The Pope will be on his way to Australia later this year for World Youth Day, and he’s already got plans to text followers when he lands. According to Aussie mobile operator Telstra, the Pope is planning to send daily “inspirational text messages” to his followers.

His Holiness is evidently a bit of a fan of high tech, and will also be using a World Youth Day social networking site, digital prayer walls, and Regional Catechesis webcast over Telstra’s 3G network. Telstra also said it will be setting up special precincts - “on the ground interactive centre’s including wireless internet, green screen studios, commemorative WYD08 photo messaging and music downloads”. Nice to see the Pope is a bit fan of data services…

After capping roaming rates for voice calls not so long ago, EU Commissioner Viviane Reding is now turning her sights on the cost of SMS and data while abroad. It’s all part of the latest consultation from the EC, which is aimed at getting opinions from those in the industry on how the new capped roaming regime is working.

Reding is now also putting the question of “whether regulation is necessary for data roaming services and SMS in light of current retail prices and market development” up for discussion. The last time the Commissioner mooted some new laws to govern roaming, prices for voice minutes abroad tumbled as operators tried to deter the EC from introducing more regulation. Fingers crossed this will have the same effect on SMS and data.

At the Internet World yesterday I popped by the Dynmark (the “texting people”) stand and caught up with their top man, Oscar, to see what was going on:

If you’re looking for a link to Dynmark’s e-txt desktop text service, it’s at here.

Seen a crime and want to report it anonymously? If you’re in the US or Canada, you can now dob people in using SMS, thanks to a new application from mBlox and Anderson Software called TipSoft.

It’s already being used by community action group Crime Stoppers and is already up and running in 16 Canadian cities. Another 32 cities in the US will be deploying the system soon, and after that, the application could be on its way to the UK.

Rather handily, the anonymity is two-way: the tips go from users’ phones and are delivered anonymously and the police can reply back without having access to the phone number of the user who sent in the tip. I wonder how it sits with privacy legislation: if cops really needed to get hold of the tipster, is there any privacy legislation that would block them?

TechCrunch has the gossip:

The key measure of Twitter usage is total users, total active users and total messages sent. And according to a source close to the company, these are the current Twitter usage stats:

March 2008
Total Users: 1 million
Total Active Users: 200,000 per week
Total Twitter Messages: 2 million/month

Those stats have roughly doubled just since January, when Twitter had just 100,000 active weekly users. Previously it took nine months to double in size - In April 2007 the service had 50,000 active weekly users.

Now I wonder how many of those Twitter messages are international text messages at a few pennies per message?

Mobile messaging operator TynTec believes — as I do — that the growth of the medium of SMS is being limited by perception. Their release today goes into more detail — I’ve published it in full as I think this issue deserves wider awareness.

I’ve been in many meetings with serious business people making serious commercial decisions who, time and time again have dumped SMS as their medium of choice — or flat out rejected it — because the operators or service providers were unable to offer ’service levelled’ facilities.

The next problem was defining ‘high quality’. I’d explain that our supplier used X or Y and therefore the SMS feed we could offer was ‘high quality’. Then the Commercial Director — our potential client — would arse the negotiations up by telling us that ‘his mate’ that ‘he met at a dinner party the other week could get him high quality texts for 2.01p each.’

In the end I often just had to smile, calmly and walk out the meeting. It came down to price every time because we couldn’t easily measure quality. So I most certainly agree with TynTec’s suggestions below.

Link: webitpr | Tyntec Calls For SMS Service Level Agreements

Mobile messaging operator TynTec (www.tyntec.com) today calls for the mobile industry to adopt service level agreements (SLA’s) for enterprise SMS to aid the adoption of the technology in businesses.

SMS’ growth as a business tool has been stifled by its perceived unreliability and the incapability of traditional SMS providers to offer traceability, security or delivery guarantees. TynTec is calling on all providers of enterprise SMS to bring about greater accountability in their services in order to encourage enterprises to adopt the technology as a communications tool.

At the moment, SMS is generally being offered to enterprises without specified service level agreements defining the reliability, security and traceability of messaging. The widespread adoption of SLA’s by the enterprise mobile messaging community would enable buyers to quickly benchmark services and make educated decisions about suppliers.

