not only shows 62% own a device with mobile web access but the increase from 2009’s 51% is staggering. Pretty soon they will all have some kind of smart phone.

How things have changed, the best I could manage at Uni was 10p a and trek to the phone box.

We did a successful brochure request via SMS a few years back for Salford Uni but since then it seems things have changed.

So what does this all mean?

Bulk SMS is already pretty big in the student community. But if you deal with, interact with, provide services to students then mobile optimised websites and apps for the iphone and android should be high on the list.

Personalised originators let you send bulk SMS messages from textburst with the name of your company or promotion.

The originator can be up to 11 characters but we don’t recommend either punctuation or spaces as some network providers don’t support them in the originator field.

In textburst you can go to Settings in the top right hand corner and select ‘Originator Settings’.

Update with the word you would like to use for the originator and click save.

The next time you send a broadcast, you have the option to select the originator you’ve chosen.

And don’t worry, if you’re stuck for ideas on what to send out to your customers then our list of what to do with SMS will provide you with all the inspiration you need.

The good news is you now can.

Brands can now take advantage of running a unified shortcode across the UK and Ireland with ease.

Comreg have taken over as the premium rate regulator for the Republic of Ireland and have untangled a long standing snarl of regulations for standard rate SMS competitions and promotions.

At last you don’t need to apply for a premium rate license for a standard rate service in ROI just because you are using a shortcode.

There are a couple of service types that will still need prior permission such as: subscription, aimed at children, of sexual nature, Quiz TV or Internet Dialler software….But for your standard on pack prize draw promotion life couldn’t be rosier.

Here’s looking forward to a few more unified promotions.

Comreg Prize Promotion Requirements see Section 8.2

If you’re interested to know what it was like before this change then this post on running SMS promotions in ROI has all the answers.

It’s plain text, restricted to 160 characters, crikey, you even have to pay for it.

But despite all the scaremongering it’s continued to outstrip all best expectations. Every day Bulk SMS volumes grow and new companies sign up and start to feel the benefit of bite sized bursts of information.

So what about Facebook and their combined user clout, could unified messaging be a nail in the coffin for SMS?

You can read the information Facebook have released by clicking here.

Well the answer is a resounding no.

In the main because SMS is one element of the service, it’s the combination of email, instant messaging and SMS that makes the proposition interesting.

In a way it’s like the fire triangle, if you take one element away then the whole thing falls apart.

So we welcome Facebook Messaging, and more years of growth in the SMS market.

Increasingly we share the minutia of our lives with friends, relatives, and complete strangers via mechanisms such as broadcast SMS, facebook, twitter.

So, two weeks ago while I sat in hospital waiting for my wife to be administered a dose of drugs to induce labour, I tweeted.

It was nothing at first.

“So… in hospital for an induction today, the wife obviously, not me.”

But having tweeted I realised what an excellent mechanism to keep family and friends up to date. Forget periodical phone calls and passing the message on, I’ll just tweet updates. The wife agreed.

The induction process was pretty slow and I ended up tweeting about hospital food, other patients, and general non events like watching Glee.

Word from family and friends was they loved my updates, and so they continued, during the administration of drugs in the ante-natal ward right through into the delivery room.

In the delivery room they connected her to a drip and started pumping an increasing amount of chemicals into her. But hey, let’s share, so I tweeted.

She sucked in gas and air. I tweeted.

They gave her an epidural. I tweeted.

Now please don’t think badly of me, I wasn’t sat there like a passive observer tweeting her pain for the world to read. I was doing my massage piece and supporting her as best as I possibly could. I just tweeted now and again.

But the point of this is where do you stop?

What is too much information?

I wasn’t consciously thinking of the answers to these questions when I became uncomfortable with sharing. I realised that some things aren’t meant to be shared, that certain events belong to the people present. Maybe it’s because birth is a special event, my wife’s pain was certainly not something to be shared, but I could also feel the weight of those concerned sat at home waiting for the next update.

For a whole myriad of reasons I suddenly realised there are limits, and I’d hit mine.

I tried to leave on a positive note:

“A nice tweet: epidural went in 30 mins ago, Abi sleeping, contractions nice, lovely and peaceful now, midwife got me a pillow. Night night”

But I wonder, there’s a generation coming through that share every detail of their lives on facebook and twitter. What happens when they are my age, will they stop where I did?

What will a world be like when we share our most intimate moments and there are no secrets?

Never mind big brother watching us and data privacy laws, we’re broadcasting everything for everyone to see anyway.

Foot note:
It was a boy, mother and baby doing well.

And for those interested, you can read my twitter feed here.

Time for a refresh

The nature of an online SMS business means we have very few client meetings in the office, and we operate with almost zero internal meetings. For this reason the boardroom and two meeting rooms were wasted space that cut off a lot of light from the main open plan office.

We’re in an old sixties block that could have only been designed by a failed architect on his day off. But hats off to the designers, they have come up with a scheme that makes much better use of the space and provides a friendlier environment to work in.

No more partitions

So down come the partition walls and in goes a single glass wall to provide an area for occasional meetings and some quiet space, yet still allowing light to freely pass round the office.

Fancy bespoke desk

Out go the banks of desks and in comes a single bespoke desk that we all sit round. This was the most important factor for us. We work very openly, collaborating, sharing ideas and thoughts as we go through the day.

Our current setup left some team members with their backs to one another. The new desk will be one huge square that we sit on the outside edges all facing into the centre.

The time lapse is still running so once the refit is complete we’ll post again.

One of our SMS suppliers recently changed the encoding on MO messages from Latin1 to GSM as it supports a wider range of characters. After quite a bit of searching the web we couldn’t find any examples of how to work with GSM encoded text in C# so we wrote our own.

To keep things simple we’ve inherited from System.Text.Encoding creating a Mediaburst.Text.GSMEncoding class.  Characters are encoded using a simple one to one mapping of GSM bytes to Unicode character.

We’ve just released it on github under the ISC license, one of the few open-source licenses written in simple clear English, so feel free to grab a copy and use it in your projects.

How to use

We use the following to convert GSM encoded text to UTF-8 on a web server.

The utf8Enc.GetBytes(body) that looks a little out of place is needed as the server assumes all GET and POST parameters are UTF-8 encoded.

string body = "Some GSM encoded text";
Encoding gsmEnc = new Mediaburst.Text.GSMEncoding();
Encoding utf8Enc = new System.Text.UTF8Encoding();
byte[] gsmBytes = utf8Enc.GetBytes(body);
byte[] utf8Bytes = Encoding.Convert(gsmEnc, utf8Enc, gsmBytes);
body = utf8Enc.GetString(utf8Bytes);

Caveats

The encoding functions don’t currently support the EncoderFallback and DecoderFallback error handlers for invalid characters or follow the Microsoft convention of replacing an invalid character with a question marks. Invalid characters will be ignored and missing from the converted string.

Get the code

Download from github

We do provide some excellent Delivery Status information in our Online SMS service textburst and even more if you send via our SMS API. By understanding and using this data you can cut down on undelivered messages and make some good cost savings too.

SMS API

Users of the API can get some pretty detailed information on the delivery status of each message, the full table is in our SMS API documentation.

They 2 key parameters to be concerned with are DELIVERY_STATUS and ERR_CODE.

If under DELIVERY_STATUS you receive UNDELIV or REJECTED (undelivered or rejected) then it warrants further investigation using the ERR_CODE parameter.

ERR_CODE numbers 5 or 9 indicate no matter how many times you try you simply cannot send a text message to this number. Most likely because the number has been cancelled or less likely the phone does not support text messaging. If you get a 5 or 9 we suggest you remove this number and try other means of contact.

ERR_CODE numbers 4, 6, 7, or 10 indicate a Temporary error and chances are it’ll clear given time. We suggest you hold off sending to this number for a week or so, maybe they are on holiday or having technical difficulties with their phone.

It’s also likely you’ll see some of the less decisive error codes including the unhelpful network error code of “unknown – no details provided by the network”.

By doing a periodic review of all your undelivered or rejected messages you can help reduce these errors. Look for the number of occurrences you tried to send to any one given number, if it’s always failing for whatever reason then chances are this is no longer a valid contact number for your customer.

Textburst

If you’re using textburst then the error code information is summarised and we suggest a periodic review of the information to identify bad data. Warning: you might need someone handy with a spreadsheet.

Once you have logged into textburst go to Sent Messages.

Click the small pie chart next to each batch of sent messages.

Then select “List View” in the main heading.

You’ve now got a list of each message, the mobile number and delivery status. You’ll notice on the right hand side an option to download the complete information to a spreadsheet.

We suggest downloading all your sends and searching for those numbers that regularly or never deliver, using this data you can either delete contacts or follow your own path to correct the data for future sends.

I hope this is helpful, if you need any more information or guidance then just ask.

This is the “Users” feature that allows you to setup and manage other users from within your own account.

With this feature only a single person in an organisation need sign up. Once signed up they can share the application with their colleagues.

This works particularly well for say, a call centre environment where the individual employees wouldn’t want to sign up and purchase credits, or indeed where the company wants to retain control.

With Users, one person (the admin user) signs up and purchases credits then sets the others up as sub users. The admin user has control of who can send SMS and how many they can send. If you get a new employee, simply create a new account. Someone leaves, just suspend their account.

As always we’ve tried to make it as simple as possible. The users tab is in the main menu, and the link “Add a new user“ is fairly self-explanatory and guides you through the setup.

Finally, an email is automatically sent to each new user, welcoming them to the system and providing their initial logon information.

I admit it has taken us a little longer than anticipated to get this live but the mechanism is very smooth. We hope you like it.

This time our application Florence has helped our collaboration partner Stoke NHS become a finalist in the Health and Social Care Awards, Transforming Community Services category.

Wow, this is great news.

Update: 8th October 2010 – winner!

Its like a great big pat on the back from a panel of external experts, “well done guys, you’re on the right track, keep up the good work”.

This external validation is worth its weight in gold particularly in the early stages of a product lifecycle, not just for PR but also for motivation.

So we’re really pleased to see our new mobile healthcare application Florence getting the recognition it deserves. Our collaboration partners NHS Stoke On Trent have been nominated for a HSJ Award in the Quality and Productivity category.

What’s a HSJ Award?

They are all about recognising innovation, best practice and inspiration in the healthcare profession.

According to the highly revered Sir John Oldham:

“The HSJ Awards are a goldmine for the best examples of a variety of best practice around the country ”

So there you go, it’s still early days but we’re clearly on the right track, and I think there’s a fair chance of winning!

But I think it’s all media hype. And it’s not just healthcare it’s everywhere, iphone this, iphone that.

But it’s not real yet. All these apps are small scale with limited reach, they target a specific health condition so ultimately are only accessible to those with the health condition, with an iPhone.

How’s that going to revolutionise healthcare?

The future points toward larger screens of blackberry, iPhone, etc. But they’re still expensive compared to normal phones and their penetration levels low.

I recently read that the proportion of iphone ownership around the globe is equivalent to the population of Poland, so if Poland’s your market then go for it.

The challenge with mobile healthcare (and no doubt other industry areas) is to find solutions that are accessible to all. Not just young ones with cool new phones but old ones who are new to phones, the visually impaired who can’t read lovely smooth screens, the ones who can’t afford Apple’s price tag, and those not in reach of a 3G networks.

Focus on the patients

As you know, mediaburst has been developing a very simple healthcare application that patients can get on their phones. Part of our demonstration was a Q&A session with three patients who’ve been using the system during the initial trials.

I’ll be completely honest and admit that during the development we focused purely on the needs of medical staff. We wanted to help them save time and improve the quality of healthcare they provide.

We’d not really considered the patients. Sure our partners at NHS Stoke were doing this, but we weren’t. It wasn’t a conscious oversight, patients don’t buy the system so we didn’t consider them. It was that simple.

Listen to the patients

So this demo was the first time I’d met some of the patients and heard first hand accounts of how they benefit from the application. And, having listened, I’m now completely blown away, totally bowled over. In their own words, we’ve given them their lives back.

COPD monitoring

Two of the patients were long term sufferers of COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). They were housebound other than frequent visits to hospital and their current care plans impeded significantly on their daily lives. But now, using our application, they can lead much fuller, much more normal lives.

When I say ‘normal‘, I’m talking about the kind of things you and I take for granted. Going to the shops, visiting relatives, having a night away and going on holiday.

Previously they were tied to monitoring machines at home. Now they are up and about again, enjoying those simple pleasures. You can’t put a value on that.

Resettlement

The next patient we met was nervous presenting to us, she had tears in her eyes and needed the support of her care worker to speak. But her passion was such that she wanted to share her experience.

She’s a long term sufferer of mental health issues, was cared for at residential homes, frequently turned to drugs and alcohol and generally depended on others to get her through the day.

With the assistance of our application she’s now living in her own flat, has learnt to cook and clean, is doing voluntary work, has stayed clear of drink and drugs and, as you can imagine, her self-esteem is through the roof.

Referring to our app she said, “you can’t take it away from me, if you do I’ll cry”.

Changing lives

As I said, I’m completely blown away. This isn’t normal business, these are real lives and we’re changing them.

Changing lives is new ground for mediaburst, but with it our motivation levels are sky high, and we’ve learnt a lesson in mobile healthcare.

To make things really work, focus on the patients.

We’ll put more details up here in the next few weeks as the application goes through trials, but for now here’s the teaser page.

http://www.getflorence.co.uk/

In this case I’m warning charities away from Premium Rate (reversed billed) text messaging to collect donations. For clarity this isn’t about normal every day, free to the recipient messaging.

A changing market

There have been some ground-breaking changes to the premium rate market in the last year in regard to how much of the money charged to a mobile user the network operators will share with the charities.

More revenue

We have seen 100% of the revenue passed to the charities in massive high profile campaigns such as red nose day.

We have also seen increased amounts of revenue passed down to charities if they use specific “charity” short codes. But the use of these codes is currently limited by very expensive setup costs. But let’s not get too excited about additional percentage revenue. Some of the networks still retain nearly 25% of the donation. Don’t forget, this is the donation the consumer made to your charity.

Tighter regulation

Then there’s the regulation, Phonepayplus are tightening up their rules, you ought to be getting prior approval for premium rate services to ensure you comply with the regulations. Even if an SMS supplier will do this for free don’t underestimate the time you’ll spend on this part alone. The last thing you want as a charity is a regulatory fine and being named and shamed on their publicly available list of adjudications. If you want to avoid this then you’d better be involved.

Will it be successful?

So let’s say you paid the setup fees for a specialist charity code to get a higher share of the revenue. Or perhaps even you chose not to pay for the additional revenue and you’re receiving what can be as little as 35% of the donation. Then is it really going to be worth it or are you better diverting your fund raising energies to other areas?

Clearly you need to work on a case by case basis and calculate the likelihood of success, but I can’t help but feel it’s a massive risk.

Please, prove me wrong

I’d love to hear of some really successful campaigns that are not by one of the big national/ international charities, and if you know then send it through and prove me wrong.

But for now, I’m not convinced.

This financial year we set ourselves a challenge to reduce our office energy bill by at least 25%. In terms of electricity, the largest user in the office and the first target was our comprehensive development and test environment of 10 ‘old’ servers.

But how do you create a development and realistic test environment for a dual site clustered Bulk SMS platform using fewer servers than the production service? The answer is with two high spec servers and, as you already know, hardware-assisted virtualisation.

To make the fast servers we simply fitted new motherboards, quad core CPUs and fast RAM into two existing chassis’ saving the cost of buying new cases, power supplies and drives. This left us with 8 redundant servers and a few leftover components.

Electricity

The old development and test platforms spanned 10 servers using a total of approximately 1.8kW direct power and air conditioning at an estimated 2kWh continuous consumption costing about £3,662 per annum in electricity and taking up over 24U of rack space.

Our new virtualised platform is 2 servers at approx 500W total, saving 1.4kW or approx £1,350 per annum plus an estimated saving of £964 per annum on air conditioning.

Space

Old setup = 10x servers @ 24U
New virtualisations = 2x servers @ 6U
Therefore we’ve cleared out half a rack of heat and noise

New equipment

Total £1,200, however we also managed to sell off the old servers on ebay for approx £600, leaving us only £600 out of pocket.

Licensing

Thankfully, not an issue as we already have the platform covered and the two host servers are using the free VMWare vSphere Hypervisor.

Estimated total savings

First year £1,714
Second year £2,314

Now, time to go find a more energy efficient kettle!

Once again we’ve worked with the excellent Phil Thompson and he’s produced something that echoes the main mediaburst site.  It’s simple, attractive, and most importantly fits nicely onto an iPhone screen.

If you need a link it’s on http://www.mediaburst.co.uk/m/

Let’s get straight into some screen shots…

As you can see the site’s very much iPhone orientated. Google analytics showed that 95% of our mobile visitors are using iPhones, hence anything other than an apple orientated site would be illogical.

That’s not to say it doesn’t work on other smart phones, we’ve tested on Blackberry and HTC’s with no problems at all.

We also made an assumption based on our own iPhone browsing habits. That is, none of us searched for products on iPhones or bought using our credit cards. We all tended to read article type information, be it on blogs, wiki or news sites. We use it more of an instant research tool, perhaps to flick through while our better halves are trying something on in the changing rooms.

With this in mind we have made the site really simple by focusing on:

• Who are mediaburst? (home page)
• How to get in touch with mediaburst (it’s on the bottom of every page)
• Some quality reading material (case studies and the blog articles)

So we hope you like it, go and have a play, send us your feedback and let us know what you think?

Although the ipad is more akin to a big iphone than a small laptop it does miss the vital ingredient that makes it mobile, that being a sim card to make calls and send texts.

So what I’m I seeing here, is it bloggers stuck for true mobile content or is it just part of the convergence of the mobile and digital worlds?

It’s an SMS route that manages to offer an extraordinarily cheap price by making arrangements outside of the licensed international telecoms companies. It’s a shady part of the industry, lurking out there offering tempting and apparently innocent deals on SMS pricing.

But remember you only ever get what you pay for.  If you’re not getting a deal through volume, how are you getting it?

You may be offered a cheap route and find that your traffic is going via India, Russia or the Far East and getting clogged up on an overloaded connection anywhere in the world!

Beware of the 1p SMS. You know the old adage if a deal sounds too good to be true it probably is.

The standard interconnect fee between networks is circa 3p, so you do the maths. If it’s 1p then you can be fairly certain something not entirely legal is going on.

How do they do it?

Grey routes manage to offer cost cuts in a number of ways, a couple are outlined below:

Arbitrage:

Routing traffic via an intermediate country to take advantage of the differences in settlement rates

Re-origination:

Giving a call a different originator disguise at some point in its international journey to make it appear it is coming from the country it terminates in, so making it appear to be national rather than international

‘Special’ Carrier Arrangement

Carriers agree to terminate a certain amount of text messages from each other. Excess is charged at a higher rate. So what happens if a carrier has too much or too little traffic?

There is a wholesale market trading in this area. However, the quality of routes can vary, so traded traffic can go down a grey route, especially as the exchanges allow carriers to buy and sell anonymously.

In reality goodwill between carriers can be exploited.

If I’ve made an agreement to accept up to 10 sms in exchange for sending 10 sms to a network and they send me 5 of their own plus 5 of someone else’s, then have they stolen 5 SMS from me? My agreement wasn’t with that other person. If I find out about it, I’m probably going to at the least change my arrangements with the network, at worst cancel my agreement totally.

In Summary

In answer to our question, yes grey routes do seem to exist, however use them at your peril. They may be cheap but they frequently just disappear without notice due to a telco realising what’s happening and blocking the route.

A Grey route can’t guarantee it’s a quality route,  it can’t even guarantee it will be there tomorrow.

At mediaburst we believe in using quality routes for ourselves and our customers.

We wouldn’t touch a grey route with a barge pole and we wouldn’t advise you to either.

The book constitutes a number of short essays containing their advice on how to run a business.

Anyway, here’s our essay on service levels:

Punish Poor Service

We recently had a situation where one of our suppliers was processing messages slowly. We are talking about a small percentage of our Bulk SMS traffic running up to a few minutes too slow.

For us this is not acceptable. The messages our clients send can be time critical. Imagine someone staring at their phone, waiting to receive an SMS before they can get on with the task. Anything more than a handful of seconds is not acceptable.

We need to report this situation to our supplier and get it sorted quickly.

On referring to their Service Level Agreement it would appear a slow platform has a low priority assigned to it. It means when we report the issue they will “initially respond” within 24 hours and “aim to fix it” in 3 days.

This level of non-service is almost industry standard, it’s certainly replicated across our other major suppliers.

We can’t operate like this, we can’t wait 24 hours for an initial response. We can’t wait 3 days for them to resolve the problem, we have customers to serve.

You’ve got to take control of the situation, so here’s what we do now:

If we see any sign of an issue with a supplier or their SMS routes we switch them off instantly. No discussion, no phone calls. Just switch all the traffic to an alternate supplier. Job done.

It means our number one priority (our customers) is attended to. It means we continue to deliver all our messages in the rapid timeframe they are used to.

We then report the issue to the supplier and inform them as soon as they get it sorted we’ll switch them back on.

It means while they are reviewing the issue, initially responding and trying and fix the problem they are losing money. That should help focus their minds.

So it doesn’t matter what your supplier SLA’s are, take control, implement your own.

Aside from the usual junk mail which we just cross “Return To Sender” and repost. I’m surprised at the amount of post that could easily be sent via a digital mechanism. SMS or email are the obvious channels.

We’ve received a few purchase orders and a surprising amount of remittance advices covering payments we received electronically, typically BACS. Now correct me if I’m wrong but second class stamp costs 32p, an envelope about 1.5p, plus a sheet of cheap paper, and some print ink.

Why would you move to electronic payments but still incur these costs?

Why would you not move the remittances to an electronic means and remove all the cost?

Then there is the environmental argument. How many trees would we save if we eliminated unnecessary post, and the reduction in waste?

All this has been said before, but obviously not loud enough.

Not only are the entry instructions printed in black text on a dark red background rendering it almost unreadable. But the instructions are so complex.

See for yourself.

Also note the use of white text on black background and good line spacing (just above the entry instructions)  is very clear and easy to read, why not use this for the entry mechanism?

I’ve challenged and timed a further 2 people to enter. Both have taken in excess of 2 and half minutes to read, work out, and compose their entry. Both admitting that under normal circumstances they would have given up.

I wonder how many others have given up?

What’s in this release?

This milestone release doesn’t contain any major new features for you, our users, it’s all about making our lives easier at mediaburst and allowing for future changes.

