Looks like US mobile phone company T-mobile is refusing to allow Twitterers to use its SMS service to Twitter. Its unclear on what grounds other than its an “unauthorized third party”. There are some great comments over at GetSatisfaction (which is something like the ill-begotten socially-networked version of the Consumerist) on the issue, but one of the most salient revolves around the following issue.
While much of the thoughts around Twitter has been somewhere between “Twitter is a colossal waste of time” to “Twitter is an awesome online chatroom“, what’s been forgotten is that for some people in some circumstances, people are using Twitter to broadcast and receive some critical in-time messages.
One great example has been how some individuals were posting real-time messages about the Los Angeles fires via Twitter. Or, how the Los Angeles Fire Department actually uses Twitter to post real-time messages about emergencies in and around the city. Or the potential to use messaging systems like Twitter in real (and hopefully never) catastrophes, as it gets around the logistical issue of telephone lines being down, through to SMS systems which use very little data to broadcast messages.
Twitter needs champions — real champions of these kinds of services — to have a sit-down with T-mobile, to get a better answer as to why messages have really been stopped, and that, issues of profits and losses aside, to educate them that not all twitters are of the “my cats breath smells like catfood” variety.
December 15th, 2007 at 12:52 pm | Permalink
[...] have the possibility of becoming such a service especially when you take into account; as does Tony Hung in his post about the T-Mobile fiasco, the fact that in the US Twitter is being used with increasing frequency [...]
December 15th, 2007 at 2:29 pm | Permalink
Tony,
Thanks for including mention of how this and other decisions might impact the Los Angeles Fire Deparment and other agencies using social media tools to help people lead safer, healthier and more productive lives.
Your blog (via RSS feed) is a daily must-read in our office.
Respectfully Yours in Safety and Service,
Brian Humphrey
Firefighter/Specialist
Public Service Officer
Los Angeles Fire Department
December 15th, 2007 at 2:45 pm | Permalink
Wow — thanks Brian.
Very kind words! :D
December 17th, 2007 at 8:34 am | Permalink
[...] Deep Jive Interests [...]
December 18th, 2007 at 9:33 pm | Permalink
[...] Pownce Goes Mobile: Squaring Sights On Twitter? December 18th, 2007 at 9:33 pm Coming from the metaphorical lips of Kevin Rose himself, Pownce announced its super-alpha mobile version of Pownce today, available for mobile browsing at mobile.pownce.com. I think this is an interesting development, given that one of the biggest pluses for Twitter has been the ability to message your crowd “off-line”, enabling all kinds of interesting uses, including the ability to broadcast live updates of events as they happen. Although a lot of Twitter content *is* of the “my cat’s breath smells like cat food” variety, the ability to engage in your community offline — both as a contributer and a reader — allows for the potential for some very smart and very important real-time information to go back and forth, whether it be a local emergency, weather changes, and so on. [...]