Michael Kowalzik, CEO of TynTec, said: “The lack of defined service level agreements has been one of the major stumbling blocks in the adoption of SMS in the enterprise. Before adopting a technology for mission critical applications, businesses need to know that they can offer the appropriate degree of reliability and measurability. If you can’t offer an SLA you’re asking a company to essentially sign up to an unknown quantity – something that’s acting as a brake on the enterprise SMS market as a whole.

”Its clear that some providers can’t provide an enterprise quality service and, if SLA’s were the expected norm in SMS providers, then companies would quickly be able to tell the wheat from the chaff and home in on an appropriate solution.”

TynTec is a mobile messaging operator, offering enterprise quality SMS services to companies such as O2, British Airways and Skype. The company has multiple points of deep level (SS7) connectivity into the global mobile network, enabling it to act as an operator-level messaging provider. Using these capabilities, the company can offer a unique level of reliability and measurability in SMS services.

If you don’t have access to Facebook’s integrated text notification service — and you don’t, if you’re living outside of America — then this new application, ‘SMS Notification‘, is for you.

I got a note from developer Tom Whettem to let me know they’d gone live. He writes:

Up until now, the only users that had this option were located in the US on Facebook approved list of network operators, now with SMS Notification you can receive all your notifications straight to your phone whether you are in UK, Australia, USA or any of the other international mobile networks that SMS Notification supports.

When you install SMS notification registering your mobile could not be simpler. You get an iPhone for your profile page from which your friend can send you free SMS messages and other options like the ability to send image or animation pokes as well.

In order to start receiving your Facebook notifications, you will need to add a new email address to your Facebook account. The email address is simply yourphonenumber@smsnotificication.co.uk. You do not have to worry about not receiving your notifications to your original inbox as SMS Notification automatically forwards these for you after sending you an SMS. Users can also use their new email address to receive emails to their mobile phone by SMS.

The iPhone on your profile page looks pretty neat — that’s a screenshot of Tom’s profile one above.

The mini-feed integration is rather swish - here’s an example of that on Tom’s profile:

Nifty.

Oh, and by the way Tom, if you can knock up a method of using two-way SMS services with this, you could enter the Esendex Developer competition and be in line to win a grand!

And now, time for some GOOD news. Yes!

Four years ago, reports the Electric Newspaper in Singapore, a nurse hit the headlines after she was dumped via text message at the altar by the groom. Deary me.

Her then-fiance, Kedah striker Hasmawi Hassan, had sent her a text message that the wedding was not going to happen.

Her plight hit the headlines.

On Saturday, the 27-year-old nurse was back in the news, for a happier reason.

She had found love again and married Mr Mohd Zaini Mohd Salim of Kampung Parit Kudus, Pontian.

Woo huu. Congratulations Mrs Salim!

Link: » Now track Kerala private buses via Internet, SMS - Thaindian News

Commuters in Kerala will by next month be able to track any of the 30,000 private buses that ply on the state roads either via the Internet or through mobile phones. Chennai-based Dhanus Technologies Ltd, an alternative telecommunications service provider, earlier this month 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 one’s bus has reached and how long it will take to reach their stop just through a simple SMS.

This is already available in the UK*. It was really easy for the developers to create. If you text STATUS to 81011, the system simply replies — right-away — with:

There will be one along in a minute.

*OK so I’m being a bit rude. That last bit was made up.

Link: Nationmedia.com | Daily Nation | NEWS | SMS comes in handy to effect industrial action

Prison warders across the country have turned to mobile phone technology to rally their colleagues at the country’s prisons to push the Government to address their grievances.

Through short text messages circulated to all warders at all penal institutions in the country, the warders have vowed to down their tools Monday if their grievances are not addressed.

I wonder precisely how they’re delivering this. Perhaps a one-to-one group discussion system like ZygoHubs (introduced today) might not be what you need when you’re planning industrial action.

Well this isn’t news, really.

It is a confirmation.

I’ve known it for a while. I’ve been using the likes of Nimbuzz or Agile Mobile Messenger for a long time now, rather than sending text messages.