We’ve changed to .NET 4

Microsoft released version 4 of their .NET framework a couple of months ago, along with it came Visual Studio 2010. Although there are no groundbreaking changes in this new Visual Studio it solves various day to day niggles.

Code rewriting

We’ve re-written some internal code that passes messages around between systems. It’s just housekeeping really, making use of the improvements between versions 2 and 4 of the .NET framework. The biggest change is the switch from ArrayLists of messages to strongly typed Lists using the new support of covariance and contravariance in generic types. This change allows the compiler to check what we’re adding to the list at compile time, rather than run time, hopefully avoiding any mistakes.

No more image messages

We’ve removed support for Nokia and EMS image messages. They’re small black and white bitmaps which look awful on modern phones, a much better choice, with wider handset support, is MMS. Processing these took large chunks of bespoke code, without them our sending scripts are so much easier to maintain as there’s only one set of logic.

Updated logging

And finally we’ve tweaked our sent message logging to make a number of internal reports run off a single database table. We currently have to link two databases on different servers if we want the same level of detail.

Fortunately it’s pretty simple to get those options to appear.

Step by Step:

1. In the main Outlook menu select: ‘Tools’ > ‘Trust Centre’.

This should bring up this screen

2. Select ‘Add-ins’ from the left hand menu.

Lower down you will see a drop down box with ‘Com Add-ins’.

3. Click the ‘Go’ button.

You should get this screen:

4. Now just scroll down the list of options and make sure the one that says ‘Microsoft Outlook Mobile Service’ is checked.

And click ‘Ok’.

Now if you select Tools and Options then Mobile options should appear at the bottom of the menu, like so:

There is also a post about these options on the forum.

I’ve now downloaded a huge range of applications from free fun stuff like the obligatory ipint thingy, games such as Monkey Ball and Angry Birds, to a few productivity apps.

But it got me thinking: which is the best app? What do I use most regularly?

I started looking over the apps I’d downloaded and compiling a list of my favourites but then it hit me. There is one I use every single day, multiple times, without even thinking. Text Messaging!

Yes, predictably this blog is about SMS.

But you can’t blame me because it’s true. It’s the oldest and most widely used data app in the world with over 2.4 billion active users. It’s become part of our culture spawning its own language, it exists on every phone, and there are no social, geographic or demographic barriers to its use. Even my Grandma uses it.

Here are some recent stats:

In the UK alone we send some 11 million texts per hour.

We sent a massive 874 million texts on New Year’s Eve alone.

Current predictions suggest a volume rise of 22% during 2010.

Over 90% of text messages are read within seconds of receiving them.

So there you have it, the undisputed king of apps, and as much as I love Angry Birds, I can’t see it ever competing for the top spot!

How does white labelling work?

Our Online SMS product textburst is the main one, but we also get requests for our SMS API, and our email to SMS product.

The reseller offers the service to their customers or markets in any way they feel fit. They take care of the billing, collect the money, provide support etc. We just exist in the background as their little secret.

The truth is we have offered while label services for many years but have had little success other than via a few reputable organisations such as O2.

The Problem

Many resellers see your application as a nice piece of technology. They think if they rebranded it as their own they could sell it to their existing customers, make a million and retire on a beach in the Bahamas. But it just doesn’t work like that.

We used to do loads of free while labels in the hope that we’d benefit by extending our reach, but so few come to anything it’s not been a priority.

About 2 years ago we introduced a nominal £500 to while label textburst, what happened was interesting. We certainly scared a few would-be resellers off. In my mind anyone not willing to pay £500 was indicating that they were not confident of their own ability to sell the product. Those that did pay in general sold more than those that hadn’t.

A solution?

Back in January we released our latest version of textburst and removed the ability to produce new white labels easily. Hence the £500 option is now gone completely. All white labelling is bespoke and we don’t look at it unless we feel the potential reseller can actually resell.

But the question I’m now left with is this: In our experience very few while labels have been successful at all, so why does anyone do it? We spend an inordinate amount of time developing our services and intellectual property, should we really be passing this on to anyone who thinks they can sell SMS?

There are literally hundreds of web applications out there who offer white label services, but is that not undermining the value of your own investment and brand. If your application is so great why would you want to make it look like someone else and let them take the brand value?

What we do now is much simpler, we say just introduce the client to us, we’ll do what we are good at, you do what your good at, and by way of a thank you we’ll give you some commission. Surely that can’t be wrong?

To put textburst onto our smartphones the first step has to be a site optimised specifically for the most popular devices. iphone and blackberry sping to mind instantly.

This being the first release of a Smartphone version of the application we wanted to keep it as simple as possible. The theory being we use our smartphones to access applications when we don’t have time to fire up the PC or when we’re out of the office. Either way, when using a small screen we really don’t want to be presented with a cluttered mess and too many choices.

Fortunately Google analytics backed up our suspicion. We found phone users spend less time on the site and use less pages.

                  Pages per visit                  Time on app

Mobile                3                                     3:55
PC                     4.5                                   7:20

Here’s the spread of smartphone usage, notice the heavy skew towards apple devices, at least this was conclusive about what design style we should opt for, iphone it is!

iphone or itouch          71%
Blackberry                   26%
Sony                              3%
Android                          0% (very interesting!)

So here it is:

After logging in you’ll find a simple, self explanatory menu:

Send message screen

As I type the send screen is still giving us a few headaches with the curved corners on the boxes, and hopefully will be rectified before we launch.

Sent Items and Inbox provide a scrollable list of your 20 latest messages

And clicking through to a sent item will show you a summary of the campaign as follows:

Hopefully the use of standard iphone formatting and navigation will make this as simple to use as the iphone itself. I personally can’t see any iphone user struggling with this in any way.

Just to clear any risk of users needing specific functionality there is a link on every page to use the full version.

So there we have it, simple, clean, easy to use, and due for release early next week.

In recent months the number of requests for a iphone/smartphone version have been increasing. So too has the usage of textburst from the whole range of internet enabled devices.

So it’s moved up the priority list, and we’re on with it.

I’ll get some screenshots posted in my next blog.

Exciting times ahead!

Everyone’s got a TV as well, but it’s not always switched on. And even when it is switched on they might not be watching the channel your expensive advert is on.

2. Everyone’s got a mobile

And everyone has got a radio, but again it’s not always switched on. And even if it is on they might not be listening to the station your expensive advert is on.

3. Everyone’s got a mobile

They also have computers, but some only at work and we’re not at work 24/7 (well, most people anyway). And some only have a computer at home, and we’re not at home 24/7. And again, even when we are at home or at work, we might be watching TV or listening to the radio, and not watching the computer.

4. Everyone’s got a mobile

Sorry to sound repetitive, but are you with me now? Everyone has got a mobile, it’s always switched on, and it doesn’t have different channels. They are always messing with it, and if they’re not messing with it it’s in their pocket or on their desk. So when you decide to send your message out to them they are there, ready and waiting…for you.

Oh, and if they have a smart phone, which is after all, just a mini computer. They probably listen to the radio on it, watch TV and video on it, read the news on it, check the scores on it, check facebook, twitter, linkedin, shop on it, take photos on it, read maps, and on and on and hence why you need to be thinking about mobile.

Simples!

Very simply, the plug-in provides a gateway so you can receive Nagios SMS alerts and notification.

It uses the Nagios pager confirmation to send SMS through our HTTP Gateway.

You can see more details on Nagios’s site and we should appear on the Nagios official plugins directory pretty soon.

As all of the solutions allow you to send text messages, what’s the difference between them and which one is applicable to you?

Textburst

The key advantage of textburst is it’s accessible from the internet, in your web browser, it’s like hotmail or google mail but instead of sending emails it sends text messages.

As an internet based application it can provide more functionality and allow you to take full control over your text message campaign.

It’s ideal for bulk SMS marketing because you can upload and manage multiple, and large groups of contacts. That means by segregating your database by e.g. interest, age or gender you can now target and tailor SMS messages specifically to that group.

You can also merge information into each text message so you can personalise it to the individual recipient. Like mail merging in a Word document. This is ideal if you want to increase response rates or make the customer feel like they are receiving a more personal communication.

The other key difference with textburst is the ability to schedule large SMS sends. This means you can develop a marketing message and send it out at a time where it will have the most impact. The thing about text messaging is that customers receive and read messages instantly so timing your message to perfection will yield much better results, and this might be at a time when you’re not at a PC. That’s where scheduling comes in.

You can also view a list of scheduled sends and cancel them if appropriate.

Textburst is also ideal for keeping in touch with staff, and in particular for business continuity SMS. The frequent reality of a business continuity situation is you’re not going to be able to get into the office. With textburst being internet based you don’t need to, it can be accessed from any internet enabled PC, be it at home, an internet cafe or from a Smartphone.

Outlook Mobile Service

Sometimes called OMS, this is actually your email package Microsoft Outlook 2007 or later version. When Microsoft launched Outlook 2007 they included the ability to send SMS text messages. And just like email, for which you need an email address from an email provider, you need an SMS provider. That’s where we come in.

With Outlook 2007 you are simply using functions and buttons provided to you by Microsoft, instead of clicking the “New Email” button you click the “New SMS” button. The compose SMS screen looks very similar to the email screen, and settings are all in the usual Microsoft menus, this means, assuming you already use Outlook then you’re already familiar with how it works and you’re not going to have any usability issues.

The most obvious advantage of using Outlook for text messaging is that it utilises all the information already in Microsoft Outlook contact list. This is great for small businesses that use this list as their primary database of contact information, and using a single database avoids duplication and margin for error.

The other distinct advantage is its links to the existing Microsoft Outlook calendars. You can have text message reminders sent to your mobile phone in advance of meetings or even a daily summary first thing in the morning. This is great functionality for those who’re regularly out of the office and need reminders of where to be, and when.

The final piece of the jigsaw is email notifications via SMS. This feature allows you to configure a rule that means when an email comes in that meets the requirements e.g. from a certain person or containing certain information then you’ll get an immediate text message notification. Perfect for that important email, perhaps notification of a contract win!

For advanced Outlook users if you combine Outlook Mobile Service with business contact manager you can make the functionality work well for text message marketing.

Email to SMS

Don’t be confused with Outlook Mobile service working from your email package. Email to SMS is different.

Email to SMS works from any email application what so ever, no exceptions. That’s the advantage; the disadvantage is it only comes with very basic functionality, although this suits most people.

Basically, just proceed as if you were sending an email but instead of entering an email address you type in their mobile number followed by @message-platform.com.

The email is sent directly to mediaburst and we convert the message content into an SMS and send it via the mobile networks. It all happens in a split second.

Email to SMS is often used by software developers to customise existing applications. For example, if you have software that can trigger an email when an event happens, if the email is sent to the email to SMS service then it’s be converted to SMS and delivered to your mobile handset.

So rather than receive the email you can now receive a text message and cover the possibility that you may not be at your PC when the event is triggered.

Typical examples of this in operation is, completion of website forms, appointment software, and server monitoring software.

SMS API

API stands for Application Protocol Interface, if you don’t know what it means, don’t worry, it’s not for you it’s for techies, software developers.

With an API you can connect your application to the mobile networks, if you want to send SMS messages from your application then this is what you need.

Integrate your application using XML SMS SMPP, HTTP SMS or SOAP SMS.

Summary

Although our applications are based around the principle functionality of sending SMS text messages, which application you chose depends very much on what software you already have and what is most convenient for you to use.

But as always, if your not clear or need any more information then get in touch.

If you want to read more then you could read our SMS Marketing Tips.

We also produced a self explanatory page entitled 10 things to do with SMS.

But not when you play Buzzword Bingo!

Download our bingo sheet, get your dabbers out and pay attention.

David Cameron is first up at 14:30!

Click here to get the bingo card

Big sends, instant response.

Rather than making you wait around while we process large bulk SMS sends, the send page now responds instantly. 

We now process the send in the background. It means you can keep working while the send processes.

Manage scheduled messages

In the past if you wanted to cancel scheduled message you had to call us and we’d do it for you. 

You’ll now find a list of all scheduled messages within the application and can cancel them up to a few minutes before they’re sent.

Up to date groups

If you schedule a message to a group we’ll now pick up the list of group members at the time of send rather than schedule.

This means you can continue to manage your groups and the send will be up to date with your latest contact list.

Additionally, to make this change work we now deduct message credit when we process the send.

Faster uploads

We’ve made a few behind the scenes tweaks to how uploads are processed.  In our tests an upload of 50,000 contacts now completes 10 times quicker than before.

Bigger uploads, bigger sends

There used to be a limit of 10,000 people in a single upload or send. 

With the speed improvements above we’ve removed this limit and so far have tested with groups of 100,000 contacts with no speed issues what so ever.

Summary

So there you have it hopefully you’ll enjoy the benefits, but as always contact us if there  is something we can improve.

A blog about Mobile, Advertising and Social media. Its creator Murat Mutlu is also a user experience designer so logically (and thankfully) we get a nice looking easy to navigate site. Murat has worked in agencies with a whole host of well known brands and his credentials and experience help to produce and informative yet fun read.

If nothing else you should get up to speed with this kettle that tweets, or “twettle” concept. It’s already creating quite a buzz.

Run by Ewan Macleod a daily serving of news and opinion. Originally the site was SMS Text News but as the market changed so too did their focus. There is regular content about all aspects of the mobile industry but what we like most is unbiased opinion, and it comes in bucket loads.

Today they have over 250,000 readers, and well worth tuning into.

It’s far from the prettiest of sites but as a relative newcomer it’s worthy of mention and certainly a visit.

The site is created and run by Daniel Nordberg who is head of business development at Sony Ericsson and a board member of the European branch of the Mobile Marketing Association. So while he may not be the best graphic designer he’s certainly well connected in the industry and carries an inherent interest in market growth.

He posts successful and creative examples of mobile marketing campaigns. There is a good site index down the right hand side making it easy for you to find campaigns in your particular area of interest.

Not masses of opinion but a great source of inspiration.

Here’s a popular site with a global attitude. They cover all things mobile including campaigns, strategies, company reviews, news, tips and interviews.

Although there is a lot of big company news, Microsoft, Apple, AT&T etc there is also a good helping of small business information and success stories.

The picture is completed with a newsletter and links to free guides such as “Mobile Marketing Industry Glossary” Text Marketing to Cell Phone users” and “Mobile Web Developers Guide”

Another basic site that carries some great content. There is plenty of advertising but thankfully the simplistic design places the content firmly as the centre of attention.

There are stacks of updates containing, opinion, news, company wins, and campaigns in a scrollable format.

American based news and blog site dedicated to the mobile industry. Clearly it has a focus on USA based campaigns but you’ll find a whole range of articles and news in an easy to navigate format.

They also have daily news alert which some may find useful.

The only downside is the excess of online advertising detracts from the content, but I guess you’ve got to fund yourself somehow.

Part of the well known Techcrunch site this blog covers hardware software and services of the mobile industry.

This site does tend to have a large focus on hardware and in particular, smart phones. But many of you will find this useful to keep abreast of the ever changing handset market. Perhaps relevant to look at new features and functionality that you can leverage for mobile campaigns.

No prizes for originality on the name, but there is no doubt, it is what it says it is.

What we like is accompanying the news and campaigns are a series of Mobile Marketing tips and tutorials covering in the main, SMS & proximity marketing.

This kind of resource is great for clients doing some research of what can be achieved with mobile.

Summary

So there you have it 8 great mobile marketing blogs…

wait…

did I not say 10….

the truth is we struggled beyond 8 so have 2 remaining spots, so leave your suggestions below and we’ll have a look, see if we can fill the final 2.

The reason for blogging was my disappointment at the standards that are currently being set and inaccuracies in the teaching material.

Examples:

• One suggests SMS messages could not be branded. You can actually append your brand name on the end or as the message header.
• Another quotes PhonepayPlus’ maximum fine as £100k, in actual fact it is £250k,
• And, one informed that it is possible for a sender to identify when an SMS has been read. This is completely untrue, unless of course you look over someone’s shoulder.

The list goes on…

My concern is that these bodies are teaching the future stars of our industries. It’s these students that with proper education and experience will create and run groundbreaking campaigns. They will take mobile to the next level, to new markets, new and old companies, to a whole new audience.   

But this won’t happen if they are not taught well from the outset.

So it’s vitally important that industry bodies who teach mobile as part of their syllabus do so in a responsible and accurate manner.

Now I don’t work in the education sector but I imagine this requires thorough research, regular reviews to align with a changing environment and market, and regular discussion with those in the industry.

So come on industry bodies, let’s up the standards please, let’s give the stars of the future the best possible chance to create some amazing campaigns.

The notification has come direct from Orange and will occur while they carry out changes to their SMS network.

During the outage there will be a total loss of SMS services on the Orange network for approximately 3 hours, starting at midnight 7th April and ending at 3am on Thursday 8th April.

During the outage, outbound text messages for delivery to Orange customers will be rejected by the Orange SMS Gateway and will fail to deliver. Messages originating from Orange customers will be stored by Orange and forwarded as soon as the connection is back up.

Orange appreciates the inconvenience that this will cause and has made assurances that they will work as quick as possible to bring the service back up again prior to 03.00.

It’s fortunate that they have chosen to conduct this work during a low volume period and hence the disruption will be kept to a minimum.

You do not need to do anything other than alert your technical teams or customers if applicable.
If you have any queries then please get in touch.

So in a slight attempt to clarify the position here it is:

We are very happy with our connectivity, routes, pricing, reliability, security, and relationships.

We are not in the market for new routes nor do we anticipate being in the near future.

The truth is we use a mixture of aggregator and direct connections to process our SMS traffic. All have been chosen on the basis of quality, speed, reliability, underlying financial strength, and finally price. By doing proper due diligence and long term testing we end up with routes that cater for our needs over the long term.

Choosing routes purely on price is not for us, it overlooks too many critical factors.

Switching routes based on the latest discount means you end up spending unnecessary technical time configuring and switching between the suppliers. It means taking on the risk of switching, it means not having time to properly test.

Our supplier choice is a long term decision, we seek to establish relationships that develop and become trusted that once in place we can sit comfortably and focus on selling more product.

When we look at new routes it’s driven by one factor and one factor only, a desire to improve our own service levels.

Fortunately, we have got to a point where we have no single point of failure throughout our SMS platform and supplier network, and our messages are delivered super fast. It’s these factors that help us win business with the likes of O2 and the NHS.

So there we have it, no new suppliers please.

Shared Groups

Sub users can view and send to groups shared by their admin user.

Quicker Uploads

Contact uploads now only require the mobile column, all others are optional.

Outlook 2010 Compatibility

oms can now be used from Microsoft Outlook 2010.

Clearer Pricing

To make pricing clearer message prices are now displayed both with and without VAT.

Enhanced Merging

Merged messages correctly count the number of characters in fields, in a small number of situations a send failed if one contact had a much longer name than the others.

IE6 tweaks

No one loves Internet Explorer 6 but we can’t ignore it completely, O2 branded products now work much better in this (legacy) browser.

Summary Pie Charts

Sent messages now shows a little pie chart rather than a bar graph, this gave us space for the next feature…

Quick Resend

You can resend messages from the sent page.  Just click the icon next to the pie chart and it will fill in the contacts and message text for a new send.

Clearer Buttons

Disabled buttons are greyed out making it very clear they can’t be clicked – You’ll see this on the received page, the add to phonebook button is greyed out if they’re already a contact.

See Who you are sending to

When you reply to a contact we now show their name in the To box.

Improved Statistics

The send date and originator are now shown on the Send statistics page.

If you do have any feedback or suggestions then leave a comment or head over to our customer forum.

Place your orders early for Christmas!

Step 1 Listen to client

The first stage in redesigning textburst was purely investigative. It involved listening to mediaburst staff and trying to gauge what it is this product of theirs did; along with what it did wrong and what they would have liked it to be able to do.

Step 2 Stop listening, start thinking

Once I’d gauged in my mind how I thought mediaburst wanted their new app to work; I thought about it for a few days. Sidenote: Thinking time is so important; diving straight into creating a working model may make the client happier but in the long run it can lead to more design revisions later in the process.

Step 3 Create interactive ‘wireframes’

This was the first stage where the something actually tangible was produced. A wireframe is simply a stripped down version of the website/app. With a web app (as opposed to web site) it’s more important how it works than how it looks so creating these simple mock-ups of how the app will work gave mediaburst a great idea of how the new textburst would work.
In textburst’s case, the idea was very much to strip back any excess features therefore making it easier to use. Luckily, this was mediaburst’s philosophy too.

Step 4 Get client feedback

Once wireframes had been produced it was time to go back to mediaburst and see if what I’d produced matched their needs. I knew how I wanted Textburst to work in a perfect world but the world isn’t perfect.; Textburst sends over 4million SMS a month and they have a lot of clients to keep happy.

Wireframe for the textburst send form (First version)

Wireframe for the textburst send form (Final revision)

The mediaburst team printed out every screen of the wireframes and stuck them on the wall and checked that all key functionality was still present. It’s all every well stripping back features and simplifying but alienating existing users wasn’t part of the plan.

Step 5 Start design work (in a sandbox)

The wireframes were finally approved and it was time to commence designing the textburst Initial designs which incorporated the ‘textburst green’ were eventually thrown away in favour of a more corporate looking blue which we all felt would attract more customers.
I was very interesting in making sure this design looked and worked like web apps people are used to. With this in mind I studied Facebook, CampaignMonitor and tried to mimic what made them so simplistic and obvious.

Textburst's send SMS form

Textburst's sent messages screen

Textburst's stats screen

Step 6 Think about client needs and change accordingly

The designed got handed over to the development team who then started to integrate the design into the current working version of textburst.
When the system was built it was then time to fine-tune it because it was apparent that the design wasn’t as complete as it needed to be. In particular we found ourselves asking the following questions:

• Was that screen’s purpose clear enough?
• Did we need another option in there and if so where would it go on the screen?
• How can we maintain simplicity when we we’re adding extra features?

This was a very interesting stage as it marked the point when the rest of the mediaburst team started to feel more involved. The engineers started to get really interested in all the small UI decisions and on one day in particular we spent a good few of hours discussing the positioning of micro-copy (and its wording) on one screen.

Step 8 Sit back and launch

Launching textburst was quite a scary proposition – thankfully the engineers did all of the work. Mediaburst had informed all of their clients about the changes before-hand but even so updating a core part of your business like this is no walk in the park. We all sat with baited breath in the office waiting for the deluge of complaints from angry customers but they never came.

