Hi All, I'm wondering if anybody is interested in working with me on enabling SMS for laconica users via an open microblogging SMS gateway. This basically means having a single SMS shortcode (in the US at least) that would let any laconica user publish text messages as input to their particular laconica instance. The SMS gateway service of course would also push SMS messages (MTs) to the user's followers. All functions accessible via the web interface would be similarly available via SMS.
For individuals and very small organizations, enabling SMS is tricky, expensive, and involves a lengthy process whereby message flows must be approved by each phone carrier (and carriers like Verizon are infamous for denying services that compete with their own initiatives). I know this because my project called "Celly" (cel.ly) has just acquired an SMS shortcode and is in the final stages of getting our text messaging services approved by each phone carrier. The phone companies and SMS providers arguably have a monopoly on SMS service. This results in steep startup costs for individuals and small startups hoping to launch innovative text messaging services. By grouping the interests of many open microblogging users/installers together, it may be viable to amortize the high SMS operational costs and possibly allow an open microblogging movement to gain negotiation leverage with the carriers when it comes to bulk pricing. In the future, an open SMS advertisement cooperative whereby ad revenue for microblog publishing might also evolve. At any rate, my project recently acquired a 5-digit shortcode 23559 (for CELLY). If anybody would like to "share" this shortcode as an SMS gateway to their laconica service, please let me know. I live in Portland, OR, and am planning to attend OSCON and the XMPP Summit tomorrow. If you're at OSCON or XMPP, please say hello. Very sincerely, Russell Okamoto [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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