Let’s be clear: I still value text. But for longer, mobile conversations, I much prefer IM. Have a look at these stats published by Cellular News:

Instant Messaging Via Mobile Set to Challenge SMS Traffic

Mobile Instant Messaging (MIM) is set to cannibalise SMS (texting) and eventually email from PC, a survey from TNS Technology has found. The TNS Global Telecoms Insight (GTI) study, which interviewed 17,000 respondents across 30 countries, has found that once mobile users adopt MIM it overtakes other messaging tools to become the primary non-voice method of interacting – with potentially dramatic consequences for service and network providers’ revenue.

Among those who use MIM, it is the most used feature on their phone: 61% use it daily, compared to only 55% who use SMS daily and only 12% who use email on their mobile.

Instant messaging is also taking a larger share of all messaging communications. In fact MIM has become so popular, that now 11 out of every 100 messages sent by mobile devices or fixed PC globally are instant messages. However, among MIM users 36 out of every 100 messages sent is an Instant Message by their mobile, making this the dominant messaging form for these users. The number of messages sent via SMS falls dramatically among MIM users from 38 to only 23 messages per 100. Surprisingly, MIM users also use fixed email less with 21 out of every 100 messages sent via this medium, compared to 31 messages among all consumers.

ZygoHubs formally launched recently and it’s exactly what I’ve been looking for. Whilst Twitter is a great mobile social networking tool, sometimes — more often than not — I find I want to connect with a team of people privately and immediately. That’s where Zygo comes in. ZygoHubs allows anyone to set up their own group messaging service. Each group gets a single telephone number through which any member can contact the whole group instantly. Wicked.

So, one text sent to your ZygoHubs number is relayed to everyone subscribed to the group. And any reply from a group member is relayed to everyone. Bish bash bosh — before you can say ‘wicked’, you’ve got real-time group text conversations. This is exactly what I’ve been hunting for. Try out the service at www.zygohubs.com — you get 50 free credits.

Or, if you like, get out your phone and join my test group — ZYGO-SMS by simply texting JOIN to +44 7714 989651. Now, ZygoHubs model is clearly based around usage fees. Five quid buys you 70 credits — so that each outgoing text costs 7.1p. £100 buys you 1800 credits at a rate of 5.6p per credit. Considering the fact that the ZygoHubs service is international, I think this is a reasonable price to pay for the functionality.

The service has been operational and under trial for 18 months so they were able to send me these rather wicked use-case-scenarios:

First, Bob set up this private Ski group:

Bob Spencer, who set up a ZygoHub with a group of friends so they could keep in touch whilst on a skiing holiday, said: “With a group of 13 people inevitably there were varying skiing abilities within the group and different ideas about activities each individual wanted to take part in during the holiday. Sending text messages to each member of the group separately would have been prohibitively time consuming and considerably more costly. Being able to send one message which would reach every member of the group meant the organisation of the holiday and group was significantly easier than previous years.”

This must have been a brilliant way of managing activities on the slope. Love it.

What about business?

BBM Law, a small and very busy firm of legal aid solicitors based in London, has been using the ZygoHubs service since September 2006. Neil Baxter, a partner at the firm, explains: “We’re legal aid solicitors and the nature of our work is quite unpredictable. Most of us are out and about during the day - visiting clients at police stations or courts. Before we started using ZygoHubs, keeping tabs on everyone was a headache. Using the ZygoHub we can send one message asking where everyone is and when they are likely to be free. In the past we would have had to ring each solicitor individually, so Zygo helps us to save a lot of time. Using texts is often easier, as when we are at court we either need to have our phones off or on silent.”

And finally, getting personal…

Another ZygoHubs user, Fiona Mackay set up the service for her group of thirty-something former school friends naming it ‘Girly Gossip’. “Unfortunately we don’t live that near each other anymore so we can’t get together that much - but when the ‘Girly Gossip’ chat starts hotting up – it feels like we’ve never been apart! It’s such a great way to keep in touch with the old gang”, she explains.

There is definitely a market for this kind of service. The key challenge will be getting the message out to the consumers. It’d be rather smart if one of the operators jumped on board and white-labeled this as a bolt-on offering.

Give it a go and let me know what you think? And try out the SMS Text News ZygoHub by texting JOIN to +44 7714 989651. Remember you won’t be billed anything — it’s the group owner who pays.