Volvo

Their advert offered a brochure if you texted in. So I did.

I got a response, to which I replied with my address and postcode, they confirmed back by text, ”your brochure will be with you in a matter of days”.

It never arrived!

What did arrive was phone calls offering me test drives.

Being honest, not delivering the brochure isn’t a good start to my investigations, and following up with phone calls is a tad inconsistent with my chosen medium (SMS), but not the end of the world.

And far from Seat’s problems that I’ll detail below…

Kia

Next up was: KIA to 64118 and a response from 84118

“Welcome to the World of 7 Year Warranty from Kia. For a free Kia brochure, pls text your TITLE, FIRST NAME, SURNAME, HOUSE NO. & POSTCODE. Privacy:”

Why did the response come from a different number? Why do they need so much information, thought this was supposed to be easy? Oh forget it, I’m not interested in a 7 year warranty anymore!

Here’s my suggestion:

“Welcome to the home of the 7 Year Warranty from Kia. For a free brochure, reply with your NAME, HOUSE NO. & POSTCODE. Privacy:”

I’ve changed “World” to “Home”. This was to align correctly with their corporate message on their website, which seems logical.

Changed “pls text” to “reply with” because it’s instructional rather than a request and actually informs the consumer where to text to.

I also think just name, house no. and postcode, is fine for a mailing address. Consumers have only got 160 characters to reply with.

As for the response coming back from the same number you texted into. This ensures the consumer instantly recognises the source of the new message. And for smartphone users the two messages show consecutively in the same thread.

In truth I don’t think this is a bad example but can’t help but feel a little more thought could have improved brand consistency and increased the number who took up the brochure request.

Citroen C3

I then texted: NEWC3 to 64118 and, pleasingly received a response from the same shortcode.

“Thanks. For a New C3 brochure or test drive reply with your FULL NAME, HOUSE NO. & POSTCODE. We don’t spam.”

Great, this one’s consistent, and shorter!

But read on, it gets ugly…..

Seat Ibiza Cherub

I saw this great advert (see it here) and I texted: CHERUB to 84118.

The response I got was:

“Info in post. 4 a test drive rply TRIAL. Nearest: Citroen Manchester South, Cross St, M33 7JR, 01619690214. Others: 0800262262. 4 no news rply STOP”

What?

Citroen?

In the post?

I didn’t give them my address?

I requested info on a Seat Ibiza not a Citroen.

Again, why did it come from 64118 when I texted 84118?

This made no sense until I realised, this was on the same night I texted in for the Citroen C3 above. But crucially I didn’t send in my postcode or house number for the C3.

84118 and 64118 are the same service and they got mixed up what came from where.

When I texted ”CHERUB” to 84118 they thought I’d replied with my address and postcode for the Citroen.

They mixed up their shortcodes, keywords, and two very large car brands.

The service must have recognised my mobile number from the Citroen enquiry and bam “info in the post”!

My verdict: What can you say, I’ve not even got into the message structure and content, but promoting a competitors brand, I bet this wasn’t part of the brief!

Alfa Romeo

And finally, I watched an advert for an Alpha Romeo Mito.

Poised, mobile in hand, I waited for the shortcode and keyword.

But alas, it did not arrive.

They don’t use shortcodes on their adverts.

And this, I believe, is the biggest mistake of all.

This work follows on from our network upgrades in Derby last week and will bring our network fully up-to-date.We’ll be starting mid morning (around 10) and should be finished by early afternoon.

What we’re doing

We’re upgrading our remaining Cisco PIX firewalls to shiny new Cisco ASAs.

We’re setting up a backup link between our sites to keep your data safe.

And finally we’ll upgrade our Manchester backup database servers to make sure they can always keep up with the load.

Technical details

Our Manchester site is on the 217.20.43.96/27 network (217.20.43.96 through to 217.20.43.127), whilst we do the work you won’t be able to reach any servers running on these addresses.   Our Derby site will be up and working fine on the 89.248.48.192/27 network (IP addresses 89.248.48.192 to 89.248.48.223).

This afternoon we’ll take the Manchester servers out of service by removing the DNS records, we’ll then change them back once everything is tested and finished.

If you login to any of our products you can see which site you’re currently using, our Manchester servers always have a number 3 near the start such as textburst3.mediaburst.co.uk, Derby uses a 3 instead.

If you have any questions give us a call on 0845 050 0000 or drop us an email.

For once I’m lost for words….let the cake eating commence!

It’s not often that we find ourselves (or our processes) the focus of much scrutiny as our industry tends to be more about the visible results. The behind-the-scenes stuff stays, well, behind-the-scenes. You can imagine our surprise and trepidation then when we were invited to write a guest article on this blog about the design process behind the new Mediaburst website. Well we’re not ones to shy away from a challenge, so here goes…

Consultation

Our redesign began with a meeting between Managing Director Gary Bury, developer Phil Thompson and ourselves at Mediaburst HQ, Alderly Edge in mid September 2009. We had already worked with Phil on a website for Cheadle based agency Squad a few months earlier so were very pleased to be collaborating again with such a skilled design and development savvy individual.

Gary had a very clear vision of what he wanted for Mediaburst: clearer segregation between bespoke services and core SMS product offerings. It was refreshing to work with a client that really understood the power of effective design and communication. The consultation gave us an insight into the inner workings of Mediaburst, where they were and where they wanted to be in the future. This combined with a rough sitemap and some design likes/dislikes and we were ready to get stuck in.

Scamps

First off, we tackled the homepage with some ultra high tech pencil scamps.

These quickly gave us the ability to try out some layouts before swiftly moving on to the creation of three initial Photoshop concepts.

Initial Concepts

Three is our magic number when it comes to initial concepts, it allows us to explore different approaches and also gives the client that all important element of choice. We tend to get an immediate impression of what works well and usually, the client picks our favourite. Thankfully this occasion was no exception.

Initial homepage concept with placeholder illustration inspired by Tom Pearson

A key challenge for us was the introduction of a brand personality that clearly communicated and unified Mediaburst’s core products. These products also needed to have the visual strength and impact to stand alone. We decided that illustration would be best suited to this task.

Illustration

Gary and the team loved the personality that illustration lent to the designs but were keen to avoid anything too cutesy or “CBeebies”. We explored the impact of differing styles before commissioning talented illustrator Stanley Chow to create a family of birds that represent Mediaburst and their three products: Textburst, Ooutlook Mobile Service (OMS) and Email to SMS.

Bird illustration evolution

Concept Application

During the evolution of the bird illustrations we kept ourselves busy with the application of the chosen homepage concept to the product pages. The products were designed to exist as separate entities and present their attributes in a concise, easy to follow manner. The aim was a user journey that flows effortlessly from description to price plans to sign-up.

Final homepage concept

Textburst product page design

Textburst price plan page design

Textburst signup page design

Mobile marketing page design

Copy

Of course copy plays a vital part in the creation of a successful website. This aspect was capably executed throughout the design process by copywriter Andy White (read about Andy’s involvement here).

Final Artwork & Design Review

Upon delivery of development-ready artwork for the homepage, product pages and mobile marketing page in mid November, it was agreed that Phil had everything he needed to continue the development of the website, rolling out our concepts across remaining pages of the site and building a beta version of the site by the end of 2009. We carried out a thorough design review of the beta website in early January 2010 so that Phil and the team could make final amendments in preparation for launch on Wednesday, 20 January.

Result?

If we’ve done our job properly, the real measure of success of the new website will be an increase in traffic, new business and a return on investment for Mediaburst. Only time will tell but early signs are positive. We believe that we have helped to create a vast improvement on the site’s predecessor and an enjoyable user experience. If you think otherwise feel free to buy us drink and tell us why!

Materials & Tools Used

Consultation:

• Tea, coffee, biscuits (one chocolate) and sandwiches.
• Brains, pens, pencils & paper.

Project Management:

• Google Apps
• Basecamp

Design:

• Pencil and paper
• 960 Grid System
• Adobe Creative Suite

Next in line is Outlook Mobile Service.

With the forthcoming release from Microsoft of Outlook 2010 they have made some enhancements to the SMS side of the product.

Naturally we’ve included the functionality into our service, had it checked, and approved by Microsoft. I think we are the 3^rd company in the world this time to get approval, (note to self, must be first next time).

So the improvements are thus:

• Support for concatenated SMS (long SMS).
• Outlook 2010 will have an object model available to developers allowing them to build applications on top of it.
• SMS functionality is extended to the alert feature in Sharepoint.
• There is now batch mode to help with Bulk SMS. In short, it will improve the speed of delivery of multiple SMS.

Admittedly they haven’t gone as far as we would have liked. We’d still like to see functionality to customize the originator from within Outlook, and perhaps a direct link to purchase more messages from your chosen SMS provider. The idea being that these improvements alone would mean users could manage most of the SMS aspects directly from Outlook without having to log into the web front end of the SMS provider.

For now Outlook 2010 is another giant leap in the right direction for PC originated SMS. Our customers who have adopted Outlook Mobile Service in version 2007 find the efficiency of sending SMS from their email software much more convenient than signing into a web application. We should see 2010 build on that convenience.

While Derby is turned off  we’ll also be upgrading our network and servers to make sure we offer you the best service possible.

We’ll be starting mid morning (around 10) and should be finished by mid afternoon.

What we’re doing

We’re upgrading our Cisco PIX firewalls to shiny new Cisco ASAs, they’re considerably more powerful and should make our life much easier.

We’ll also install new servers for our mobile marketing services, the old ones currently work fine but we don’t want to take any chances.

And finally we’ll upgrade our backup database servers to make sure they can always keep up with the load.

Technical details

Our Derby site is on the 89.248.48.192/27 network (IP addresses 89.248.48.192 through to 89.248.48.223), you won’t be able to reach any servers running on these addresses while we do the work.  Our Manchester site is on 217.20.43.96/27 (217.20.43.96 through to 217.20.43.127) these addresses will all work fine.

On Monday afternoon we’ll take the Derby servers out of our DNS so that our service addresses only point to Manchester, we’ll then change them back once everything is tested and finished.

If you login to any of our products you can see which site you’re currently using, our Derby servers always have a number 5 near the start such as textburst5.mediaburst.co.uk, Manchester uses a 3 instead.

If you have any questions give us a call on 0845 050 0000 or drop us an email.

Now although this will slot into our fun category in the blog this is no light hearted event. It’s sponsored by LG and offers prize money of US$100,000. There are 26 competitors from 13 different countries competing in teams of two.

Korea were the eventual winners followed by USA and Argentina.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj0_Kg-3M3c

Portuguese competitor Pedro Mateus managed to break the world record of texting the standard English paragraph used to measure texting speed using a single thumb in less than 2 minutes.

The interesting stat is one of the USA contestants is quoted as having sent 16,000 text messages in a single month (circa 533 a day), before her parents instructed her to take this down to a mere 10,000.

Surely it can’t be long before texting is an Olympic sport?

The latest thing, (and I realise this may well be old news to you hip, swinging cyberpunks out there ) is that “over the air” malarkey. It’s already big news in some Asian markets and the basic gist of it is this.

In the very near future we won’t really need all the credit cards we have now, (of course a great many people will still want them. Nothing says so much about you as slapping your Amex Centurion card on the marble effect bar and saying “keep ‘em coming”), we’ll be carrying out all our transactions with our mobile phones.

All our bank details, our credit worthiness, our medical records and possibly even sexual preferences will be stored in a teeny weeny chip inside our phone. We wont even need to key in any old-fashioned PIN numbers, (and there’s a funny thing, PIN stands for “Personal Information Number”. So every time you get asked for your PIN number you’re being asked for your “PIN number number”), We’ll simply choose an item to buy, wave our phones at a compatible Pay point and the sale will be made.

This of course gives an old technophobe like me great cause for concern.

What happens if I’m taking a short cut through the lingerie department of Debenhams, (it could happen), and I inadvertently switch my phone on as I brush past a rack of brief ‘n’ bra combos? Next thing I know, I could have a selection of ladies’ undergarments delivered to my home causing no end of consternation and awkward questions.

And another thing, I don’t want to be calling British Rail Enquiries to check my train’s progress, only to find that I’ve pressed the wrong button and have purchased the Manchester to London Pendalino. For one thing I’ve got nowhere to put it, for another I just don’t want the responsibility.

I’m sure all of these potential problems will be ironed out by the time we get to use the technology but I implore you to be on your guard when that day arrives.

Remember, when you’re phoning for the latest movie screening times you’re only one digit away from buying a Multiplex. And you’ll never get that home on the bus.

Summarised Version

If you are competent with excel just follow the 4 steps below. For a more in-depth explanation see further down this post.

1. Remove column headers

2. Remove any spaces in the numbers.

3. Remove 0 and prefix the numbers with the country code.

4. Save as a CSV File

That’s it you’re done & ready to upload to textburst!

Detailed Version

1.  Remove column headers

• Delete the entire row containing the headers, right click on that row’s number and choose delete

2.  Remove any spaces in the numbers

• Left click on column letter to highlight and press Ctrl + F which will bring up a ‘Find and Replace’ box.
• Click on Replace tab.
• Enter a space in the ‘Find what’ box.
• Leave ‘Replace with’ box empty.
• Click on Replace All button.

3. Remove 0 and prefix the numbers with the country code.

• Right click on the column with the numbers in and click format cells, in the number tab click number in category and select 0 decimal places.

• Enter 44 (or appropriate country code) in the first cell of the next blank column right click on the cell and select copy then highlight the cells below that you are going to copy in to and click paste.

• In the first cell of the next column, enter the formula =CONCATENATE(D1,C1), you may need to alter the column letters depending on what columns your numbers are in. Copy this down to replicate the formula but change the cell refs in it each time, click on the cell and drag the cross in the bottom right down to highlight the cells you are copying to.

• Copy the column with the formula, left click the column letter, right click and choose copy, then paste special into the next column, right click the column letter and choose Paste Special, select the Values option.

• Now Delete the previous columns (C, D & E), left click on the column letter to highlight, right click and choose delete.

4. Save as a CSV File

• Go to ‘Save As’ and save as a ‘CSV comma delimited’

So where does mobile come into this, there has to be some relevance to the blog of an SMS Provider?

In the infrequently asked questions Gates addresses the question, “should companies help the poor”.

The very obvious point he raises is that companies are there to build great products and sell them, and therefore only consumers that have money can buy them. Hence the poorest are excluded from the cycle and benefits that can be derived from the products.

He argues that companies should invest a proportion of their R&D into work that directly helps the poor, and derive the benefits that come from investing in lower cost models and markets.

So here’s the mobile link:

He suggests that communications companies could benefit by figuring out how the cell phone could help with health needs.

And there we are, he’s stepped on the holy grail of mobile. It’s an area that so far no one has successfully managed to figure out. Don’t believe me? Manchester University has even setup an M-Health Innovation Centre to act as the UK focus for such initiatives.

We are talking serious stuff here, helping people get better, improving lives. Forget all the premium rate muck that plagues the industry this is where we should be heading.

But the problem is healthcare is complex and longwinded, we all have different needs, differing ailments and issues.

Then you’ve got healthcare providers, government bodies who enshrouded themselves in an impenetrable layer of red tape.

We need to find a chink in the armour of bureaucracy, a way in. Perhaps someone who believes in the benefits so much that they help you unlock the door and guide you through the corridors to the right department.

And that’s what mediaburst have found, someone who understands what can be done with a mobile phone.

Someone who understands healthcare and can correlate the apparently unconnected.

Someone who’s drawn the parties together to collaborate and develop.

So watch this space, healthcare is coming to your mobile.

The site went through a great many changes to arrive at the finished product. There’s a lot to consider. Does it all work? Will people take the time to read it? Will they click in the right places? Will they go from homepage to sign up in a few fluid moves?

Inevitably compromises are made and inevitably copywriters get upset. Well, this one does anyway.

Because, while I love the site, it’s design and it’s execution, I loved the earlier versions more. They had more words you see. Clever words, warm fuzzy words, “come in and get to know us” words and snappy little lines that showed how clever I am.

However, as a professional, ( please stop sniggering at the back ), I’m used to this. I shall gather up all those clever words, dust them down and put them back in my bag for the next job. And when that job goes to press or appears on the screen I’ll gather them up, dust them down and put them back in my bag again. That’s how it is for us poor, misunderstood copywriters.

Compromises and sour grapes aside though, I think it’s a great site and it was a pleasure to work with Stiff Rowlands, Phil Thompson and, perhaps most of all Gary. It’s not every client that lets you have a good old gripe on their own blog you know…

The jargon trap

We’ve liked all our previous websites but they have all been based on providing information on mobile technology. We’d fallen into the trap of using industry jargon and overcomplicating everything. This made it difficult for those new to mobile to understand our products. We’d used cliché photo’s of mobile phones and a site structure that didn’t lend itself to growth. Have a look here

So as well as making everything simpler and easy to understand, the key driver was to allow users to sign up and buy online. Such a radical change in direction for a website required a complete overhaul. The conundrum we faced was to retain all the useful information but create a site structure users could easily follow to the products they are interested in or obtain the information they are looking for.

The result

I think we’ve done this exceptionally well. The navigation into key products is easy, each product page contains links to relevant supplementary information, and pricing is crystal clear. Alongside this we’ve beefed up the blog and will use it to publish articles on how to get the most from mobile as well as company news and interesting facts and figures.

We’ve now got a dedicated section for agencies regarding mobile marketing. This area is small but crystal clear in what we are offering and how we can help agencies in the mobile marketing arena.

There is a dedicated customers section to showcase the brands using mediaburst and relevant case studies. Over the coming months we’ll be adding more content.

Significantly there is now a SMS API section. Not only does this contain the API code and samples but also an online signup mechanism and a showcase of products that are already using the API.

What do you think?

So there you have it, a new year, and a new site. It’s the most significant customer facing redesign we have ever made. It’s the culmination of 6 months of hard work, and we hope you like it?

Beyond the visual

Over the past 6 months we’ve really got into User Interface design. We’ve gone beyond visual appearance to understand how our products are used and how we can help users get more out of them.

This revamp of textburst has led to an interface that is built around the most used functionality.  We didn’t want to cram in tonnes of new but unused functionality. If we did that we’d create an unusable monster. We are all busy people these days and so simple interfaces help us quickly benefit from the tool we are using.

Oh, an on the visual appearance, we couldn’t help but apply some polish, it needed it!

Improvements

So what have we done?

The menu system is paired down to the key functions and logically structured. We’ve included a hot link to the send message page and tips on how to get the most from the product.

We’ve streamlined the Account Setting and Options to put the various features under logical headings that are easily understandable and configurable.

Uploading contacts in now streamlined and you can continue using the product while the upload processes.

Due to popular demand we no longer log you out after 20 minutes of inactivity. Once you have logged on in we’ll remember for up to 8 hours.

A significant difference is the elimination of a user guide. Instead we’ve included instructional micro-copy to guide users through the product. This is much a change in company ethos as an elimination of a user guide. This decision is about being honest with our self. Users don’t want to trawl through instruction books, they want something they can use instantly. The theory is, if you need a guide to get started on our products, then it’s us who’ve designed them wrong.

So if you see something you don’t understand, tell us, we’ll look at it and make it understandable.

More of an internal factor is that we’ve consolidated various web applications (Web SMS, Promobi, textburst) into a single product, still called textburst. With a single web application with harmonised price plans it’ll make support more consistent and upgrades both easier and offered to all users.

Grand designs

So as you’ll see this isn’t Changing Rooms slapping a quick coat of paint on. It’s more like Grand Designs building something for the future that goes beyond the visual appearance to consider how you use the end product.

We’re confident you’ll like it, so take a look around and let us know what you think?

So why does this still happen, why is our industry still blighted by these people?

Let’s take a look at the most recent adjudication, case reference 773809.

PPP received 127 complaints for a service run across 2 shortcodes. They investigate, deem it as a very serious case, uphold breached of fairness and legality, issue fines and ban the information provider from operating premium rate services for 12 months.

Excellent, it would appear job well done.

Now let’s take a look at the financials involved. The information I use here is taken directly from the adjudication itself.

Revenues generated by the combined service fell in the bracket of £350,000 to £750,000.

The combined fines imposed amount to £305,000.

So a very rough calculation shows that profit after fines falls in the bracket of £45,000 to £445,000.

And here lies the very reason the industry still suffers from the scammers.

It would appear PPP need to be able to fine the total value of revenue received on a service, what do you think, how else do we clean the premium rate industry?

We’ve got an exciting year ahead and we’re getting straight into it. The new website will be live later in January and at the same time textburst will take on a whole new appearance.

There’s a demo available so feel free to click around and let us know what you think?

Don’t be fooled though, it’s a demo, it doesn’t actually send messages.

View the textburst demo

At the same time I thought it worth showing off the work that the illustrator Stanley Chow has put in. He’s created us a range of images we can use to identify products and services.

We’ve deliberately steered away from any stereotypical representations of a text message, usually a mobile phones and/or envelope. It’s been done many times and we wanted something that helps us stand out, while at the same time providing cohesion between our products.

So here they are:

mediaburst birds

Textburst

Outlook SMS

Email to SMS

Let us know what you think, are they too bold, are they simple enough, do you like the consistency?

For sending messages, our SMS API will automatically take care of the settings need to do this as long as the ‘Concat’ parameter is set when sending the message. The Concat parameter can take the value of 1, 2 or 3, and indicates how many SMS you are willing to use to attempt to send a message.

However, if you have messages which are sent from phones to your application (MO Messages), an understanding of how concatenation works can be useful if users are likely to send messages over 160 characters.

User Data Header (UDH)

The SMS that make up a concatenated SMS are related together by using the User Data Header (UDH) of an SMS. The UDH is a collection of bytes which can be put at the start of the SMS content. It can be used to control what happens to the rest of the content. For instance, it was used to send the older style of Nokia picture messages.

To indicate that the content contains a UDH, a flag on the SMS called the UDH Indicator (UDHI) must be turned on. This tells the phone that it must separate the UDH from the rest of the content.

Format of an SMS with a UDH

The phone separates the UDH by reading the first byte of the content. The number in this byte is the length of the rest of UDH and is called the User Data Header Length (UDHL). The phone then knows how many bytes make up the UDH and can separate it from the rest of the message.

As already stated, a UDH can control various things and so can contain various commands. These commands are called Information Elements (IE’s). These IE’s always take the following format: an Identity Element Identifier (IEI) followed by the Length of the IE Data (IEDL) followed by the IE Data (IED). A UDH can contain 1 or more of these IE’s.

UDH’s for Concatenated SMS

For concatenated messages the IE’s that we are interested in are the ones with Identifiers (IEI) of 00 or 08. These indicate that the rest of the message is a concatenated message.

Let’s take an example of using the 00 Information Element Identifier.

The 00 IEI always has an IEDL of 03. That is, there are 3 bytes in the IE Data section.

The first byte is a reference number. This reference number must be the same for all SMS that make up a particular concatenated message.

The second byte is the total number of SMS that go to make up the concatenated message.

The third byte is the part number that this particular SMS is.

So if we have a message that is split across two SMS the bytes in the SMS may be:

First SMS: 05 00 03 A6 02 01 .. bytes that make up the first part text ..
Second SMS: 05 00 03 A6 02 02 .. bytes that make up the second part text ..

The 08 identifier works the same way as the 00, but instead of a 1 byte reference number, it uses a 2 byte (16 bit) reference number. Therefore its IEDL is 04, there are 4 bytes in the IE Data section. These are as follows:

The first and second bytes make up the 16-bit reference number.

The third byte is the total number of SMS that go to make up the concatenated message.

The forth byte is the part number that this particular SMS is.

So another two SMS examples could be:

First SMS: 06 08 04 F4 2E 02 01 .. bytes that make up the first part text ..
Second SMS: 06 08 04 F4 2E 02 02 .. bytes that make up the second part text ..

The API

As mentioned at the start of this article, our API will take care of all of this for sending messages. All you do is set the ‘Concat’ field to maximum SMS that you are willing to use to send a message.

For receiving messages, our API will forward through the individual SMS that make up a concatenated message. The UDH is already removed from the content and is present in the UDH parameter as the hex encoded bytes. The rest of the content is placed into the Payload parameter.

For most single SMS, a UDH parameter will not be present and so the parameter will be blank. But for concatenated SMS, the receiving script can check the UDH for the 00 or 08 IEI’s to allow it to piece together the original message.

Gone are the days of huge pdf files and big print runs. The Online version is well structured so you can easily find the sections you need. If you need something specific then there is also a handy search facility.

To make life easy there is a large bank of example code covering all the different integration protocols.

Additionally, the online guide covers both SMS and MMS.

If I leave TweetDeck running on my PC I end up with an endless stream of useless messages.

“10 best this and that”

“have a look at our blog”

“new candidates available now”

but nothing new, nothing interesting.

If I want the latest news there are various decent websites, you may have heard of them:
BBC, SKY, CNN.

There is also plenty of industry sites that will keep you informed on the latest iphone apps that nobody buys.

A quick look at what’s trending at present revels, #nowplaying, Christmas, SNOW, #in2010. This can’t be anything more than idle chit chat.

So why do we bother, should businesses leave twitter alone, leave it for personal users who want to discuss Christmas, Snow, what they did last night, and who they want to follow on Friday?

Narhh, I’ll stay on tweeting my blogs, recommending links, re-tweeting others tweets, adding to the stream, because actually, I don’t think I contribute to the SPAM.

Like everyone else, I share useful, valuable information!

The X-Factor for new online media brands today is who you partner with not how much money you have to spend.

A month ago I was at the C@binet conference on the future of media, organized by the government at the impressively Footballers’ Wives Grove Hotel.

If all your customers have £500 a night to spend, and you like the idea of swimming in a pool so black that you hit your head at the end of every length, you might want to think about holding your next corporate event there too.

There were three really remarkable things about it.

Put the slides down

First there was a total ban on Powerpoint. Not a partial moratorium where people kind of used it in the background. But a total absence from any presentation in three days.

And here’s what happened: the world did not end. People looked the audience in the eye, told stories, expressed opinions, and engaged with each other.

Anyone doing a job like mine gets to go to a lot of conferences and do a lot of public speaking. It’s how you make new contacts. And I am now convinced that the as far as reading out powerpoint slides goes, zero tolerance is the best policy. Get up there and tell them a story, preferably a funny one.

(By the way, this classic and brilliant New Yorker article remains the definitive study of the saddos of Powerpoint. It’s a must-read.)

TV can be so last year

The second remarkable thing about the conference was the palpable marginalization of TV. I can recall barely any session where broadcast TV was centre stage, as opposed to a prop for a wider discussion of SEO, aggregation, atomization, YouTube revenue splits-..and not a mention of the creaking structures of the TV industry.

It’s a cross-platform world, and the government is totally onto that. For another interesting Northern media company like Mediaburst, this is of course old news  it makes its trade on the no. 1 universal media tool of the planet, the mobile phone. But for many in the finance trade, the redefinition of the media into new genres and not just, say, TV or publishing, is still a newsflash.

Take your partners

But the third point actually came from a finance person, and was the most interesting of all. Julie Meyer, a venture capitalist and one of the dragons on the BBC’s online Dragon’s Den (my tip: she’ll be on the real show any day now) said some really smart things about how you start and launch media projects these days.

Time was, say in year 2000, that the way to get an online business going was to raise £10m, have a huge marketing budget and outspend the rivals. Think Amazon.com for a successful implementation, and the original Boo.com for a failure.

But now, as Julie said, it’s about fighting smarter. The strength of your startup is about who you are partnering with and how.

Partners mean prizes

In a mobile phone content business that’s self evident. Almost everything a firm like Mediaburst does will have a service provision partner (a O2) and a client (a Kellogs).

And it’s true for Ten Alps too. We spent the last year really working up a portfolio of new media brands, and every one is about its partners. We start with a fairly low investment maybe £100k. Then we roll out it with friendly organisations.

Take Newton a new science project we will soon launch. It’s got some cool technology and great science content: but the real point of difference is the partners, the Science Museum, the Open University and the Royal Institution. It’s they who bring the traction, the existing traffic, the content credibility.

Take Yossa a jobs and entreneurship site we are rolling out next year. It looks like launching with as big an online partner as you can get. Or any of our TV programmes with broadcasters. Or Accountancy TV, which where we are looking to work with the big firms to help with their training. Partners, partners, partners.

Finally take Link2, the trade portal we are running out of our Manchester office. It’s not just a website, it’s a content aggregator providing sector based content from 437 published titles we have, which users can choose to select and then read on the device of their choice, including mobile. So our partners are-.ourselves, our own published titles. Without the titles, the site would never have been viable.

Mobile like Mediaburst’s output is about dissemination of content and user choice. And so is link2. The content you want, when you want it, with the freedom + flexibility of web and mobile. And all delivered by partners  keeping the platform elegant and profitable.

Partners can make things interesting. Some are just plain free like Facebook’s complimentary search optimization of your business name-.And they make you profitable too.

About Alex Connock

Alex Connock is Chief Executive of Ten Alps, a company he founded in 1999 alongside Bob Geldof. Ten Alps is now listed on AIM and produces factual media across all platforms.

Upload Contacts

Our largest source of customer queries surrounds uploading bulk SMS contacts. This is in part because the current page is not exactly what you’d call intuitive. (click the image)

The sheer length of the page scares users. The instructions are at the top, perhaps logical, but most users forget the latter steps by the time they have completed the first stages. The “select fields” and “groups” sections in particular are confusing.

We’ve made a few tweaks and come up with this draft which we believe will make the process much smother.

You’ll notice the page is now much shorter with clear instructional copy to guide you through the process.

To de-clutter the page we’ve removed the instructions of how to convert excel to CSV. These is no reason to force you to read these instructions, we’ll include a link to a popup window so you can choose.

We’ve also introduced a preview sample of the uploaded data for you to confirm before committing. And, importantly, you’ll now be able to continue working in Textburst, sending and receiving SMS, while the upload is processing. The actual upload will process in the background, no more waiting for the screen to refresh.

A much improved process, I hope you agree?

Timeout Settings

We currently time out a session on 20 minutes of inactivity.

On this point we’ve listened to you, we’ve heard your requests, we know you don’t like this, so we’ve transferred power back to you:

You log in

You stay in

You log out.

Improving the “To” Field

As web technology improves it’s important to include those developments which add to the usability of our products. To make the send message page more fluid the inclusion of a clever bit of coding will certainly help in the “to” field.

I’ve struggled to describe this in a non techy manner but I think this series of images speak for themselves.

On the send an SMS message page, you have the “To” box that you can type numbers, names, or groups into:

As soon as you click in the box a menu appears:

Start typing and the Ajax functionality will automatically find relevant SMS contacts and groups, simply click the contact or group you were looking for.

Personalise

Finally, you may have noticed the addition of “Personalise” in the image above.

The current version of merging fields in a text message is cumbersome and hence frequently overlooked.

Recipients of SMS messages will undoubtedly respond better to a personalised message and hence why we have drawn more attention to this functionality.

As you are typing a message, use your mouse to click the relevant field to insert into the message.

Simple, effective, and helping you improve communication.

Until January

Hopefully you’ll see your feedback is being taken into consideration and an improved product is just around the corner, scheduled for release early January.

The service, powered by O2 and SMS Provider Mediaburst, will allow lettings agents to contact large numbers of tenants, potential tenants, contractors, suppliers and landlords at the click of a button through the GEMINI software.

Peter Grant, Managing Director of VTUK said, “Working with O2 and Mediaburst, we have found ways to not only improve and streamline the SMS service, but to make it cheaper too. Using text messaging, agents can contact landlords, keeping them up to date with property and tenant information, as well as using it to contact their supply chain, tenants and potential tenants looking for a home.

“Everyone has a mobile phone these days, and using the SMS service is easy, cost-effective way of getting an instant message to virtually anyone you want to, about anything.

“We are constantly looking for ways to improve our software, and we wanted to make our SMS service more streamlined, easier and cost-effective for agents. We are committed to providing our customers with a service that is second-to-none, and this new service, on top of our recent ancillary services offering, will help to make business easier and more profitable for our customers.”

Launched in July this year, VTUK’s ancillary services offering, is a one stop shop for all services required to let or sell property, allowing agents to order EPCs, floorplans, inventories, gas and electricity safety checks, insurance, referencing services, utility services (gas, electricity, water and council tax notification) and much more from a single web portal. The ancillary services portal is unique, simple, saves time and can earn agents money on each order placed.

O2 is the UK’s most popular mobile phone network. Mediaburst is an award-winning mobile marketing company, specialising in providing SMS messaging facilities for businesses, software developers, and network operators.

There are too many occasions when we arrive on websites to be confronted by bewildering amounts of copy. When this happens sure as eggs are eggs we’re thinking, “do I really need to read this or is it ok for me to shut it down and do something else”.

It’s on this principle that we are attempting to cut down the copy for the new website. We certainly don’t want potential customers arriving at our site and running a mile because we didn’t spend the time to create copy that was informative, easy to read but most importantly, concise.

Our web based text messaging service is called Textburst and the old description is as follows:

“Textburst: Our product Textburst is a web based SMS service that enables you to fully manage your SMS needs quickly and easily via an internet browser”.

I hope after that mouthful you are still reading?

Complete drivel, it repeats Textburst twice in the first 4 words, instructs you that it’s a web based service that can be accessed from, guess what, a web browser! It also hints that that managing your SMS needs is insufficient and FULLY managing your SMS needs is more appropriate”.

So the process starts by deleting unnecessary words which leaves us with something like:

“Textburst: Web based SMS service”.

Strangely, although it’s a very accurate description it falls short on actually selling the product and it’s features. I also think there will be some potential customers to whom “Web based SMS” doesn’t mean anything, so now we need to add a few words, be more descriptive, more friendly.

This is our current draft:

“Web based application to send and receive SMS. Upload Contacts, personalise, send.”

The first 8 words accurately describe the product to a wide audience. The last 4 are an attempt to put more context into the application and what you can use it for, they’re also chronological in terms of how you would use the application. Upload your contacts, personalise your message, and send.

So there we have it, it may change before we release in January, and indeed post release when we have some user feedback, but I think we’ve come up with something short, punchy, descriptive, readable, and entirely free of drivel.

The UK mobile networks all use the GSM standard, and as such, a standard text message is limited to the GSM character set.

An SMS can contain up to 140 bytes. The GSM character set is encoded using 7-bits, rather than the usual 8-bits that make a byte. This means there can be 160 characters in an SMS.

This 7-bit limitation means only 128 standard characters can be encoded. The GSM standard gets round this by also having the Extended GSM character set. These are another 10 characters which are actually sent by sending two 7-bit characters, an escape (ESC) character followed by another character. This means that 160 ‘£’ symbols can fit in a single SMS, but only 80 ‘{‘ symbols.

If you need to send other characters than those in the GSM character set, then take a look at UCS-2 messaging which allows sending most unicode characters, but as each of these takes 2 bytes it means only 70 characters can be sent per SMS.

So our customers don’t need to bother converting characters into the GSM encoding or escaping the extended characters, our SMS API accepts messages in UTF-8 encoding.

Update: Since posting this we’ve released an article on how to do GSM character encoding in .NET

The tables below show a full list of the GSM characters, standard and extended. They also show the equivalent UTF-8 encoding need to send into our API.

Standard GSM Characters

Extended GSM Characters

In an SMS these are prefixed with the escape character (1B) and therefore take up 2 of the 160 characters of an SMS. They do not need escaping when sending into our API.

In this blog I’ll guide you through how we test and validate a new bulk SMS route.

But the first question that arises is, “does the quality vary?”
As you’ll read below, the answer is a resounding “yes”

…massively.

Stage 1. One message, One Handset

The first stage is to send a single message to a single phone, it sounds incredibly daft but if we can’t do this then we can stop wasting our time or least contact the supplier and get them to sort themselves out.

Can this really go wrong: if the supplier hasn’t configured the account properly, has provided you with the wrong user name and/ or password, has locked the route to a wrong IP address, or provided you with inaccurate API documentation then yes, it can go wrong.

Stage 2. Multiple Messages

Now we send 6 messages, one to a handset on each UK network. They should all arrive at approximately the same time or at least seconds of each other. The message should be the same on all the phones and the header/ originator should be the same.

What can go wrong here: In the past we have seen messages delivered to all but one phone, we have seen SMS headers scrambled on certain networks, characters changed in the SMS message body, and even routes that can’t deliver to Nokia handsets.

Stage 3. Character Encoding

Now it starts to get tricky, we send the complete GSM character set to each of the 6 phones. Some say this isn’t possible. But that’s a lie, its depends on which routes they use, which networks you send through. For example, one of Vodafone’s cheaper routes doesn’t process the “|” (pipe) symbol, but you can route through O2 to a Vodafone handset successfully with this symbol.

So we check through the character set to ensure they come through accurately on each phone, sometimes some Greek symbols and other lesser used characters will be replaced, sometimes the message isn’t delivered at all, but at worst, the message isn’t delivered but the supplier returns a delivery receipt saying it was delivered.

This can happen because the supplier or network isn’t able to process a particular character, they simply fail the message, but systems can get confused and think it was delivered.

If we get a good result on this test then we stop here and wait a week.

Stage 4. Repetition

Repeat stages 1 to 3 again. We like to double check things don’t change.

Stage 5. Integration

If all is looking good then we’ll start the integration process. This means configuring our live platform to send a limited volume of real messages.

We’ll send a regular stream of messages for a few weeks but monitor very very closely. We look at delivery rates, latency, we’ll do occasional checks to the in-house test phones.

We’ll always allow this test to cross over a month end because we need to see a bill for the messages. We need to see our records of messages correlates with theirs. We like to see they are able to raise an invoice promptly and accurately. We want to ensure we can access relevant technically competent staff in a very short time frame, that means they have to answer the phone and emails and resolve any issues quickly. It’s not just about the messages, we look for solid, reliable, consistent suppliers, and this can only be proved over time.

Stage 6. We’re Live!

Increase the volume of SMS through the route.

But we’ll only do this if everything above is satisfied to our exacting standards, and even then we continue to monitor on a regular basis. But regular monitoring is a subject for another blog post…

The new definition is:

“A set of practices that enables organizations to communicate and engage with their audience in an interactive and relevant manner through any mobile device or network.”

According to the MMA the crux of the new definition lies in two key parts:

1. The “set of practices” now includes “activities, institutions, processes, industry players, standards, advertising and media, promotions, direct response, relationship management, CRM, customer services, loyalty, social marketing, and all the many faces and facets of marketing.”
2. To “engage” now means to “start relationships, acquire, generate activity, stimulate social interaction with organization and community members, and be present at time of consumers expressed need.” Additionally, engagement can now be initiated by the consumer (“Pull” in form of a click or response) or by the marketer (“Push”).

Did you get that?

You can read the official article here

He was selected from a pool of 46,281 entries and had a chance to win £250k.
All he had to do was drop kick from 30 yards and hit the cross bar.

So he goes down in his socks and has a go.

I don’t think he believed what happened.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMkimxS_swA

With the growth of mobile internet use it can only make sense for Google to cover it’s bases.

view the announcement here

We have spoken to both users of our site, employees, friends and relatives.

Opinion seems divided on the subject but here at Mediaburst we felt that in 2009 most users have scroll wheels on their mouse and aren’t afraid to use them.

The advantage for us is we can use the top half (above the fold) to draw attention to the key aspects of our SMS products and provide more detailed information as you scroll down the page. The obvious advantage is by using this mechanism we can reduce the number of pages on the site making it quicker and easier for customers to find the information they need.

Fortunately I’ve just stumbled across this presentation by the respected Chuck Mallot which validates our position both conceptually and with some nice stats.

A copy of the presentation is available at SlideShare

Original mediaburst logo

Design 1 – change is good

Design 1 took the existing logo and placed it on a textured background of grey…. and got a big universal thumbs down.

New logo: option 1

On reflection mainly due to it being the same logo. What it did do is crystallise in our mind we wanted something new and fresh. Where as previously we were happy with the logo, now we were not, and not for any other reason than the launch of the new site will herald a huge step forward for the company and we want to reflect the fact in everything we do and are, including the logo.

Design 2 – we are mediaburst

In design 2 we took a different approach by incorporating more of a strap line in an attempt to convey our passion and belief. Hoops are remove and colours changed.

New logo: option 2

It’s clean, fresh, easy to read and we liked the concept, but it fell down on 2 accounts.

Firstly, on our past experience of using a strap line so close to the company name. We used to have “Inspiring Communication” and it amazes me how much post we still get addressed to “Mediaburst Inspiring Communication Limited”. Our decision was any logo must be absolutely clear that we are called Mediaburst.

And secondly, while we do love mobile, our name is a name and not a statement, we are Mediaburst and that is what we shall be called.

Design 3 – the anti logo

This design really caught us, it’s bold, the colour fresh, and the textured background provides depth that allows our company name to stand out as a logo.

One comment was that it’s an “anti logo”. In contrast to the capabilities of that web 2.0 thingy people talk about. Here we have simple text, the font is Arial, there are no icons, hoops, loops, telegraph poles, mobile phones, robots, or bleepy signals.

It also carries on the use of red in our corporate identity providing us with valuable continuity.

It’s not confusing, easy to read and gives us that fresh vibrant feel we strive for.

Decision made.

New logo: option 3 - the winner

A word about the process

While I’m on I felt it worth sharing a few words on the process we employed to make our decisions.

The honest truth is, there were no focus groups or structured appraisal techniques used.

We haven’t spent days on this or thousands of pounds on brand consultants.

We’ve made the decision as a group of employees using gut feel.

We’ve all bought into it, there was no selling required

We like it, and we hope you will too.

A sneaky peak

Finally, sometimes a logo doesn’t look like much unless placed in context, so here’s a sneaky peak, a taste of what’s to come!

Sneaky peak at new website design

Having tried a Juniper SRX for a fortnight we were left with the impression that a few features aren’t quite finished yet. The routing side, which Juniper are traditionally associated with, was really powerful and easy to use, but for a firewall it seemed to be lacking a few useful features found on the majority of the competition. These included authenticating VPN users locally if your Radius server is down and assigning IP addresses without an additional DHCP server. From talking to a couple of Juniper experts it sounds like these and many other features are coming soon, unfortunately for Juniper we needed them now.

The Juniper SSG range were almost identical to the Cisco products both in features and price, in the end we rejected these because we had major trouble obtaining some competitive quotes. One major international IT reseller were that frustrating to deal with that we’ve vowed never to use them again.

One of our core requirements was dynamic VPN access so we can reach our servers when on-call and people can work from home. Given that Microsoft have just released Windows 7 and that 64bit operating systems are now being pre-installed on laptops it had to work with both of these. The Juniper VPN client only works on a 32bit OS, we’d have to purchase some third party software to connect from a 64bit OS, Cisco on the other hand have added full 64bit support to their AnyConnect client.

Our final reason is that Cisco were willing to accept our current PIX firewalls as trade-in. Of all the reasons we considered this was least important but it became a small factor once we realised the features were essentially the same. The same international IT supplier strung us along for 3 weeks while trying to sort out this trade-in with Cisco, they then gave up. Our normal, much smaller, UK supplier had it all sorted in an afternoon and managed a much better price too.

These new firewalls should be with us shortly and I’ll post an update once we’re ready to put them live.

When a message delivery fails and the network returns extra information to us regarding the failure, we can now send this information back to you in a standardised way.

The error code parameter is already defined in section 3.5 of the our API. Please contact us if you want this enabling on your default delivery receipt script. Alternatively, if you set this information when you send a message, you just need to use the ERR_CODE parameter. For instance, if delivery receipts are currently set up to be a GET request using the following parameters:

client_id=#CLIENT_ID#&status=#DELIVERY_STATUS#&msg_id=#MSG_ID#

Then the error code can be also passed by changing this to:

client_id=#CLIENT_ID#&status=#DELIVERY_STATUS#&msg_id=#MSG_ID#&err_code=#ERR_CODE#

When visiting websites and you make decisions based on the information available and designers and copywriters are tasked with putting forward relevant information while giving consideration to users and our short attention spans.

This comes to the forefront of my mind today due to my experience at the weekend of visiting Manchester Aquatics centre. Now I will admit that while Manchester Aquatics has excellent pools my opinions are already tainted of this poorly run facility because it’s generally monopolised by Manchester Swim teams and other group sessions rather than being “publicly” available. For a facility that has 3 x 25ish meter pools and a 50 meter training pool I was always dismayed to be lane swimming with 40 others in just 2 lanes, all while the 50 meter pool was closed and the 25 meter diving pool unused.

Anyway, they have a half decent kiddie pool with few slides (one of which is a complete waste as it’s only open for 1 hour per week). So with intentions of taking my daughter on Saturday morning I checked the opening times on the website the night before. 7am until 6pm, perfect, we’ll go after breakfast.