Pat Phelan is bored out of his skull waiting for his flight at the fancy new Heathrow Terminal 5. How do I know? He Twittered this. Well, an enterprising person at Boingo Wireless (also using Twitter) decided to use his/her initiative and make Pat an offer of a free wifi pass:

Twitter / Pat: Best ever use of Twitter fo…

Best ever use of Twitter for business @boingo saw that I was delayed in Heathrow and offered me a free wifi logon, really cool

Very, very, VERY smart marketing.

Which reminds me of this Crisp Wireless blog post I read (discussing Twitter) from a few days ago:

Evan Neufeld from M:Metrics explained recently that mobile is about creating multi modal access in a world where mass marketing is dying

I can’t wait to be able to Twitter with Vodafone. Or T-Mobile. I can’t begin to imagine just how much cash I’d spent with some companies if they deployed different methods of interacting with me. For example I was in the Vodafone store today nosing around to see how much it would be to add a Blackberry to my account. I couldn’t actually work it out. About 18 quid a month, I reckon. But I couldn’t work it out from the brochures and I didn’t want to take a ticket and talk to a sales person at that point. I’m ready to buy, now. Particularly since I just spent a whopping amount of cash with them. But I’m not ready to go out and actively purchase at the moment. It’s not such a critical issue for me. Ergo that 18 quid per month for 18 months (324 pounds) remains unspent. I’m someone from Vodafone calls, texts, twitters or instant messages me in the next 30 minutes, I’ll buy.

Otherwise, I’ll recognise that what I should do to solve my Blackberry issue is to go and buy one on eBay and use my existing tenner-a-month o2 account with it.

The Twitter chaps are out and about explaining as best they can the recent ‘weirdness’ with their service. It all sounds fair enough to me — this paragraph appears on my Twitter frontpage at the moment:

We’ve tracked down the missing update issue. You may see some old updates appear as we resolve it. Thank you for your patience.

This isn’t sufficient for many users. For example, here’s a chap by the name of Aaron responding to the Twitter post:

Twitter Blog: Weekend Web Weirdness

Aaron said…
“we realize it’s annoying” - ?

When the whole point of the service (to post messages and make them available) isn’t working, it’s not just annoying, it’s broken.

Why, when it’s been broken for 3 days, is this the first communication about the problem?

I’m not entirely clear on Twitter’s beta status. Is it a beta? I don’t see ‘beta’ anywhere. However it’s free to use.

Now part of me thinks that price is irrelevant — it is their duty to keep service moving fast and smoothly, especially given the nature of the service.

The other part of me thinks that, if I was the CEO — or the venture capitalist paying for it all — I’d be a weee bit annoyed. There’s no doubt it costs a good amount of cash to maintain and grow the Twitter infrastructure. Those text messages I’m receiving all day and all night cost money and I sure am not paying for them.

Which leads me to this question: For those of you using Twitter like no tomorrow, would you pay $2 per month (or more) for an ultra reliable uber-priority guaranteed service?

I think I’d be happy with a few dollars a month to help guarantee service.

Link: U.S. Cell Phone Users Open to Texting Their Vote for President

A survey by Samsung Telecommunications America (Samsung Mobile) suggests that many teens and their parents across the U.S. would rather vote by text message on their cell phones in the next election rather than go to the polls.

BYE-BYE POLLS

More than six in ten (61%a) of respondents of legal voting age, age 18 and older, would be open to voting by text.

Eight in ten (80%) teens, ages 13-17, say that if they were allowed to vote in this year’s Presidential election, they’d do it by text message instead of going to the polls.

Nice one Samsung. There are obvious issues with authentication but, assuming you could sort that (and there are many movements afoot to do so), you never know.

Or actually, how about dumping voting altogether and get Simon Cowell to sort it out for us?

Kudos to the MX Telecom team this afternoon. They’re finally able to announce that they’re providing the text message gateway services for Amazon.com’s TextBuyIt service.