If you have kids you’ll know how much upheaval it is going anywhere so imagine my frustration to arrive at 8am and have the following conversation:

“Me and one baby for the kiddie pool please?”
“I’m sorry the kiddie pool doesn’t open until 9am”.
“But your website says you open at 7am?”
“Yeah, we don’t run the website”

I drew in breath, lots of expletives went through my mind, I held them in and left, never to return.

It looks like Manchester Aquatics is run by Serco and I can imagine it’s a lengthy and expensive contract. So please, please please make your website accurate and draw appropriate information to relevant factors, because that’s what we make our decisions on.

In actual fact the information is there, if you dig and dig you’ll find a pdf download, bottom section, size 5 font.

Over the past year we’ve been migrating customers smoothly to the improved platform. Once migrated customers benefit from significantly higher message throughput and complete resilience.

With no single point of failure, multiple sites, multiple supply routes, and multiple backups there is no safer route for corporate SMS or MMS communication.

The platform also provides detailed and faster month end billing. Invoices are now distributed in a matter of days after month end with unsurpassed accuracy.

Over the last few years we’ve seen SMS and MMS message volumes increase by over 300%, and it’s not stopping. To align with business growth we have focused on delivering a high capacity platform that is infinitely scalable. Today marks the day where all our clients benefit from this investment.

The worst offender to date failed to change “Mediaburst” in the copy to that of their own name, very poor!

Today however we steep to new lows of copying, this time it’s the site template that’s been ripped off, and they’ve not even done a thorough job of it. They have copied images, left links to our site and even the Google tracking code in the pages. Standards of plagiarism are definitely slipping!

Anyway take a look for yourself booknpay.net and feel free to send them an e-mail telling them how poor their copying skills are.

The stereotypical representation of a text message is some kind of mobile phone or an envelope on a mobile phone screen, the image is usually an icon or photo from one of the online photostock sites. The problem with this concept is its overuse leading to many SMS suppliers displaying remarkably similar icons or even worse, the same stock images.

In redeveloping our site we are keen to ensure our visual representation stands out and hence we have enlisted the assistance of an illustrator to draft icons that will represent our core products. The lucky artist is the highly regarded Stanley Chow.

We chose Stanley because of the simplicity of his illustrations and his ability to produce work that aligns with the subject matter yet avoids the cliche’s. In particular we liked the work he completed for Vodefone and The White Stripes.

The brief for Mediaburst is to produce icons that reflect the key notion of our services i.e. communication, yet avoid the predictable such as mobile phones, and envelopes.

I develop a hint of nervousness at times in this process because once you issue the brief all goes quiet for a week or so while the designers do their thing. But this nervous feeling is tempered by excitement knowing you’ve got some really creative thinkers on board. So here’s looking forward to seeing the first drafts.

Google Wave Overview

www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6pgxLaDdQw

We’d initially realised a refresh of Textburst was appropriate, to bring it up to date of its look and feel and use the latest web standards. But as always what starts as great idea soon grows into a bigger monster.

So- not only are we looking at Textburst but we are redeveloping the entire website. Not just a simple re-skin, but a wholesale redevelopment. We’ll be focusing not only on image and content but on navigation and user experience. Our users need to find the products and services easily, but it needs to be backed up with all the informative content on how to benefit from mobile communication.

We receive thousands of visitors every week and that’s where they generate a perception of us, that’s where they find out about our products and services. Obviously there are a lot of factors to consider and balance so this won’t be easy. Fortunately though, we have assembled a crack team of internet geeks that have immeasurable amounts of experience of turning dreams into internet realities.

So Let’s Introduce the Team:

James Stiff and Simon Rowlands These guys are handling the creative and design aspects and will ensure our site not only looks good but is easy to navigate and find information.

They come with excellent credentials having worked for the likes of NME, Man United, and Talk Talk. Not only do they have creative talents beyond my comprehension but they have passion, belief and a shared vision of internet heaven, a perfect combination!

Next in line is Phil Thompson, freelance web developer extraordinaire. Phil lives and breathes internet, a true geek, he’s well respected in the Manchester digital community and works for the best agencies. He’s in demand, but we got to him first, he’ll turn the designs into mouse clicking reality.

Andy White will craft the words. Andy, enthusiastic and dedicated, has been tasked with communicating our products and services in a concise and professional manner, but at the same time transferring the personality of Mediaburst into words. No easy job, but he’s got the skills.

And last but not least Epiphany Solutions. Gavin and Abi at Epiphany have been watching over our site for the last year, they make sure we don’t upset those Google bots and help us rank high on relevant search terms. They are part of a bigger team that has a fantastic understanding of what makes a site relevant and will ensure the new site is top of the list.

So What Next?

In truth I’m humbled by the talent we have assembled, the collective experience is massive. Not only do they carry numerous award nominations but, and most importantly, they understand the web, they understand users of the web, and they believe in the power of the web.

The end result will set a new standard in our industry and will be a bench mark site that others aspire to, I’m truly excited!

The process may indeed take a number of months but keep checking back to this blog because I’ll update you with progress, the thought process that goes into the site and screenshots where possible.

Send your thoughts to the usual address…

Airwolf

Blue Thunder

.

The concept is interesting and perhaps quite forward thinking. The idea is “People Powered Mobile Network”. Cheap prices on a decent network but no customer support.

So how can Giffgaff operate with no customer support? Well it’s not that difficult to image given the increase in use of social media and forums on the internet. The truth is when something goes wrong these days it’s often quicker to search Google for an answer than spending hours on the phone to customer support in a far off land

Google’s power is quite something but it’s the social media content it returns that is fed by us consumers. Type in any problem and Google will show you a forum on which someone had the same problem and found an answer.

Giffgaff could represent the single biggest test of community based support we’ll ever see, and the chances are it’ll work.

www.giffgaff.com

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QjH3gqkE_s

I quote,

“At some point in the next year you will be contacted for your views on our overall service proposition”.

At some point during the next YEAR. Well thanks very much for the information.

Duly filed in the basket to my right.

Does anyone else get these letters?

We started out by saying there was only 2 ways to get noticed, win or lose. Unfortunately our general knowledge, particularly in respect of TV shows and random sporting events turned out to be pretty poor, and it’s something we’re not ashamed of. Therefore win was never an option. On this basis losing seems a pretty good second place!

So the wooden spoon assumes its place in our reception area among the campaign artwork for Kelloggs, Maltesers, Heineken, and so on, and we are just as proud of it.

We had a great old time and can’t wait to defend our title!

A large number of our servers run CentOS Linux, and like all Redhat based distributions software is installed through RPM. Unfortunately installing perl modules using CPAN has nasty habit of clashing with the base perl install and causing no end of problems.

To work around this we’ve taken to installing all perl modules through RPM. Some modules are easy to find in third party repositories, but our software uses some less common modules such as Net::SMPP.

The best way we’ve found to convert these elusive perl modules into RPMs is through cpan2rpm by Erick Calder, it’s also a very convenient way to make our own software available as an RPM.

Creating an RPM from a CPAN perl module is extremely simple, just pass the module name as the only command line parameter, it will download from CPAN and build the RPM.

[rpmbuild@dev-linux ~]$cpan2rpm Net::SMPP
...
RPM: /home/rpmbuild/rpm/RPMS/noarch/perl-Net-SMPP-1.03-1.noarch.rpm
SRPM: /home/rpmbuild/rpm/SRPMS/perl-Net-SMPP-1.03-1.src.rpm
-- Done --
[rpmbuild@dev-linux ~]$

cpan2rpm however does have it’s limitations so we’ve added a few extra features to our version.

RPM Pre install commands

Commands that need to be run before you install the package, such as creating users. Defined in Build.PL using rpm_pre or passed on the command line as –pre=”my pre-install command”

RPM Post install commands

Commands to run once the package is successfully installed (These don’t run if it fails). Defined in Build.PL using rpm_post or passed on the command line as --post="my post-install command"

Disable auto-generation of the provides list

By default rpmbuild will automatically create a list of all packages it provides, on occasion this is wrong, so we added a flag to disable this automatic list creation. Passed to cpan2rpm on the command line as –no-auto-prov

Support for Module::Build dependencies

cpan2rpm couldn’t wouldn’t correctly create dependency lists for modules build using Module::Build rather than ExtUtils::MakeMaker, we tweaked the script so these are now listed on the RPM. These come from the requires section of Build.PL

Support for the RPM config flag on files

RPM allows files to be flagged as configuration files within the RPM. This flag prevents RPM from overwriting your configuration files when changed by creating the new version as file.rpmnew. By default we’ll flag anything from the etc_files section of Build.PL

Using John’s earlier Build.PL example we can add in these extra features so that it creates it’s own user and then runs a postinstall script once the RPM is installed (this could setup a database or download updated configuration files for example). These rpm_ tag’s aren’t standard Module::Build features but it will ignore unrecognised tags when building.

use 5.008005;
use Module::Build;

my $build = Module::Build->new (
    module_name => 'ModuleName',
    license  => 'perl',
    dist_author => 'A.N. Other <a.n.other@example.com>',
    dist_version_from => 'lib/ModuleName.pm',
    etc_files => {
        'etc/logrotate.d/modulename' => 'etc/logrotate.d/modulename',
        'etc/modulename.conf' => 'etc/modulename.conf'
    },
    install_path => { 'etc' => '/etc', 'script' => '/usr/local/bin/modulename' },
    rpm_pre => 'if ! id module_user > /dev/null 2>&1 ; then useradd -r -c "Module User" -s /sbin/nologin -d /usr/local/bin/modulename module_user; fi;'
    rpm_post => '/usr/local/bin/modulename/postinstall_script'
);
$build->add_build_element('etc');
$build->create_build_script;

If you use cpan2rpm regularly I’d recommend creating a .rpmmacros file in your home directory to save you having to pass a few of the options. This also allows you to enable the optional GPG signing of packages. My .rpmmacros file is:

%_topdir /home/rpmbuild/rpm
%packager Mediaburst Ltd <rpmbuild@mediaburst.co.uk>
%_signature gpg
%_gpgbin /usr/bin/gpg
%_gpg_path /home/rpmbuild/.gnupg
%_gpg_name my_key_name

If you plan to use cpan2rpm with standard Perl modules from CPAN I recommend you download it directly from the authors site, however I’m also making available our updated version in case you want to use any of these update features.

• Official cpan2rpm release
• Mediaburst cpan2rpm (we’ve added an mb suffix to the executable)
• Patch containing our changes

I’m not the world’s greatest Perl programmer as I normally write C# so if you’ve got any feedback please leave a comment below.

By default, the encoding is set to UTF-8, but it also supports Latin-1, UCS2 (Unicode), or GSM encodings.

Give us a phone if you want to know more.

Paper surveys

A few weeks ago I received a “how are we doing” type survey from one of our suppliers. It came through the post and contained about 4 pages of questions for me to fill in, and an SAE for the return. Needless to say it found its way into the waste paper basket. Not that I’m averse to completing a survey but the whole 4 pages of real paper just put me off.

Online surveys

Have they not heard of online surveys? A single monthly fee on surveymonkey would be cheaper than the stamps on the letters, not to mention the increased likelihood of me completing the survey.

The worst of both worlds?

Today’s occurrence wins though, I have just received a letter from a supplier, through the POST, asking me to take part in an ONLINE survey. To cap it off, they will be sending me an invitation to take part by e-mail in a few days time.

Clearly we need to spread the word about digital communication before there’s nothing left of the rainforest.

The obvious choice seemed to be the Cisco ASA range, probably the ASA5510, but in some areas the changes between the PIX and ASA platforms seem quite significant, so we thought we’d look at the competition too.

A little research narrowed us down to two suppliers that could provide all the features we need within a sensible budget, Cisco and Juniper. Cisco are a safe bet, we’ve used them before and you don’t get any surprises, Juniper on the other hand have only recently started targeting smaller networks, most of their products are used in core networks.

The main contenders were:

Cisco ASA5510

The ASA line is a new improved version of the PIX. They run the same OS and have a number of new features such as SSL VPN tunnels.

Juniper SSG140

The Juniper SSG range is based on the products previously made by Netscreen (acquired by Juniper a few years back). They run a custom OS called ScreenOS and very similar to the ASA5510 in all features we need.

Juniper SRX210

Juniper have only recently introduced the smaller models in their SRX range, these run Junos, the same OS as Junipers core routers. From the figures we obtained they appear to have considerably higher throughput and performance then either the ASA or SSG ranges and a number of additional features.

At the moment Juniper seem to be really pushing the SRX line, they’ve got really competitive pricing and free online training including certification, and given that they have more features than either of the other products we’ve going to give them a try.

A friendly Juniper reseller has agreed to lend us one for a couple of weeks while we see if they’re as good as they look on paper.

Once we’ve got our hands on one I’ll add another post letting you know what we think.

The rational amongst us know it can’t be true. But we’ve become a slave to the cheapest price concept, and faced with a cost saving, we lose all rationality.

In our industry the cost of building an SMS platform can vary enormously. You can enter the market with a single server hosted in your bedroom, support it yourself via email or mobile phone, and if your server dies get yourself to PC World sharpish, and in the meantime your customers are buggered.

At the other end of the scale you can build a multisite secure platform linked via lease lines with numerous backup systems in data centres that are not on flood plains. Support provided by multiple customer support staff, and a technical team on call 24/7 doing regular performance checks.

It’s unlikely a top end SMS provider will offer the cheapest prices as they need to cover the cost of their infrastructure, likewise it’s unlikely the low cost providers will be able to afford to upgrade their platform.

It comes down to cost v’s quality and where on the curve you want to operate at.

What prompted this post?

Some of our competitors regularly beats us on price, we always try and justify our prices by reference to the level of infrastructure and support we provide, but the lure of low prices is often too great for some.

One competitor recently suffered a significant system failure, I wonder how many of their customers ‘accept’ the problems as part of the low pricing, or were they jumping up and down, I suspect the latter.

My advice (if you want it) is two part:

1. Decide where you want to be on the cost v’s quality line and find a supplier that matches up.
2. Remember that quality cannot be measured on a single item, you need to look at the complete package offered. In our industry this is not just network connections, but also failover and backup systems, customer support, financial health, and technical expertise.

Although we do have various options and software packages that work with the earlier versions, it seems to me the way forward is surely one programme for all tasks. Many of us already use Outlook for the calendar, scheduling meetings, and tasks, so it makes sense to send and receive SMS from this same application.

But it’s not just the single application that’s useful, OMS utilises your existing contacts list, you can set-up calender reminders via text or configure notifications (alerts you via SMS when you receive e-mails that meet certain criteria).

I was surprised to find that you can purchase Outlook 2007 for less that £80, Amazon sell for just £72.08 and PC World Business for £79.33. So if, like me, you like things to be simple perhaps it’s time to treat yourself!

Rich Format Messaging

Since the first SMS was sent over the Vodafone network in 1992, SMS has proved massively popular with mobile phone users, out pacing forecasts year on year. Now SMS has become not only an accepted communication medium but the medium of choice for the younger generations.

MMS brings with it the same convenience and immediacy of SMS but with added features such as colour, audio, animation, and video, to deliver richer, more engaging messages.

This dramatic increase in message capability will bring with it new opportunities for communication and in particular for marketing campaigns.

Driving Creativity

Although SMS is limited to 160 characters for a single message, users have shown great creativity in formulating their own abbreviated language. This creativity indicates just how involved users have become with this hugely effective and personal communication medium.

MMS expands the possibilities and will drive even more creativity, ensuring mobile messaging as the communication technology for now and the future.

Whereas the average 160 character SMS message is approximately 140 bytes in size. A small MMS message would be considered below 30,000 bytes. At the top end MMS and can be successfully transmitted up to 350,000 bytes, although in reality some network operators will restrict sizes to 100,000 bytes.

This vastly enhanced capacity helps drive the use of individual and combinations of different MMS elements.

MMS Elements

Text As well as allowing a greater quantity of text than SMS, text can also be formatted using different fonts, styles and colour, adding personality to every message

Video - Moving pictures are now possible, presenting the opportunity to duplicate video content directly to the mobile platform.

Audio – MMS supports audio files meaning sound can be played either alone or alongside an animation or video presentation.

Images – probably the area most familiar is the ability to send picture messages. It’s become commonplace to send photos taken on phones’ in built camera via MMS. This element alone is ensuring the public at large are well versed in MMS capabilities. But images are more than just photos, and again combining images and text lends itself to advertising and promotional campaigns.

Animations – moving icons, cartoons characters, PowerPoint presentations are all good examples of items that can be animated on an MMS. The greeting card industry has already embraced e-mail as a medium for delivering ones well wishes, using it to enhance the offering with animation and sound. Ultimately it must also take advantage of the opportunity to deliver directly to the mobile phone.

User Experience

Although content capabilities are vastly different, as a concept MMS is similar to SMS and this is a key component when considering user acceptance of the service.

As with SMS, an MMS is pushed to a user’s mobile device, and if that device is out of range or not switched on then the message is stored by the network provider and delivery retried until either successful or retries exceeds the networks policy.

Unlike mobile internet or content delivered via WAP push, the user does not have to wait for the download. MMS notifies the recipient once the content download is complete, removing possible end user frustration.

MMS messages are stored in the inbox of the mobile device alongside other SMS messages, and as with SMS can be forwarded to their own contacts. Forwarding messages is now standard functionality on phones, and combining this with the richer content MMS facilitates presents exciting viral opportunities for the marketing world at large.

Aggregator Restrictions

Although network operators have supported MMS messaging for a number of years there remains a number of limiting factors that will concern content providers, especially when compared to SMS messaging.

Our investigations have found that delivery receipting is only offered by O2 and Vodafone. O2’s platform is still considered a test platform and, Orange do not accept direct aggregator connections, delivery to handsets on their network must be routed through one of the other network providers.

Although these limitations are of concern to aggregators used to high quality SMS services, they may not necessarily be of concern to content providers, who will find the most significant limiting factor to be price.

It’s difficult to gain an understanding of when the networks may develop their offerings to that of a similar standard to SMS but the lack of high and consistent volumes may be a factor influencing their decision making process.

Nevertheless, the presence of limiting factors does not constitute a failure of the system as a whole, the services are more than adequate for current demand and additional opportunities will open up as the technology develops.

Identifying Opportunities

There are some important case studies that provide an indication of MMS’s application, its place in the marketing mix and its user acceptability.

BMW

The car manufacturer BMW ran a winter tyres campaign in Germany to huge success, reporting a conversion rate of 30%. They attribute this success to a combination of factors.

1. The message was personalised. By using dealership information BMW were able to deliver an image of what your car would look like with winter tyres on.
2. Timing was used to perfection. Once the campaign was created they simply waited until the first major snowfall of the year.
3. By localising the campaign the consumers were able to find their nearest dealership.
4. All in all, a perfect example of the power of MMS messaging.

iPhone MMS

Although the iPhone was launched without MMS functionality there quickly followed a number of downloadable applications that would collect and present an MMS message. These applications also allowed a user to purchase credit to send MMS messages.

Within a short timeframe hundreds of thousands of iphone users had downloaded these applications to take advantage of technology Apple has thus far failed to incorporate into the standard operating system.

With the launch of OS 3.0 Apple have included MMS functionality, whether this was due to the success of the MMS applications, or it was part of a formal development plan, we’ll probably never know.

Future Developments

It’s never clear what the future will hold for a given technology. Improvements in MMS service at network operator level will filter down through aggregators and raise the interest level of content providers.

In turn this should drive down price and no doubt spawn a more competitive environment.

Adding in the rise of smart phones and interest in mobile at brand and marketing agency level and we’ll see creatives embracing the possibilities of rich format, immediate delivery, personalised messaging and their value as part of any advertising campaign.

Mediaburst and MMS

Although MMS compliant devices are now the norm and the technology supporting PC originated SMS has matured, MMS has yet to enjoy comparative levels of support.

Mediaburst have announced the inclusion of MMS within the same platform as its SMS API services. Providing a resilient MMS Gateway from which content providers and aggregators can send MMS messages to UK networks has been the key driver.

The inclusion of two interfaces (API and e-mail to MMS) allows flexibility for both large and small business alike to test the effectiveness of MMS messaging to its client base.

To provide the same level of resilience and support the MMS service has been provided through the same network as existing SMS services. This takes advantage of multisite site hosting, zero redundancy platform, and industry standard hardware.

The key components to ensuring effective MMS processing have been the implementation of the MMS control centre and an MMS store.

MMS Control Centre – this is central to the efficient processing of messages and controls the flow of messages through the platform, deciding on the most efficient route bearing in mind current server load and availability.

MMS Store – While the transaction is processed through the platform the multimedia files are placed in temporary storage before being forwarded to the networks.

Outbound MMS Sender- This manages the sending of messages to supplier networks by looking at availability and current loads.

Conclusion

The inclusion of rich format elements into mobile messaging undoubtedly provides opportunities to deliver a more engaging media than SMS. Moreover, as MMS takes advantage of the same delivery mechanics as SMS i.e. straight into the mobile phone inbox, it capitalises on existing user acceptance, and renders it one of the most exciting mechanisms to engage with consumers on their mobile device.

Mediaburst are fully prepared to make full use of the huge potential of MMS messaging right now and into the future.

Update: You can find a case study of MMS being used to help improve home and business security here. Kapture IT.

Apparently, Apple shifted 1.9 million of the devices in the second quarter of 2009, a growth rate of 1,041% compared to 2008. Compare this to Nokia who, although sold 14 million devices didn’t experience any growth.

This certainly makes it clear where we are headed with devices. Bearing in mind Apple is reported to have sold over 173 million iPods since 2001 it might not be long before the whole world has an iPhone.

In regard to iPhone apps, a company called swebapps has launched an online app builder, and with a price of around US$200 you could launch an app for your brand with minimal cost and a minimal amount of time.

On the face of it the service seems pretty interesting and may well suit small businesses. The reality is it’s quite restricted and you certainly won’t be hitting the high ranks in the app store. You could as the site suggests put your restaurant menus on for customers to download and store, but from a customer’s perspective I’m not sure this really adds value to a restaurant. Still, at $200 it’s a very cost effective way of establishing a presence in the iPhone apps market.

What we mean by one way SMS Marketing is sending out an SMS message to prompt someone into a course of action i.e. come to the latest sale, attend an event, call the office.

SMS represents one of the cheapest forms of marketing available. With only 160 characters of black and white to use, you don’t need a graphic designer or creative agency, just a common sense approach applied with an understanding of your target audience.