If you haven’t come across the service, I documented it recently here. Quick overview? Here we go:

Amazon TextBuyIt lets U.S. customers text the name of a product, its description, UPC or ISBN to 262966 (or “Amazon” on the keypad) from their cell phones. If Amazon stocks matching items, the service returns two results at a time, and shoppers can immediately select and purchase by texting back the number “1″ or “2,” or get more details by texting the letter “M.”

Got a bit of comment from Alex, the top chap at MX USA:

“We’re delighted Amazon.com has selected MX Telecom for this project,” said Alex Moir, CEO of MX Telecom. “The service also marks the changing dynamic in consumer shopping behavior. As consumers begin to make purchases using their cell phones, viral shopping recommendations will become more potent and a new breed of point-of-sale opportunities will emerge.”

That’s a cool win for MX. Congratulations!

News in from SMS Text News sponsor Clickatell. They are going great guns with the health industry around the world.

Here in the UK, they’ve been working with the Birmingham Teaching Primary Care Trust (and partners 123 Consultans) to deliver health and medical information by text to over 300,000 people. Fantastic! Obviously the NHS’s goal is to raise awareness around health issues such as diet, drugs and safe sex among the public, with a specific focus on teen health. What better way to talk to teenagers than by text?

Interested members of the public just need to text ’stop smoking’ (for example) to receive relevant information about a specific health topic.

Clickatell’s recent release points out this key point:

Given a teenager’s need for immediacy and privacy when it comes to various health questions, this service is especially important for them to be able to receive legitimate and trusted information to answer their questions around sex, pregnancy, drugs, and other critical health issues.

According to Phil Colledge of 123 Consultants, “Typically this important information has been spread via printed leaflets, which often only reached 1% of the intended audience. By comparison, SMS reaches over 90% of its intended audience, at around 50–60 % of the cost.”

Absolutely. I’m pleased the Birmingham Trust is doing this but I’d like to see every UK Trust adopt the medium, especially when they’re targeting teenagers.

Standby for two more wicked health/SMS case studies from Clickatell - I’ll post them over the next few days.

Messaging services company Esendex recently launched their developer competition — and it’s one that I hope you’ll give some attention to.

The competition gives applicants the chance to show off aspiring ideas in the world of text messaging with the winning entrant receiving a guaranteed cash prize of £1,000 and a chance at commercial success.

It’s quite simple: You just need to come up with a smart use of two-way texting. Two-way text messaging is massively undervalued by today’s marketing professionals and mobile developers.

Only this morning I got a text message from my gym telling me that next week I’ve got the opportunity to bring a friend to work out for free. Excellent. I was sat with a friend when I received the text so I asked him. He wondered if this ‘offer’ meant that he could visit the pool too. Or just the gym. We didn’t know. I replied to the text message with a question — only realising that the text message’s originator address was set to the gym name. I couldn’t reply. Ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. It’s NOT good enough. If you text me, I should be able to text you. There are FAR TOO MANY one-way text applications out there. Crazy. Text is a two-way medium.

Ergo I am pleased that Esendex are encouraging developers to look at this issue and come up with some innovative new applications for two-way SMS.

As well as the first prize of a grand, one runner-up will receive five hundred pounds — and a further five will receive fifty pound Amazon vouchers. The Esendex news release points out that:

Participants may even be able to promote their applications to the press and customers through the competition.

I can go one better. I’ll do a write-up on the winner, runner-up and the five finalists. Plus a few videos. I’m going to see if I can catch Adam shortly to get his perspective on two-way messaging.

I’ve got a particular interest in this competition — I’m a judge, along with Mr Mobile himself, Mike Short, Chairman of the Mobile Data Association (and top chap in R&D at o2) and Adam Bird, Esendex Managing Director.

Esendex have also graciously contributed toward keeping the lights on here at SMS Text News by becoming an advertiser for a short term — I am very grateful for that.

If you’re a half decent mobile developer or a person with an idea then I would really like to see you hop to it and enter the competition. There’s no excuse, actually — Esendex are providing demo accounts with 250 SMS credits and a UK virtual mobile to test with. You can use their API to send and receive messages — and it really is simplicity itself to setup. With just a bit of PHP code, for example, you can be up and running in seconds.

Should you find yourself based in the United States then good news, that 1,000 pounds first prize works out to nearly $2,000.

I’ve been busy thinking of two-way SMS application ideas all day.

Right now I need to get my hair cut but the hair place I usually go to is shut. I can call and leave a voicemail to ask them for an appointment. But that’s 1900s technology, voice. I want to text now. And have them reply back tomorrow morning with a date and time.

I’d like to be able to text my gym. In fact I’d like for my other half to be able to text-book the ‘body pump’ class she’s planning on going to tomorrow morning.

I recently paid for my parking by text thanks to Verrus. That’s a good two-way app. Obviously the likes of Texperts and AQA are excellent two-way services. But how about a dice-throwing text service? It’d be rather good to text ‘throw’ to a number and have the service reply back with a number between one and six. Or a decision making service — equivalent to tossing a coin. Or an on-demand Bible quote. Or a Simpsons quote. Or the ability to query the temperature in Val D’issere, or any city. Or the ability — and this is something I worked on ages ago - -to text my hotel and ask them to do something for me, and get a reply back from the concierge.

The application form is here and the terms and conditions (they’re light and straight forward) are here.

I can’t wait to see the entries!

I’ve been getting more and more emails recently from confused and annoyed mobile application developers — and, in particular, smaller aggregators who’re having a bit of trauma with mobile operators who have implemented (or are busy implementing) home routing.

I’ve written on this before — my last post drew quite a bit of email feedback — and I’ve been following the issue closely.

It’s not sexy. But it is important and I’d like to draw your attention to what’s going on.

Here’s the old way, right? (High level…)

If I want to deliver a text message to you, I can. Provided I’ve got the peering arrangements in place I can more or less reach into your operator’s network, find your handset and terminate a text message on it. Right?

*I* do that. Nobody else. Me.

That means I know if it’s been delivered. Or I know if your handset’s not yet received the text.

Sensible. Simple. Easy.

Putting a really simple bent on it, it’s the equivalent of you turning up to a nightclub and asking if you can deliver a message to Bob who’s inside having a wicked time at the second floor bar. You ask the bouncer to let you in. He nods and opens the rope line for you. You walk into the club, ignore all the fawning women and the super loud music, you find Bob, peel him away from whoever he’s attached to, slap him around a little to wake him up and give him the message. He says ‘Thanks mate, ok, got it.’ You smile, slap him on the back and head out and give a nod to the bouncer as you exit.

All good. That’s the way it’s been working for years. Private, direct, excellent.

One or two operators have been flirting with home routing. Using the same nightclub example, home routing means I turn up to the nightclub and I’m faced with an ultra-arsey bouncer who refuses to let me in.

“I’ve got a message for Bob, though? Gotta deliver it.”

“What’s the message?” demands the bouncer.

“I’m not telling you. It’s private!” I retort.

“Tell me and I’ll deliver it, no exceptions,” says the bouncer, towering over me.

So I’ve no choice. I give him the message and he disappears, leaving the door to be manned by another frowning hulk.

10 seconds later the bouncer returns.

“Delivered your message, now sod off,” he grunts.

“Er, look, I need some sort of confirmation?” I ask.

“Delivered, right? Now sod off or I’ll show you some real confirmation with my baseball bat.”

I’m not happy, “Listen, how did you deliver the message to him in 10 seconds? He’s on the second floor?”

“Stop asking questions. You got your answer. SOD OFF!”

That’s home routing for you. It’s called home-routing because the home network does the delivering itself. That means it can choose what service level to apply, what content filters to use and ultimately, whether to bother delivering the message in the first place. You don’t have a clue whether it was actually delivered, whether it’s been read and copied to multiple destinations by mistake, you have no control over the delivery.

Just trust.

And trust, unfortunately, doesn’t work that well.

I’m hoping to feature a few examples — possibly anonymous, to protect the suppliers — of where some European operators have been abusing or screwing around with mobile applications as a result of their new found home routing powers.

The biggest, biggest issue I can discern is reliability. Previously developers and aggregators were able to offer their clients a degree of guarantee. Home routing — obviously — makes a mockery of that. If you’re a small traffic SMS service, you can easily have your pipe cut off or temporarily disabled whilst the operator arses about with traffic management — giving full priority on it’s network to, for example, Pop Idol billing messages, or the like. Meantime you only find out that your texts aren’t actually arriving when customers start complaining. Because the operator running home routing told you the texts were delivered. When actually they were sat in a pile waiting for a few million billing messages to go by.