So, you’ve signed up to an SMS service, bought yourself a bundle of messages, you’ve now got 160 characters to get your message across, where do we start…

1. Target Market (Who)

Identifying and understanding your target market is one of the most fundamental practices in SMS marketing. No campaign should start without understanding who are they, how old are, what sex are they, where do they live, you simply can’t find out enough.

In the case of SMS marketing bear in mind that you are delivering a personal message to the most personal of electronic devices. To be effective and non-intrusive it must be relevant, and that means understanding as much as you are able about the person who reads it.

2. A Compelling Offer (Why)

Is your offer something that somebody wants, if not then you don’t need me to tell you you’re wasting money.

A simple SMS reminder that your shop exists may be sufficient to bring some additional customers to browse and kick tyres. An offer or discount on purchase will not only bring in more customers, but chances are some of them will make a purchase. Clearly discounting has an associated cost, but it’s an offer made to customers who otherwise wouldn’t have purchased anything.

Consider offering a percentage off if they present the SMS message at point of purchase or a buy one get one free style offer.

3. Timing (When)

Let’s face it, there’s no point sending an SMS reminder for your night club on a Monday morning. Equally 10 minutes before you open is going to be too late.

Timing is a careful balance, get it right and you’ll reap the benefits. Get it wrong and you’ll waste your money.

Getting it right comes from understanding your audience and their habits. Think about your audience, when do they make arrangements, when do they make decisions on what you’re offering. The trick is to deliver your message just as they are making those arrangements. For example, if you’re promoting take away food or a restaurant, send the SMS message out to a local audience at 5pm just when they are deciding what to have for dinner.

Look at how BMW used timing to perfection in their MMS marketing campaign here.

4. The Text Itself (What)

SMS has spawned its own abbreviated language, love it or hate it, it’s here to stay.

Now I’m not saying you need to turn into a 15 year old and shorten everything you send but most abbreviations are there to reduce the character count and increase message content. It’s for this reason a basic appreciation will help get your message across in 160 characters.

For example, SMS marketing messages should always contain an opt out mechanism, this could be

“to opt out from this mailing list please send a text message with the words “STOP” to 84433”

But easier is:

“Opt out txt stop 84433”

So there you have it, SMS is a fantastic form of communication and can yield exceptionally high response rates, spend a little time considering the points above and you’ll be onto a winner.

TomTom is the first off the mark with the launch of its iPhone apps.

TomTom's iPhone app in action

The app features all the usual location based functionality, speed camera alerts, voice instructions, and automatic re-routing if a turn is missed.

They have also capitalised on iphone functionality by including portrait and landscape modes, a pinch-to-zoom map and the ability to navigate to addresses in the iphone address book.

The app costs £59.99 for a the UK region and maps for the whole of Western Europe cost £79.99.

TomTom has also indicated it will release an iphone car kit, with enhanced GPS receiver, mount, speakers and charge cable, which basically transforms the iphone into a traditional satnav device.

What’s also interesting is the rise in what might be termed premium iphone apps. Whereas most apps cost in the region of 50p to £3 these are apps costing up to US$900. They are normally specialist apps geared to specific industries, but we are now seeing more expensive apps geared toward the consumer market.

Hello from Earth, an Aussie website, has been set up that allows you to send SMS messages to Gliese 581d, the planet that is supposedly the most Earth-like planet outside the solar system.

One sobering message, from Sandeep in Abu Dhabi, said: “Please do not come to earth, it’s too polluted and the planet has almost reached its end.” Nothing like a bit of optimism eh?

We’re also not sure which network operators cover Gliese 581d, so couldn’t help but wonder what the delivery rates are.

This comprehensive guide will be of interest to not only brands but agencies interested in bringing rich format mobile communication into their strategy.

As well as covering user experience and MMS elements, the guide also provides an insight into the current MMS market, citing some important case studies from BMW and the latest iphone.

Mediaburst have been ahead of the trend, having launched MMS onto their second generation mobile platform at the beginning of 2009. By providing simple applications such as email to MMS and an easy to implement MMS Gateway, rich format messaging is now a real option.

Get your copy of the guide here.

For some time the integrity of their voice to text services have been called into question. But in the same week they delivered a poorly received demo to some of the industry’s top journalists. See the Techcrunch article. The Times has only compounded the situation by publishing a negative article surrounding allegations of financial mismanagement. Click here for the full article.

They say there is no smoke without fire.

Charity short codes benefit from different VAT treatment by Network Operators. So long as the use of the short code meets certain criteria, the donation is VAT exempt so the charity will receive a greater proportion of the donation.

The same conditions apply in that Service Providers will need one short code per price point for charitable donations.

Full details are available here

or contact your local SMS Provider for more info

So it came to my dismay to stumble accoss a Google adword sponsored by the Labour party as below:

It’s been down for the last few hours and it makes me wonder how Stephen Fry and a whole host of celebrities are managing to go about their daily lives without updating the rest of the population at the same time.

Hopefully it’ll be back soon and normal twittering can resume.

Maybe we could advise them on network architecture, we certainly don’t suffer outages.

PwC partner David Lancefield, outlined that the media landscape is changing at a previously unseen rate of knots.

Mobile is again grabbing market share as more established digital media is in decline – UK 2009/10 online ad spend is projected to dip 3.2%

PwC also highlights just how many small media businesses have fallen prey to the recession: the downturn has claimed some high-profile victims as we know but PwC reports that a frightening 910 smaller advertising and media businesses have gone bust in the past two years, 525 in the last 12 months-

• Advertising: 211 in 12 months to June 31 (50 percent up annually). 352 in the last 24 months.
• Broadcast: 81 in last 12 months (40 percent rise).
• Publishing: 260 in last two years.
• Music: 18 in last two years

The future may be uncertain, but it definitely is mobile

As yet there is no mention of it on their site and no clear guidance on what has been updated.

Our best guess is it fixes the SMS vulnerability that has been widely reported since the 3.0 upgrade.

However a more interesting side show also occurred with a demonstration of an iPhone being hacked via a set of binary codes sent to the phone via SMS.

The conclusion was that as users we trust the communications to our phones more than we do e mails to our computers.

Once more this underlines the high value of mobile marketing, but also underlines the responsibility that comes with it.

Now their mad existence has now become even more ridiculous.

A new iPhone app can now even tell them which carriage to board so that they can exit right bang in front of the station exit.

John Harrison has launched an Apple iPhone application called TubePro which allows commuters to hasten their exit and will duly charge them £1.19 for the privilege.

Incredibly it is not on it’s own with a competitive ‘Tube Exits’ iPhone app, developed by Australian-born Wimbledon resident Lance Stewart launched just last month but more expensive at £1.79.

Nice functionality but utterly pointless

According to reports in addition to the offers of free music, free calls may also be part of the deal.

The deal is expected to be confirmed soon.

Fair play to Orange, they can innovate.

We have been investigating the various build/packaging options for perl modules.

Up to now we have been using the standard method of ‘h2xs -AXn Module::Name‘. This generates a template module with a ExtUtils::MakeMaker build file.

We can then use cpan2rpm to create rpm files that we can put on our internal yum repositories.

This allows us to easily install/upgrade the same module across our various servers.

The problem has come when we wanted to have a slightly modified rpm e.g. have the rpm create a standard user, install a binary and/or init script, or create a config file.

The ExtUtils / cpan2rpm combination does not appear to have this functionality. We started looking at putting it in, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to do so.

So we started looking at Module::Build instead of ExtUtls. With this it is easier to make custom builds, and because of this seems to becoming increasingly popular as the Perl module builder.

For instance the Build.PL to enable a config file install into /etc and a logrotate script can be as follows:

use 5.008005;
use Module::Build;

my $build = Module::Build->new (
module_name => 'ModuleName',
license => 'perl',
dist_author => 'A.N. Other <a.n.other@example.com>',
dist_version_from => 'lib/ModuleName.pm',
etc_files => {
'etc/logrotate.d/modulename' => 'etc/logrotate.d/modulename',
'etc/modulename.conf' => 'etc/modulename.conf'
},
install_path => { 'etc' => '/etc' },
);
$build->add_build_element('etc');
$build->create_build_script;

We still need to use our modified cpan2rpm if we need any pre or post install scripts in the rpm. But so far this appears to be working.

As of today we have a demo that you can have a look at:

text VIDEO to 84433.
Rich media direct to your mobile!

It’s latest promotion, the Stealth Sound System, aimed at teenagers allowing them to play and communicate via a series of sounds supposedly inaudible to anyone over the age of 20, achieved 400,000 mobile downloads.

You know when you’ve been mobiled…

Even though the directory has been approved by the Information Commissioners Office as complying with both the Data Protection Act DPA) and Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR)the thought of a mobile directory has still created considerable concern.

I guess the fact remains that most consumers regard their mobile number as private and personal.

We have said many times before that mobile marketing is a highly influential medium, but one that must be treated with repsect.

The issue right now is that while the site is down then no one can access the site to remove their details so the question is how will this impcat on mobile marketing.

Abuse of the opt in -opt out rights of these consumers could seriously damage the credibility of the industry.

• 360 – 380 billion mobile phones are in operation worldwide.
• There are twice as many mobile phones as credit cards worldwide.
• There are 70 million mobile handsets in the UK, of which 4.2 million are vulnerable to ID theft.
• 80% of mobile phones contain enough data to commit identity fraud.
• 40% of mobile users state that losing phone would be worse than losing wallet.
• In the UK 16% of people carry their bank details and 24% carry passwords and pin numbers on their phone.
• In 2006, 2% of mobile users were victims of phone theft. That is 800,000 people.

The article highlighted how TfL and 02 had developed the swipe phone, German supermarkets had developed a bar code scanning system that allowed users to have shopping lists and payment details on their phone and how NTTDoCoMo is set to launch a new phone that makes house keys and cash redundant.

Is this not just making it worse?

If you’ve got any questions about any of the changes we’ve made give us a call or drop us an email.

Burma is a nation of fear and poverty despite its wealth of natural resources. Its rulers are intolerant of free speech and many of the journalists and activists shown in the award-winning Burma VJ film face prison sentences of up to 65 years.

The individuals imprisoned include Htin Kyaw, Su Su Nway, Ohn Than, Si Thu Maung and Ko Win Maw together with over 2,100 others in Burmese jails including Nobel Peace Prize Winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who have been imprisoned simply for peacefully calling for democracy and freedom in the country.

The Co-operative does not trade with Burma, Co-operative Travel has delisted the country as a tourist destination, and The Co-operative Bank will not finance any organisation supporting the Burmese regime.

The digital campaign is being delivered by digital marketing agency Substance of “Shine a Light” fame, supported by mobile messaging company Mediaburst.

Gary Bury, Mediaburst’s managing director, comments:

“Clearly, Mediaburst is pleased to be working with Substance and The Co-operative on this campaign, which represents yet another innovative use of mobiles to generate response and interaction from the general public.”

The campaign was created by our good friends at Multiply UK based in Edinburgh. According to Highland Spring,

“Our exciting new on-pack provides the chance for a lucky individual to enjoy a once in a lifetime experience they’ll never forget.”

We think so too, and are certainly looking forward to Wimbledon next year.

http://www.foodbev.com/news/highland-spring-issues-alert-on-murray-mania

Their new app called “find it”, enables prospective eBay purchasers to send a photo of an item they want to buy and then matches it with the closest item on sale, sending back a picture plus the sellers details.

ebay was simple enough before but this is brilliant.

Watch out now for more happy snappers in your local retail stores.

We’re now happy to say everything appears to be working fine. If you have any questions or queries about the move give us a call on 0845 050 0000.

Here’s a few pictures to show off our tastefully coloured network cables.

SMS for data capture, entering competitions, texting for further information.

Now don’t get me wrong, this isn’t new technology, SMS has been with us for a generation. What’s changing is the breadth of uses for the technology as brands become confident it’s a communication medium their consumers are happy to engage via.

Not only is SMS used as an entry mechanism for on pack promotions, we are also seeing charities utilising the mechanism to generate immediate response, campaigners raising awareness and gather support for their cause, and of course not forgetting the car manufacturers using shortcodes across all their media to capture prospective customers data.

The reality is SMS provides and an easy and cost effective mechanism for consumers to engage, it’s makes your advertising or campaign more effective… ignore it and you’re missing an opportunity.

Draw Servers – Automated and Auditable

Gone are the days of GMTV scandals, winners picked out by closing your eyes and dropping a pen. With such high profile failures the whole industry has become acutely aware of the value in a brands reputation, and indeed that of its appointed agencies.

The simple truth is mobile is an instant mechanism and hence data captured can be processed instantly. There is no need for delays and ambiguous cut off times. The industry has changed, service providers have responded with Draw Servers, brands and agencies now understand their importance.

The question to ask your SMS provider is 3 part, is it fully automated, is it fully auditable, and is it totally secure?

Downloadable content Ringtones, wall papers, games.

The most successful sales promotions are those that provide real value to the consumer. Kelloggs award winning Zoo Keeper promotion delivered an estimated £3.8 million of value to its consumers by offering up free entry, animal facts on the bounce back SMS, free downloadable ringtones, and winning a day as a zoo keeper.

Of course it doesn’t have to cost the earth. If you are confirming entry with an SMS response then the cost is covered, so use it to deliver additional value. Think what your customer would value, product or nutritional information, where to purchase, or information on future promotions. Let’s make everyone a winner, or at least provide some useful information that softens the blow to those that didn’t.

Downloadable content such as ringtones, wallpapers, video, and games can be licensed for a one off fee. They provide the consumer with something that not only will continue their brand engagement, but they can revisit time and time again.

Viral opportunities leap to mind as consumers forward content and links to friends and family. Personal recommendations and sharing is the norm in a world that’s gripped my social media. So let’s embrace the opportunity and get them engaged with your brand.

With the advent of the iphone and the app store we are becoming increasingly savvy with mobile applications, look at the success of the ipint (Carling), downloaded by just about everyone I’ve ever know to have an iphone.

Mobile Internet bigger screens and 3g connections.

It’s on the rise and can’t be ignored. UK adults are using mobile internet over 50% more than last year and as more smart phones find their way off the retailers shelves and into our pockets, mobile internet is medium that’s going to grip us all. The question here, does your brand have a website, almost definitely yes, a mobile site, probably not, but why not? 4.3 million adults are using it every day!

But how do you use mobile internet effectively in sales promotions? Again it comes back to that providing value, product information, retailer information, additional offers, even if it’s imagery to reinforce your brand values. As with everything mobile, it’s not expensive and fully measurable, so let’s use it.

Following the success of a mobile marketing campaign BMW’s head of marketing said “If you’re not on mobile your missing a whole generation”.

He’s not wrong.

We no longer have any services running on the 213.218.217.160/27 range of IP addresses.

Update

Everything is now running fine in our Derby site, we’re not going to transfer over customer traffic until Tomorrow (Tuesday) so we can keep an eye on the log files.

The winning teams are; Proxama with Minima Design, Therefore Product Design with Imagination Technologies Limited, Rodd Design with TTP (The Technology Partnership) and Data Transfer Communications and PDD Group Limited with You Get It Back.

The purpose of the scheme is to help the UK reduce the impact of ID fraud as we get ready for MCommerce. The winning teams will aim to produce market-ready solutions which may include hardware and software for handsets, new services and other innovations, which will be showcased and promoted in early 2010, with a view to widespread and rapid take-up by the market.

According to the British Crime Survey, a mobile phone is stolen in half of all robberies. Another recent survey found that 80% of people carry information on their mobile phone handsets that could be used by criminals to commit fraud -and 16% keep their bank details saved on their phone, yet only 4 in 10 people currently lock their mobiles using a PIN. Such sensitive data includes website passwords, bookmarks, emails, personal security data and locations/addresses on map applications.

A few pictures of where we’ll be hosting the services

The free app available via Orange is designed to provide music fans with the ultimate guide to the UK’s biggest summer festival. The app will allow music fans to personalise their own artist schedule and they can also access an interactive map of the site, as well as essential festival news, advice and alerts. In addition, at noon every day a ‘bull’ icon will appear on the GlastoNav map showing where festival goers need to go to find a life-size bull on site. Once at this secret location, music fans are encouraged to click the icon on the map and enter a code word written on the bull to be in with a chance of winning VIP access for one of the featured performances. lets hope for the mud, that the future really is bright

In particular, to Code Computerlove for the Original Source site which won the Tasty Website award…as voted for via text message….systems and technology provided by the one and only Mediaburst!

Oh, and a special mention to Sarah who had sufficient dutch courage to plough on over to Bill Bailey and force him into a photo!

Well done to all the winners and well done to Out There Events and Manchester Digital for putting on a great do.

IP Address Range Changes

The development requires clients that restrict access to/from Mediaburst services based on IP addresses to make the following changes:

From 27th June 2009:

Services will start running on the 89.248.48.192/27 range. (89.248.48.192 through to 89.248.48.223)

From 29th June 2009:

Services will no longer be running on the 213.218.217.160/27 range. (213.218.217.160 through to 213.218.217.191)

There will be no change to our Manchester, 217.20.43.96/27, range of IP addresses (217.20.43.96 through to 217.20.43.127)

If you have any questions give us a call.

You text and follow a menu which prompts them to purchase electricity at the value of their choice. They can then use their swap wallet account created when they register or a linked credit card.

This eliminates late payments, vouchers can be delivered by SMS to the mobile, anywhere in the country, 24 hours a day

The application, called “Ocado On The Go”, places users within virtual aisles so they can buy food, drink, books and toys.

Incredibly they are over 18,000 products stored on the iPhone so that users can keep shopping even when offline with orders updated when an internet connection is made. The application ia available to customers from today, but officially launches following final testing on July 13.

The mobile operator is set to launch a new offering that will allow advertisers to brand ‘points of interest’ on its mapping service later this summer.

Although this is in the early stages Vodafone claim to be in discussions with potential advertising partners so that users will be able to download an offer coupon for a restaurant or shop as they walk along.

The operator’s trial of in-map advertising marks the first time it has given brand owners access to the service, which is available for £49 a year or can be downloaded in part for free.

The launch coincides with a boom in mobile marketing, with the latest figures from the IAB showing the sector grew by 99.2 per cent last year to £28.6 million.

Crains will be publishing more details of the nominations in their June 29th edition. So all I can say for now is that it’s great that Mediaburst is being recognised for its achievements, I like to think we have done some good work over the last 12 months….and long may it continue.

Since 2000, Promptext has been providing text messaging services to Britain’s SMEs. With Mediaburst launching new products such as Outlook Mobile Service and MMS, the acquisition of Promptext’s customer base makes commercial sense.

“The acquisition of Promptext’s UK customer base is a significant development for Mediaburst and demonstrates our ability to plug-in additional customers and consolidate mobile messaging volumes,” says Gary, Mediaburst’s managing director. “Promptext customers now have access to an enlarged product range and to first class customer services and support.”

Robert Ling, founder of Promptext, adds: “Promptext is a profitable business and has grown well in the UK, we now feel that we can better serve our customers by passing them into the very capable hands of Mediaburst. It has possibly the finest set of SMS and MMS services available, and an exemplary reputation for customer support and service.”

“We have worked hard to identify a suitable acquisition for Mediaburst,” says Ian Freeman, managing director of Harlequin Corporate Finance. “Promptext met the criteria agreed with Mediaburst and I am convinced that the transaction will benefit customers of Promptext and add real value for Mediaburst’s shareholders”

www.promptext.co.uk

The fundraising service which was set up right after the earthquake.

The money was collected on behalf of Italy’s department of civil protection and the telecommunications companies did not charge any fees for the charity service.

SMS is clearly a powerful medium for donating. Red Nose day in the UK also used it to huge advantage. They key issue, as always, is that not all charities have sufficient weight to get the network operators to pass on 100% of the donation.

One can only imagine how much additional funds charities could earn if they were to change their stance.

Visitors to the Adidas website are encouraged to download an app which directs them to enter their friend’s race number so that information including their start time and average speed is then available via the app. The application works by sending subscribers SMS updates about the location of a runner as they tackle the 26.4 mile course.

This is a development on the initial application used for the first time last year which saw 4,320 people use it on the day with 10% of runners tracked.

Closest I’ll ever get to a marathon.

It’s been eleven years since the first Big Chip awards were made and they have since gained a reputation for strict judging standards, integrity and impartiality. An important element of this is a clear specification of the judging criteria for each award category so that judges can easily measure and compare the quality of the entries.

Rather than awarding prizes to the “best” website, for example, entries – whether website or some other digital project – are judged on the extent to which they have achieved objectives or made use of a particular feature such as animation or new technology. Last year, there were no “best website” categories of any form.

A consequence was that some entrants who had designed a website that they felt very proud of weren’t sure which category to enter. “Look” they said, “it’s just a great site”. The answer is of course that that’s very much a matter of taste.

So this year sees the launch of the “Tasty Website Award.”

As they went through the record number of entries for the main categories, the judges noted websites that really appealed to them, for whatever reason. Simply a matter of taste. They then selected five and now it’s up to you to decide which one should win the award:

Nominations:

• Code Computerlove crownpaint.co.uk CROWN
• Code Computerlove originalsource.co.uk SOURCE
• LOVE lovecreative.co.uk LOVE
• LOVE dmbootdesign DOCTOR
• Stardotstar hearmanchester.com HEAR

So, get involved. Just visit the five sites selected, choose which one you think is the tastiest. Then simply text the codeword using SMS to 84433 (standard network rates apply). Full details at:
www.bigchipawards.com/shortlist.asp.

Voting will stay open up to and including Big Chip Evening itself on 18th June when the winner will be announced.

The question is, would you be comfortable using your phone to purchase big-ticket items, such as long haul air travel? Or front row seats at a concert?

A recent study of two thousand adults found that more than half would be comfortable booking hotel rooms and buying airline and entertainment tickets using their mobile.

“It’s just a few years before we’re all buying products on the phone we typically buy on the Web,”

The anonymous survey of 21 companies found that mobile display ad formats, including banners, text links, and video, accounted for £14.2m last year whilst paid search advertising was estimated to account over 50% of revenues at £14.4m.

Interestingly the survey excludes spend via SMS and MMS advertising as it seeks to be comparable with other media channels.

The IAB claims the survey demonstrates that mobile ad spend has grown by almost 100% year on year, based on practical 2007 figures collected and it sought to draw parallels with its first internet ad spend study in 1998, which was worth then £19.4m but last year accounted for £3.35bn.

Jon Mew, head of mobile at the IAB, said the study was an important step in the maturity of format. “The sector is in its infancy but is considerably bigger than the market was expecting,” he said. “Thanks to these landmark figures, we know the real value of the mobile ad industry and will now be able to chart the medium’s growth with confidence.”

When we also look at MMS ad applications www.mediaburst.co.uk/mobile-marketing-mms.cfm we start to see just what a powerful little blighter this mobile chap is.

It has just become freely available for download, enabling you to type messages that automatically get generated into mind-bending art that you can share via MMS.

The Text Art app is the brainchild of artist Marius Watz. Creating generative art desktop wallpaper, simply by talking, moving your arms, or in this instance typing.

By downloading the app you can create a message up to 40 characters long. The app transforms the words into a unique piece of MMS art that you can save and share with friends and family.

The issue is turning a concept into something that produces revenues and profits.

Although services such as Facebook and Myspace provide a multitude of functionality for end users, the simplicity of Twitter has turned back the clock and its growth is evidence of consumer support for simple effective communication.

So as social networking gravitates to mobile could SMS be the mechanism that produces the revenues, and could social networks be the catalyst for the next phase of SMS growth?

Which gets me thinking, has anything really changed or have we gone full circle, isn’t social networking what we used SMS for in the first place?

We have launched a new skin for our website today to improve navigation and highlight our business model as a leading provider of bulk SMS services.

A key addition to the upgraded website is the introduction of low-cost SMS packages for use with Outlook 2007. Businesses can purchase SMS packages at an entry cost of just £5.00 and securely send text messages from Outlook 2007 to mobile phones. No downloads or plug-ins are required. A link is now included on the homepage to a dedicated microsite for signup, message purchase and support.

New prices also extend to our SMS API and our popular textburst application.

With Outlook 2007 having an estimated 7% of email market share, we’re addressing a potential customer base of 1.4 million businesses in the EU alone with this Outlook service. Over time, as businesses upgrade from previous versions to Outlook 2007, the user base can only increase, and significantly.

With more than 50 million mobile phones in Britain, it was inevitable that a charity one day would begin to use mobile messaging for fund raising purposes. After all, the mobile phone is the one device that we all have and carry, and text and video messaging generates six times more responses than direct mail.

Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice in Farnham is launching the first mobile charity campaign ever in Britain on 11th May and passengers at Farnham station that day will be the first to experience mobile charity marketing.

The campaign has been helped by a grant from Help the Hospices, the UK’s leading charity supporting hospice care, which was funded by the Towergate Charitable Foundation.

Serving a population of more than 600,000 across West Surrey and North East Hampshire, Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice has been offering specialist palliative care to adults facing the end of their lives and to those who love and care for them for the last 30 years. Pallative care is more than just controlling symptoms and pain; it’s a holistic approach that embraces every aspect of the needs and worries of the terminally ill as well as the needs of their families.

Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice is an independent charity and treats 100 patients and families every day of the year at a cost of seven pounds per minute, or £10,000 per day. Only 16% of funds received to cover operational costs come from the NHS. The rest comes from legacies, sales at its 12 charity shops, fund raising events and local businesses.

The mobile campaign is being launched in the background of the Hospice needing to provide more much-needed help and support to patients and their families beyond the physical space of the Hospice. Donations received will help enable it to be more mobile in its operations, providing more care to the terminally-ill in their homes.

“Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice believes that while we can’t add days to life, we can certainly add life to days,” says Elle Georgiou, the charity’s communications manager. “In the Hospice’s 30th birthday year, we’re looking for new and innovative ways to raise the funds we need to achieve our vision of providing specialist care in the location of the patient’s choice, which is usually in the comfort of their own home. We believe that harnessing the immediacy of mobile phone technology to engage with our community could well become an effective way of generating immediate responses and donations.”

The mobile campaign uses the mobile services of mobile marketing company Mediaburst and will be repeated on 18th May at Guildford Station.

Donate, Donate Donate – how it works

By texting HELP to shortcode 84433, users will immediately receive a mobile response containing a link to view a mobile video. After viewing the video, they will be encouraged to donate by texting GIVE to shortcode 80556 and agree to be billed five pounds. They then receive back an SMS thanking them for their donation.

As from 1st July SMS messages sent while roaming abroad will cost no more than 11 euro cents, compared to 28 euro cents today.

Data roaming will be capped at 1 euro per megabyte downloaded, however this is a wholesale rate for inter operator charges, so the end user will pay more. The cap is to be reduced to 50 euro cents by 2011 so should lead to further end user price reductions.

This is great news, not only for regular travellers but more significantly for occasional travellers who suffer “bill shock” when they get home.

This is of particular relevance for brands and content providers because it means their audience is more likely to be switched on regardless of their location.

Another step in the right direction for mobile usage.

All I can wonder is how long it took him to type a 6 page text out.

Indeed their latest issue follows up with evidence that their prediction was accurate. We’ll I’m pleased to report that Mediaburst are seeing more and more brands utilising mobile in their marketing campaigns, ranging from simple SMS marketing to more integrated campaigns.

If this is not the year of the mobile then it’s not difficult to predict that there is a huge amount of growth yet to come, and we certainly look forward to that time.

“Now is not the time to be cutting back on mobile investment” quotes Justin Pearse ”Media companies and brands can’t afford to be left behind as consumer behaviour continues to shift toward the mythical year of mobile”.

Interestingly, Orange found that click-through ads are the most popular form of mobile marketing, with 47% of participants preferring to click on ads that go straight to a brand’s website; 43% preferring to click on voucher codes or coupons and 34% using click-throughs to enter competitions.

Bucking the youth perception of mobile the average age for mobile media users is 36 and 81% use mobile media more than once a week, with 46% using it daily. Mobile internet pages viewed most often are search engines, e-mail, news, music and film, although 55% of people browse mobile internet with no specific agenda. How long before mobile browsing replaces the PC?

BMW showed how an MMS campaign sent to an audience of 117,000 promoting the use of winter tires in Germany, generated $45 million in sales. A ROI of $750 dollars for each dollar spent.

Not only does this makes a strong case for companies to add mobile to their marketing mix, but it demonstrates how although more expensive than SMS, the rich format of MMS can yeild spectacular results.

In 2007, research undertaken by industry analyst Plimsoll Publishing showed Mediaburst entering the top twenty list of digital agencies for the first time as a result of deploying a new business model aimed at establishing Mediaburst as the mobile partner of choice of advertising, marketing and media agencies to support their brand campaigns.

The latest example of its successful business model emerged last week when Mediaburst and Zut Media of Merseyside announced a strategic alliance enabling Zut to integrate mobile into its brand campaigns.

“Each year, Mediaburst invests strongly in state-of-the-art technology to ensure that agencies and brands get the mobile capability they rightly demand,” says Gary Bury, Mediaburst’s managing director. “Mediaburst’s position in Crain’s top ten validates our strategy and we fully expect to move further up the list in 2009.”

Zut Media is an emerging force in creative film, video and online services. The natural evolution of Alan Gaffney’s Kandoo Productions, the company first began making videos for companies such as PwC, LSC and Knauf Insulation. As the company strengthened its team, Zut extended its services and now offers clients complete event management, website creation and online marketing strategies through to daily Internet TV Channels and online learning and development for the professional services sectors.

By offering text services to its client base, Zut will be able to help them develop their digital brand messaging campaigns.

“Zut Media aims to be a one-stop creative and online services shop for brands and mobile marketing will be an important part of future campaigns going forward,” says Chris Holmes, Zut’s marketing director. “It is therefore vital that we have a reliable business partner in the SMS world and Mediaburst is well ahead of the pack in terms of robust platforms and 24/7 support.”

The service would be for non-emergency crimes and include criminal damage, graffiti, anti-social behaviour, theft and low-level burglary. The police will reply by text message with a non-emergency phone number and details of local police or community support officers. The calls will be answered by an operator, who will take details of the complaint. A police officer must address the complaint and call back within 24 hours. If no officer is available, callers can leave answer phone messages.

I have to admit, as a recent victim of burglary I wouldn’t be happy waiting 24 hours for a call back or indeed leaving an answer phone message. However, it does provide a means of contacting the police that is more in touch with an increasingly mobile world.

If you really want you can go whole hog and send MMS but unfortunately it doesn’t link to your existing contract meaning you have to purchase credit seperately. I was never a big sender of MMS but I do like being able to receive the odd picture of snow covered roads or friends on holiday, and now I can!

More than half a million texts were sent in the five minutes after 8am. Vodafone reported a 58 per cent leap in texts to over 30 million Employees contacted bosses, family and friends to tell them they had been snowed in, or were unable to get into work. There was also a surge in MMS picture messages with people sending images of their snowy surroundings. Network 3 saw MMS double as people took photographs and uploaded them to blogs or social network profiles.

The mobile channel is already used by a greater proportion of the population in many counties to access the internet than fixed access points, and is likely to become the global norm. Nokia estimates that by 2015 some 5 billion people will have access to an always on mobile internet connection and there will be an incredible 100 fold increase in mobile network traffic.

Within Western Europe alone Forrester Research predicts 125m will have access to mobile internet on their mobiles, with 1 in 4 utilising 3.5G enabled handsets. The challenge however facing mobile internet access will be the ability to provide search and discovery facilities comparable to that experienced for internet access via a PC and fixed line. The second challenge is then how to monetise mobile search and discovery, the answer will be mobile advertising.

The mobile advertising market is admittedly still in its infancy but it is being carefully studied by all participants engaged in the mobile value delivery chain: brands, agencies, mobile service operators, application service providers, content providers etc. Juniper Research is forecasting direct advertising revenue of some $1.5bn this year to nearly $5bn within 5 years.

The annual growth rate is forecast at an impressive 27%. Many industry watchers confuse Mobile Internet and its messaging derivate Instant Messaging (IM) and its relationship to SMS text messaging. Whilst IM will grow Text messaging will continue to grow regardless. Monthly person to person SMS traffic in Western Europe is set to climb form 190 billion messages seen last year to 233 billion again over the same 5 year period.

Mobile applications compliment, they rarely compete and let us not forget it is always the choice of the consumer that will drive the market.

Mediaburs are a leading SMS Provider based in Manchester.

“Companies with the ability to take a holistic view of what is occurring in the economy and flex to the changing environment are more likely to succeed,” says Gary, Mediaburst’s MD. “Reviewing overheads and negotiating better terms with suppliers goes without saying, but the clever ones will be reviewing their operating models and looking for improved ways of working and communicating.”

Over 1.4 billion text messages are sent every week in Britain and a large proportion are from businesses. In 2008, text services experienced significant growth from the enterprise sectors to communicate with staff and customers, and it’s a trend that Mediaburst expects to increase throughout 2009 and beyond. “It’s a no-brainer – SMS is cheap, instant, and easy to implement. In fact, it’s a perfect recession beater,” adds Gary.

During 2009, Mediaburst also expects to see companies using SMS in smarter ways. “Their objective won’t be just one way communication, but to reduce inbound customer enquiries so they can operate with less staff. It will also be used to speed up debt collection, provide more engaging promotions for brand managers to their consumer bases, and it will be used to tap into new markets using the very device that we never leave more than 1 metre away from us,” says Gary.

The association has also published an array of industry research, educational tools and guidelines, fuelled by an increase in mobile marketing receptiveness and adoption among consumers worldwide. The mobile internet audience has grown by 61% since Q3 2007 in the UK, according to Nielsen research, with one in five UK mobile users now recalling seeing a mobile ad. Laura Marriott, president of the MMA, said: “2008 has been one of the most productive years for the industry, the MMA and our members. We’ve experienced tremendous forward momentum in mobile marketing education and guidelines, and further extended our global reach, creating greater opportunities to leverage knowledge and experience across our member base. “As I prepare to leave the MMA in 2009, I’m confident that by continuing to collaborate and innovate as an industry, across geographies, companies and trade organisations, it is realistic to expect mobile to represent a significant portion of media budgets within the next five years.” With significant traditional advertisers reporting declining revenue in core advertising sectors it is interesting to see how many previously sceptical players are now seriously watching the mobile channel and wanting to engage with a mobile partner such as Mediaburst.

The mobile channel is already used by a greater proportion of the population in many counties to access the internet than fixed access points, and that is likely to become the global norm. Nokia estimates that by 2015 some 5 billion people will have access to an “always on” mobile internet connection and there will be an incredible 100 fold increase in mobile network traffic. Within Western Europe alone Forrester Research predicts 125m will have access to mobile internet on their mobiles, with 1 in 4 utilising 3.5G enabled handsets.

The challenge however facing mobile internet access will be the ability to provide search and discovery facilities comparable to that experienced for internet access via a PC and fixed line.

The second challenge is then how to monetise mobile search and discovery. The answer will be mobile advertising. The mobile advertising market is admittedly still in its infancy but it is being carefully studied by all participants engaged in the mobile value delivery chain: brands, agencies, mobile service operators, application service providers, content providers etc. Juniper Research is forecasting direct advertising revenue of some $1.5bn this year to nearly $5bn within 5 years. The annual growth rate is forecast at an impressive 27%.

Many industry watchers confuse Mobile Internet and its messaging derivate Instant Messaging (IM) and its relationship to SMS text messaging. Whilst IM will grow Text messaging will also continue to grow regardless. Monthly person to person SMS traffic in Western Europe is set to climb from the near 200 billion messages seen in 2008. Mobile applications compliment, they rarely compete and let us not forget it is always the choice of the consumer that will drive the market. Happy New Year Gary.

This generates a one off donation taken from the cost of the text message. Andrew Cameron, chief executive of London’s Air Ambulance said: “Although we are partly funded by the NHS and Virgin, the majority of our costs are covered through public donations, charity fundraising events and collection schemes. We hope that the new text-to-donate service will provide another method in which people can easily and quickly donate a small but important amount of money to London’s Air Ambulance”. Messages are charged at £1.50 per text, of which 90p goes to the London’s Air Ambulance, with the remainder going to the mobile network the message was sent from. London’s Air Ambulance costs approximately £2million pounds per year to run and maintain. The Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) is based out of The London Royal Hospital in Whitechapel and covers the area inside the boundary of the M25 ring-road. Martin

The year you’ll see Mediaburst focus on becoming the SMS provider of choice for Britain’s SMEs, as well as the mobile marketing provider for brands and agencies alike. We’ll also be introducing new products and services such as MMS for mobile applications.

They also use social networks to stay in touch, with 50% saying they message as many as 250 friends on a regular basis. The majority of teenagers (31%) would most like actor Will Smith to be an online friend, closely followed by High School Musical leading actress Vanessa Hudgens, with 30% of votes. Brad Pitt came last out of the list with just 5% of votes.

“These findings back up what our community already knows: that communicating is one of the most popular hobbies among teenagers today. If technology enables them to do this more easily, then it makes the experience all the more appealing to them.” Jo

Chennai-based Dhanus Technologies Ltd, an alternative telecommunications service provider, earlier this year inked a memorandum of understanding with the 20,000-strong Kerala State Private Bus Operators Federation and has finalised a deal with the 10,000-strong All Kerala Bus Operators Organisation. People will now be able to know where the bus is on the route and how long it will take to reach their stop just through a simple SMS. Also in Abu Dhabi you can now pay for your taxis by text. Gulf News reports that under the new “Q-Cash” system available in the Emirate state, people can pay for their taxi fares by text. Even the super rich can be caught without cash… Once again – SMS simple but effective John

They do however take much longer to read and understand compared to conventional English text. A small group of students were asked to compose messages. They were then asked to read the message aloud in English and as they saw it in “textese”. Although the majority of the students were faster using the textese, it took half of the student twice as long to read these messages and say aloud than the messages written in proper English.

So it may be quicker to write in textisms, but reading and understanding the messages is taking longer. We are used to reading full words and sentences, it is harder for us to decipher the message. “Research showed that despite the popular belief that textese is ruining spelling, it actually does not reflect our literary skills. Sound structure and grammar was significantly linked to the ability to decipher textese” So If u cn rd this quickly, gd 4 u!!!!

Although the surgeon had never performed such an operation before, he knew without the surgery the boy would die within a matter of days. He contacted a surgeon from London’s Royal Marsden Hospital who texted him step by step instructions. The surgeon, David Nott, commented, “I took a deep breath and followed the instructions to the letter. I knew exactly what my colleague meant becasue we had operated together many times.” A truely inspirational use of SMS! Gary

So, as the world’s financial woes deepen, how are clubs such as Man Utd making fans part with their hard earned cash to pay the wage bill? It’s taken a while, but the top clubs and now taking mobile campaigns more seriously than ever before. And it’s a trend that’s likely to increase in the years ahead.

Why? It’s a fundamental marketing principle – the company that gets closest to the consumer gets the biggest bite of the apple. And apart from his or her clothes, what’s closest to the fan? A mobile phone. Everyone’s got one, and unlike a PC, it’s rarely switched off. You don’t have to cut down a tree either to send a message to fans.

Mobile messaging specialist Mediaburst is one company that’s helping clubs to promote merchandise deals, sell half-season tickets, and increase gates at all important home games directly to fans. Increasingly, it is text services that are seen as a vehicle for clubs to better communicate and interact with fans.

We caught up with Mediaburst’s managing director, Gary Bury, at the recent Northwest Football Award 2008 event. The company’s text services were used by organisers Out There Events to let over 450 club directors, managers, sponsors and personalities attending the event use their mobiles and vote live for the player they believed should win the Goal of the Year Award, sponsored by Brown Shipley.

Gary explains: “Clearly, clubs are looking to enhance their marketing initiatives to move closer and create more personalised relationships with their fans, and mobile is the obvious choice. The same applies to corporate hospitality – it makes more sense to scrap paper invitations in favour of a mobile solution. These are the kind of solutions that clubs want to explore and that’s why Mediaburst is launching MMS products this month, so that clubs can send information in a rich format including video, images, animation, and sound to opt-in fans’ mobiles.”

Gary also believes that sending text alerts to fans will become a significant money earner for clubs going forward. “Team news, signings – these are the areas that the clubs obviously know about first. And fans are willing to pay to know these things. Take Man Utd as an example. The club charges fans 25p per alert, and it has millions of fans around the world. The impact of selling news alerts on the bottom line could be massive.”

Westley Gillard, head of business development at Velti echoes my sentiments in a recent letter to the NMA. To quote Westley, “Worries about budgets in the current climate and fear of the unknown have seen some agencies retreat into safe territory. However, this is missing the point somewhat as mobile provides a harder-working and more accountable touchpoint in places that the internet simply can’t always reach, namely everyone’s pocket, 24 hours a day.” Couldn’t have put it better myself! Gary

More than six in ten (61%) of respondents of legal voting age, age 18 and older, would be open to voting by text. Eight in ten teens, ages 13-17, say that if they were allowed to vote in this year’s Presidential election, they would have voted via text message instead of going to the polls. There are obvious issues with authentication but accepting the progress being made in that area, you never know. Martin

To quote from the MDA site, “All three measured metrics continue to grow; SMS has again surpassed expectations with 1.4 billion text messages being sent in the UK every week. SMS has established itself as a true social connecting tool and continues to have mass consumer appeal, at the same time there are signs of SMS being applied in commercial applications which will see the volume continue to rise”.

In a move to cut the cost of patient DNAs (Did Not Attends) appointments, NHS Trusts across the country are beginning to embrace a two-way SMS text messaging service that securely reminds patients of their hospital out-patient appointments and allows them to reply with a confirmation or to advise that they won’t be attending.

Called MARS (Managed Appointment Reminder Service), University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust and Hull and East Yorkshire NHS Trust are just two examples of how NHS Trusts are using the service to cut financial losses from missed appointments. Additionally, a consortium of NHS Trusts in the Midlands have also recently begun deploying the service this month.

A missed out-patient appointment costs each Trust £100, bringing the total wasted across the NHS to more than half a billion pounds each year. In London, where the problem is worst (visit here for details), the loss is more than £134 million. Another example is NHS Scotland where more than £30 million is lost each year through DNAs.

According to Dr. Jonathan Fielden* of the British Medical Association, missed appointments “cause huge disruption for patients and hospital staff. Patients need to have more respect for the service, but the NHS also needs to work harder to make appointments more convenient and flexible.”

As each NHS Trust has a patient treatment quota to meet, any shortfall means that forward budgets will be cut. DNAs also lead to other patients having to wait longer than necessary for treatment.

The MARS two-way messaging service is very secure and simple to use and is a significant step up from one-way systems. The service sends a text message reminder to the mobiles of patients ahead of an appointment. On receipt, patients are able to note the reminder and can reply back with a “yes” or “no” response if unable to attend.

A returned “no” response allows hospital Administrators to arrange an alternative appointment if required. They also have the opportunity to reduce waiting lists by filling cancelled treatment slots and help the Government hit its 18-week patient treatment targets.

MARS has been developed by communication company Island Communications in conjunction with the NHS, and is delivered to NHS organisations via a C&W’s Catalist Specialist Solutions “framework” contract, which avoids organisations having to Tender for the service.

The C&W MARS service uses the highly-secure SMS API messaging services of SMS provider Mediaburst to deliver appointment reminders to patients.

“MARS is possibly the most effective appointment reminder solution on today’s market and comes with an integrated management system giving hospitals instant awareness and measurable effectiveness of the service,” says Ken Higgins, managing director at Island Communications.

Cable&Wireless also provides Trusts with Island Communications’ opt-in tool to help collect patient names and mobile numbers. The data is transmitted through a secure on-line system to hospital administrators who then update the hospital or trust PAS (Patient Administration System).

About Island Communications

Island Communications is a communications company based in Larbert, near Stirling. The company develops web-based communications solutions for NHS Trusts, environmental monitoring and flood protection systems for local government, and boat monitoring and satellite tracking systems for boat owners. Island Communications is a key member of a European Consortium developing high-specification solutions for the Europe-wide treatment of Alzheimers Disease and all forms of Dementia. The Consortium is made up of representatives from Denmark, Estonia, Italy, Spain and the UK. For more information, visit www.islandcommunications.co.uk.

About Cable&Wireless

Cable&Wireless is one of the world’s leading international communications companies. It operates through two standalone business units – Europe, Asia & US and International. The Europe, Asia & US business unit (formerly known as the “UK” business) provides enterprise and carrier solutions to the largest users of telecoms services across the UK, US, continental Europe and Asia, and wholesale broadband services in the UK. With experience of delivering connectivity to 153 countries – and an intention to be the first customer-defined communications services business – the focus is on delivering customers a service experience that is second to none. The International business unit operates integrated telecommunications companies in 39 countries offering mobile, broadband, domestic and international fixed line services to residential and business customers, with principal operations in the Caribbean, Panama, Macau, Monaco and the Channel Islands. For more information about Cable&Wireless, go to www.cw.com

* In an interview published in the Daily Mail earlier this year on DNAs.