If you’ve been touched or nailed by home routing, could you get in touch — I’ll treat your comments anonymously if you wish — so I can cover your experiences?

Jaxtr has launched free SMS to 38 odd countries (so reports Mashable). Pretty neat. They’re one to watch, Jaxtr, particularly as LinkedIn co-founder Konstantin Guericke is at the helm. 10 million members across 220 countries and counting.

Jaxtr originally enabled its users to receive calls from people visiting their social networking profiles — and it’s morphed to become, effectively, a RebTel-style service, giving users in different countries the ability to talk to each other via permanent local numbers.

I particularly like their VoiceBlast system — check it out on Konstantine’s page — the moment you visit, his audio message starts to play.

The Jaxtr widget is smart, too. You can call, text, ping or VoiceBlast. You just click on the relevant button — e.g. Text Me — and up pops a message window like so:

So free SMS to 38 countries. I logged in and had a play. Each message is limited to 65 characters in length, to enable Jaxtr to add content to the end of the message. In the example I tried, there was no advert — instead there was a mobile web link to allow me to easily reply to the text via Frengo.

AQL has sms-enabled over 20 million UK geographic numbers and, as a result, can now provide inbound and outbound voice, sms and fax on the same number — enabling a converged wholesale offering. Smart.

FINALLY, with this service, you’ll be able to say ‘text/phone/fax me on 0207 655 0000′ or the like. The key point is that you can do this with localised numbers from different areas.

What’s pretty neat is that AQL can provide this functionality for existing telecoms providers — it’s basically a bolt-on, so there won’t be any interruption to existing subscriber voice services.

If you’d like to try this out, you can. Just text AQL on 01133 20 30 40. I just sent them a text to the demo number and got a quick reply. It’s strange — but cool — seeing a reply from a ‘landline’ number.

More information at www.aql.com.

What do people do during disasters? Turn to their mobiles, of course. The Federal Communications Commission has adopted a plan that will see mobile networks used to transmit alerts during disasters or emergencies.

The system, called the Commercial Mobile Alert Systems, will see texts sent to mobile users including, presidential alerts, imminent threat alerts and child abduction alerts and possibly in the future, video and audio messages. The system will also be set up to deliver the messages to the blind and deaf.

There are two questions here: during disasters, will the network hold up? Anyone who was in London during the 7/7 bombings will attest how impossible it was to use the network for calls, texts or anything else. So does that mean there will be a priority system set up to ensure these messages get through? And secondly, the system delivering presidential alerts. During a crisis, surely the last thing people want to see is a George Bush’s gurning mug on their mobiles?

A survey out from mobile comparison shopping site Wirefly has turned up some interesting results on SMS take up. The survey says that roughly a one third of US users called themselves heavy texters and sent between one or two a day to hundreds a month, with another 29 percent labeling themselves as occasional texters.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this survey is that 35 percent of US users say they never use text messaging. At all. Ever. I’m struggling with this bit - I know shedloads of people who have no interesting in using any mobile data services, but not one who doesn’t send a text now and then.

Alltel, the US operator, has hit the 21st Century with the launch of text-to-landline services, so reports FierceContent:

Messaging services provider Messaging International announced its TeleMessage subsidiary inked a deal with Alltel Wireless to launch its Text-to-Landline application across the operator’s network.

Text-to-Landline enables Alltel subscribers to send text messages from their wireless handset to any landline phone–each SMS is converted to voice for landline recipients, and their voice response is converted back to text for wireless users. A status text message will also be sent to notify the wireless customer whether the message was delivered to a live recipient or a voicemail system. Text-to-Landline is available for the cost of a standard text message.

It’s about time…

Got a note in from Ariel Poler at Textmarks today to tell me that over 1,000 pro-Tibet demonstrators are using the TextMarks service to coordinate today’s demonstration at the Olympic Torch relay in San Francisco.

The organisers setup a Twitter address too — but only have 75 followers there.

Interesting use of the medium and good news for TextMarks.

More at http://www.textmarks.com/sftorch