The following link provides more information regarding Walkers Sensations lastest promotion.

Sensations Winter Windfall.

]]> http://www.mediaburst.co.uk/blog/walkers-winter-windfall/feed/ 0 http://www.mediaburst.co.uk/blog/best-public-use-of-mobile/ http://www.mediaburst.co.uk/blog/best-public-use-of-mobile/#comments Thu, 16 Oct 2008 01:00:00 +0000 Mediaburst http://blogs.mediaburst.co.uk/news/2008/10/16/best-public-use-of-mobile/ Finalist for Best Public Use of Mobile Award

Mediaburst announces that it was nominated one of three finalists for Mobile Industry Review’s 2008 Best Public Use of Mobile award alongside Vodafone/UN and Orange Rockcore.

The judges considered Cleveland Police’s use of dynamic text services for the deaf, hard of hearing and speech-impaired people as one of the most innovative public uses of mobile phones.

Until the mobile came along, and SMS with it, deaf and speech-impaired people had great difficulty in contacting emergency services. They had to rely upon family and friends to report life issues or social misbehaviours on their behalf. Today, the deaf community is one of the most prolific users of SMS.

All that the deaf community in Cleveland Police’s boroughs need now do to report an incident is to text the word POLICE to 87202 giving their address and explanation of the problem. The message is automatically converted into email and forwarded to Cleveland’s communication centre where incidents are recorded and actioned.

The eventual winner of the award was Vodafone/UN.

“Clearly, we’re delighted to be nominated for this prestigious award and we congratulate Vodafone and the United Nations on becoming eventual winners,” says Gary Bury, Mediaburst’s managing director. “Cleveland Police’s initiative has proved an outstanding success and police forces across the country are now looking to adopt SMS for their deaf communities.”

TV is the highest profile use of SMS mechanisms and if the coming together of the major broadcasters helps restore consumer confidence then it’s absolutely a step in the right direction.

To really drive the benefits of moofing you need to look at a combination of different mobile technologies to provide an improved working solution. SMS, MMS, mobile internet, mobile e-mail, all spring to mind. Converged technologies provide a powerful tool, one that can be tailored to an individual business to drive exceptional results, but interestingly James McCarthy from Microsoft comments, “Far too few companies are trying real innovative things to find new ways of working”. There looks to be difficult times ahead but with the accessibility of mobile technologies, those who take the time to review their operating model might well prosper.

Visit here to read the full article.

Northwest Business Insider Magazine has published a wide-ranging feature on mobile marketing leader Mediaburst in its September 2008 edition. The feature focussed on the rapid development of text messaging in brand campaigns because of the mobile’s simple, interactive nature with the consumer.

Northwest Business Insider is owned and published by Insider Media Ltd. It is a leading independent publisher of business information and news, providing a portfolio of professional magazines, listings and events covering deals, property, and general business activities of importance to a company director.

Visit here to read the full article.

The appointment of the IAB as the trade body for mobile advertising builds on the work of the IAB Mobile Council, launched in November last year, which will now seek to extend its membership to include representatives from publishers, agencies, advertisers and technology companies all active in the mobile market. Guy Phillipson, IAB chief executive, said: With the new resources we’re going to get from the mobile operators, we can really put a rocket under it [mobile advertising].

The IAB will concentrate on research and promotion for mobile advertising, while the mobile phone operators remain committed to the global Mobile Marketing Association, concentrating on best practices and the protection of consumer privacy. The IAB will also be liaising with the GSM Association on its mobile audience measurement project. As a mobile marketing innovator we are delighted at this cross network initiative and trust that the adoption of standards will only accelerate the continued growth of mobile in the wider advertising market Gary

Mobile messaging was in the top three forms of marketing communication most likely to result in respondents seeking further information. However it’s been said before but with power comes responsibility. The research also highlighted that most consumers (75%) feel overwhelmed by the number of marketing communications they receive, although they remain happy picking and choosing between them (70%).

“As the number of communications grow, consumers have become better at filtering information,” says Victoria Bytel, Head of Research at the DMA. “People are able to de-sensitise themselves from content, but in doing so they also disconnect from the brand. To avoid becoming wallpaper, marketers need to work even harder to make communications stand out.” Jo

Interestingly the group while often an unknown entity offline, are able to achieve expert status online and form the core of a consumer group as a result of their enthusiasm for and knowledge of a particular product. Gaining their favour, the study says, will be a “critical battle” for enterprises in China. Something that could catch on in the West? Jo

Not surprisingly SMS use remains strong and they commented that, “SMS has established itself as a true social connecting tool and continues to have mass appeal”. They expect to see SMS growth to be circa 30% in 2008. What is more pleasing is that aided by the proliferation of camera enabled devices and simplified settings there is now more than 10m MMS sent per week representing year on year growth of 30%. On top of this the mobile internet currently has circa 17m users per month and is expected to grow by 20% in 2009. The MDA commented, “there are powerful signs all around that mobile Internet access will supersede traditional PC access.

The MDA predict that mobile internet will become a true rival for traditional desktop Internet access.” Interesting, I wonder if the phone will eventually become obsolete.

Over seven out of ten of us admit delegating difficult tasks at work by email and text. More than half use an email or text message to apologise for mistakes. One in eight of us has resigned via email or text message while 2 per cent of bosses have fired someone with an email or text message, according to a survey by Post Office Telecoms. Also revealed is that 3 per cent of adults admit to ending a relationship by text in the past 12 months.

“Each generation’s communication style can differ dramatically, sometimes leading to inappropriate behaviour or cultural insensitivity, says Stewart Fox-Mills, head of telecoms at the Post Office. “Digital technology is constantly giving us new ways to communicate. But we’ve found that many are using modern technology to avoid face-toface or verbal confrontation.” Gary

A panel of judges described his skillset as a “powerful combination of innovation and growth in mature markets” and for his “contribution to the wider community on issues relating to advertising to children, and a whole series of excellent below the line initiatives.” Kellogg’s King Tut and Zookeeper for a Day mobile marketing campaigns run via Mediaburst’s SMS Gateway are recent examples.

Brennan joined Kellogg’s in 1999 and has also held senior marketing roles in Europe and Australia. He quickly acquired a reputation in the grocery trade as a marketer who knows how to grow and develop his company’s share of both mature and growing markets.

Healthy eating and lifestyle are now the key drivers behind Kellogg’s formidable £72m media spend – not including the substantial sum invested in below the line activities. Brennan is the highest ranked North West-based marketer in national trade title Marketing’s Power 100.

The furniture retailer, which sponsors Coronation Street on ITV1, offered discounts to visitors to its area of the soap’s iTV service. The initiative, created by Eagle Eye Solutions, invited viewers to text to receive an eight-digit shortcode that entitled them to discounts in selected Harvey’s stores. Mobile vouchering is highly targeted, lower cost and more effective than paper based products, and you can accurately record who has redeemed the incentive.

Premium SMS codes have been set up in more than 20 countries around the world, including the US, UK, South Africa, Australia, Spain, Germany and many African nations. People will be able to text their own message to their country-specific short code and will then receive a thank you message with a unique pin number, allowing them to view the message securely online at a specially created birthday site. The site will also contain a raft of celebrity messages both written and filmed by Mandela supporters around the world. In the UK texts cost £1.50 plus the standard network rate.

All profits received from text charges will go to the Nelson Mandela Legacy Trust and other charitable organisations supported by Mandela. Tim Massey, 46664 international director, said: “A text-based service allows more people to feel part of the celebrations in a very simple way and we hope to raise significant revenues to support the ongoing work of the charities that bear Mr Mandela’s name and 46664.” We wish 46664 every success with this ground breaking initiative.

Strengthening its position as a mobile promotion support company for brands and agencies alike, Mediaburst today announces that it has developed a best-practice guide to using phone-paid services for download from its website www.mediaburst.co.uk. The company also announces the appointment of Dawn Hedley as its compliance officer.

The guide aims to help brands and agencies to establish a culture of compliance in SMS promotions, helping the advertising and marketing industries to fully understand the do’s and don’ts of mobile marketing campaigns. The guide can be downloaded here and has been reviewed by telecoms regulator PhonepayPlus.

Hedley joined Mediaburst in December 2003 as operations manager. Previously, she was production manager for Centurian (now known

as Redactive) where she was responsible for budget management, print buying, quality control, workflows, scheduling and delivery of publications.

As Mediaburst’s operations manager, she helped develop the company’s web-based SMS communication products, introduced billing mechanisms and service level agreements, as well as processes for testing, sales orders, incident management and frontline support to business partners such as O2 and Thus.

“Brands today face a challenge keeping up with the complex regulations surrounding phone-paid services,” says Hedley. “Mediaburst’s best practice guide will help brands and agencies alike to create compliant mobile marketing promotions, avoid costly investigations and build confidence with the consumer.”

Mediaburst’s compliance officer is available for agency and brand briefings upon request. Call 0845 050 0000.

Sir Michael Pitt, the man asked to assess the response to last summer’s floods has finally published his long-awaited report – and he says many lessons need to be learned.

His overriding message will be that the lack of preparation last year must be addressed without delay, and he has included 92 recommendations to ensure this happens. He told Sky News: “What we are arguing is that we were not well prepared last summer for the scale of flooding that took place.”

In response to the needs of business mangers to better plan communication in a crisis SMS Providers Mediaburst are advocating SMS for Business Continuity.

This is a low cost, feature rich SMS based communication tool that has proven to be a very effective solution. Neil Davison IT operations manager for city based legal firm Reynolds Porter Chamberlain commented: “Mediaburst’s Business Continuity text tool is one of the most cost-effective and efficient means of instantly communicating and interacting with people during emergencies. At a time when phone networks become congested and communications fail, text messages get delivered. That’s why Mediaburst’s tool has been selected as the prime communicator in our disaster recovery plan.”

If you want to understand how this tool can help your business then get in touch.

The Newspaper says Scots MPs have been unhappy with reception since the building opened several years ago. The parliament uses Vodafone as its network supplier, but apparently the building itself is to blame, rather than the operator, for the weak signal. Work on improving coverage has commenced with a system of Pico cells being used to increase mobile reception. For £50,000, you’d hope the MPs would find something useful to say. Martin

Mobile marketing company Mediaburst today announces that its secure and robust text services are being integrated into a bespoke online electoral roll system for local authorities. For the first time, voters will be able to register to vote by simply texting a unique ID and Pin to their local authority.

Part of a system called Democratic Solutions, the product will be available from local authority provider Dsi from August 2008 onwards and its deployment will enable the general public to securely register their voting intentions with a local authority during their annual canvass by telephone, the Internet and SMS.

Dsi is a trusted provider of fully auditable “closed loop” solutions to over 150 local authorities in Britain. Its product portfolio used by the authorities includes electoral registration and management software, revenue and benefits billing systems, case load management tools for councillors, consultation software, as well as printed postal voting packs, poll cards, annual canvass forms and ballot books.

Dsi’s extended software will be win-win for voters and local authorities alike. On the one hand, the public will have more choice in the way they wish to register with a local authority during their annual canvass … by calling a hotline, by visiting www.securemyvote.co.uk and completing an online form, or by texting a unique ID and Pin received in the post to the authority’s long or short code. On the other, local authorities will be able to leverage the public and their mobile phones and the Internet to compile electoral rolls faster and at less cost.

“Compiling electoral rolls today is traditionally a costly, paper-based exercise for local authorities and an online solution offers voters a more convenient method to ensure that they get involved in local elections and democratic issues,” says Simon Verdon, Dsi’s business development director. “By integrating Mediaburst’s highly-secure SMS service into our new online registration system, Dsi again demonstrates how it is helping local authorities to better engage and interact with the voting public and for the public to protect their democratic rights.”

For further information on Democratic Solutions, local authorities can contact Simon Verdon on 07957 880 480 or by email to simon.verdon@dsigroup.com

About Dsi

Dsi was established in 1993 to provide software, document production, management and distribution services. With a turnover of £110m, 5 Communication Centres based around the UK and 1100 staff, the business provides services to a wide range of client from the Public and Private sectors.

Although from separate articles, I believe it shows a clear picture of where the market is heading in the next 12 months.

• “Mobile internet access becoming key consideration for phone buyers”
• “65% of those who intend to buy a phone in the next year will demand a good mobile internet experience”
• “online and mobile are converging and our consumers expect to access our brands via their phones”
• “mobile broadband on the rise” “up to a 3rd of users could be going online (via mobile) by 2012”
• “Emarketer estimates this year’s global mobile ad spend will be over £2.45m, trebling by 2011”

Social networking applications are clearly on the rise and we are certainly at the beginning of the phenomenon. The problem with current systems is that you have to be sat at your PC, set them up, logon, and it’s not always convenient, especially when you’re at work or out and about.

There is however an exceptionally accurate reflection of your social network that hasn’t been fully exploited. And yet you carry it on your person at all times and comes with all the gadgetry you need to social network, the humble and still underutilised mobile phone.

So here I am watching the impressive demo of the new iphone and some of the new applications and in particular loopt, which does finally capitalise on your phones capabilities. It’s an application, not a website, update your status, change your profile photo, and all this is reflected instantly on the contacts list of your friend’s phone. Next, plot your friend’s current position on maps, sort your contacts list by how close they are at that very moment. It does sound a bit scary but when this technology is the hands of the younger generations do you really believe they will go to a PC to social network?

According to the New Zealand Herald, the Kiwi’s national carrier is planning to introduce an in-flight texting service. However despite European and antipodean enthusiasm for in-flight SMS, Asia and the US don’t look like planning to introduce any mile-high connectivity any time soon. Surely long haul flights are perfectly suited to that time when we can catch up on all those outstanding messages or simply take the time to stay in touch?

Mobile marketing company Mediaburst announces that its finance director, Gary Bury, has been appointed managing director of the company with immediate effect. In his new position, Gary will consolidate the progress made by the company over the past year, particularly as a mobile marketing support company for marketing and advertising agencies, helping them to develop and deploy their digital media strategies.

A qualified accountant, Gary developed his skills with a fast growing group of finance companies in New Zealand. He returned to the UK in 2003 and was appointed finance director of property consultants Ep2 where he was instrumental in improving management reporting systems and grooming the company for an eventual trade sale in April 2005.

Gary joined Mediaburst in January 06 as finance director and became a major shareholder in

August 06 and part of a new management team that purchased the business. His remit was extended by the board in November 06 to cover all technical and operations departments. Mediaburst is now a more focused company, delivering products and promotions that bring commercial gain to Mediaburst and value to its customer base of enterprises, marketing agencies and re-sellers.

Gary’s contribution to Mediaburst’s success was recognised at the prestigious Fast Growth Business Awards event this year having been nominated as one of three finalists for the Finance Director of Year Award.

“Mediaburst has made significant progress over the past year as a mobile marketing company and 2008/09 will see the company consolidate and build its business relationships with marketing and advertising agencies,” says Gary. “Mobile messaging campaigns are becoming essential to brands to better interact with consumers and Mediaburst has the expertise and products to help ensure their success.”

The NMA also reported a clear indication that the acceptance of mobile advertising is on the up. In a survery conducted by Q Research approximately 46% of young people would switch their mobile phone supplier if they were offered free talk time and texts in return for receiving ads on their mobile. It is clear that the US market is also seeing considerable continued growth. A recent Garner study estimates 189 billion mobile messages will be sent by US mobile phone subscribers this year and forecasts 301 billion for next year…. both of which is still only a small fraction of the 2.3 trillion messages to be sent across major markets worldwide in 2008 Asia is the biggest mobile messaging market worldwide. China is well ahead in the lead with approximately 560 billion SMS, followed by the Philippines’ 430 billion, and Japan’s 190 billion.

Mobile marketing company Mediaburst today confirmed that its text services were selected by Square Meal’s Imbibe Magazine to invite the nation’s sommeliers to taste over 200 new wines that are destined to be chosen for the wine lists of many of Britain’s restaurants, bars and gastropubs this summer and thereafter.

The invitation was part of a unique wine tasting event in London. Called the Sommelier Wine Awards 2008, it is Britain’s only on-trade wine competition. Criteria for entering wines are twofold … they must be available to the UK’s wine trade and must not be sold in mainstream off-trade outlets like supermarkets.

Some of Britain’s finest palates were recruited earlier in the year to judge the quality of wines entered on the basis of their food-friendliness, versality, character and value for money.

After the first round of tasting, 300 wines entered for the event were chosen to become the Sommelier’s shortlist. They were then re-tasted and the judges picked the best 100 to make up a Gold List. Categories include a suggested selection for House Wines, Sparkling Wine and Champagne, Rose, Stickies (Dessert Wines), and selected red and white wines from wine growing countries such as Australia, France, Spain and Italy.

“Texting personalised invitations to people to attend national events such as the Sommelier Wine Awards was a first for Square Meal and the campaign advice and support we received from Mediaburst ensured a great result. We expect to use this kind of communication more in the future as guests at the event found the SMS reminder and e-ticket really useful.” says Rachel Curran, Marketing Manager for Imbibe Magazine.

About Imbibe Magazine

Imbibe is published by Square Meal, London and the UK’s leading restaurant & bar guide, whose strong relationship with over half a million consumers provides Imbibe with the benefits of a unique relationship with the on-trade. Imbibe is a bi-monthly magazine with an ABC-audited readership of 11,400 on-trade drinks professionals. For more information please contact Rachel Curran on 020 7840 6269 or visit www.imbibemagazine.co.uk

About Mediaburst

Mediaburst is an award-winning mobile messaging and interactive telephony company. Created in 2000, the company is today the trusted mobile campaign partner for advertising, marketing and media agencies and the preferred supplier of messaging solutions and aggregation for businesses, developers, and network operators. Mediaburst’s interactive platform allows companies to automate communications with their audiences in a reliable, cost effective, and scalable manner.

Note for editors

A booklet listing the wines chosen for the Gold List and Sommelier’s Shortlist is available upon request. Contact Rachel Curren – rachel@squaremeal.co.uk.

A recent campaign for Big Brother 2008 in Australia saw the installation of Bluetooth transmitters in over 20 bus shelters around Perth.

The transmitters automatically sent two anonymous messages to any bluetooth enabled phone in the area.

The first message was tailored for the local location, along the lines of: “I’m watching u Ur at the (bus stop location)”.

The second message is received about 30 seconds later saying: “Big Brother is back 7 PM weeknights on TEN”.

Interesting, possibly a little scary, but certainly effective!

Based in Guildford, Matelco is part of the privately owned Ampito Group, which is a hybrid IT solutions provider, looking at emerging and leading technologies. The group ethos is built on the principles of good service, customer care and an innovative approach to solutions and doing business.

Heather Menzies, Matelco’s business development director, comments: “Mediaburst is a best-of-breed mobile marketing company offering products and support that are unrivalled in today’s marketplace. Our customers will be well served.”

Stuart Brown, Mediaburst’s sales and marketing director, adds: ” Matelco are precisely the kind of forward thinking organisation that Mediaburst wishes to partner with and we look forward to supporting Matelco as they promote and sell our text and business continuity solutions.”

About Mediaburst

Mediaburst is an award-winning mobile messaging and interactive telephony company. Created in 2000, the company is today the trusted mobile campaign partner for advertising, marketing and media agencies and the preferred supplier of messaging solutions and aggregation for businesses, developers, and network operators. Mediaburst’s interactive platform allows companies to automate communications with their audiences in a reliable, cost effective, and scalable manner.

From airline notifications to an advertising medium its credibility and revenue generating potential is riding high. Indeed, current industry forecasts foresee mobile messaging revenues of $165 billion globally by 2011, 200% higher than previous industry predictions.

Since its inception 15 years ago, mobile messaging has delivered a 6000 per cent return on investment, but the growth phase is not yet over, with markets such as India, North America and China seeing phenomenal traffic increases. Even within the more mature markets of Western Europe and South East Asia, messaging still has huge growth potential.

So how will the humble SMS be developed to fuel this growth?

• Personalising the messaging experience with added functionality relevant to specific consumer and enterprise segments.
• Using partnerships and multi-play strategies to extend mobile messaging to the fixed environment using converged messaging.
• Subsidising mobile internet revenues through messaging integration with interactive web applications such as Facebook and eBay.
• Mobilising enterprise applications.
• Leveraging the mobile marketing opportunities offered by the reach of messaging platforms. The peer to peer capabilities of SMS are widely documented and are used by us all everyday. It is the continual development of Application to Peer messaging that will deliver differentiation within service providers and drive both the volumes and the revenues.

At the inaugural North West Football Awards 2007 held last November in Manchester, Out There Events used Mediaburst’s text services to run the text vote for Barclay’s Goal of the Year Award. For the first time, club directors, managers, sponsors and personalities used their mobiles to interact and vote live at the event.

The initiative of introducing live text voting at awards ceremonies has since been recognised by judges at the prestigious SWOT Marketing Awards event on 24th April 2008. At a gala ceremony announcing the winners of twenty-two marketing awards in Manchester, Out There Events was named winner of the Best Event or Experiential Strategy Award.

“Text gave us instant audience participation” says Stacey Chandler, Event Director North West Football Awards “For the first time the audience could use their mobiles to really get involved in the event”

The awards were sponsored by the northern regions of The Chartered Institute of Marketing, Tayburn, Maincolour, Thompson, The Internet Advertising Bureau, News International, Feather Brooksbank, Oxford College and The Recommended Agency Register.

About Mediaburst

Mediaburst is an award-winning mobile messaging and interactive telephony company. Created in 2000, the company is today the trusted mobile campaign partner for advertising, marketing and media agencies and the preferred supplier of messaging solutions and aggregation for businesses, developers, and network operators. Mediaburst’s interactive platform allows companies to automate communications with their audiences in a reliable, cost effective, and scalable manner.

The latest campaign will see the Pope aiming to connect with technology loving Catholics on World Youth Day by sending out thousands of text messages, setting up a digital prayer wall and the launch of a web-based social networking site. The co-ordinating bishop Anthony Fisher said,”We wanted to make WYD08 a unique experience by using new ways to connect with today’s tech-savvy youth”. The six-day event will be held in Sydney in mid-July and is expected to attract more than 200,000 young Catholics to the Australian city. We constantly monitor the market place and we saw this as a clear indication that even organisations that are considered traditional are seeing value in new technologies.