FREE World Wide SMS

Does anyone know if it's possible to make a way to send FREE SMS?

Yes, and you can do free group sms, pm me and I will tell you how.

Tell all of us.  I wasn't aware of any free SMS gateways since Teleflip went out of business.

yes please share this info :)

** Note - This solution is just for sending free group sms, not a sms notification solution for your dolphin site.

What you need is a 'Google Voice' account. In order to get it you need an invite you can request one from Google (which takes a few weeks to get), or buy one on ebay for like $1, you get your own online phone number, you can sms from the web, it's also a follow me number, so you can hook it to your cell phone and screen your calls, and it's a totally FREE service, No monthly charges :)

Now to do the 'Group SMS' you need an add on program, don't worry it's FREE. You can send out over 3000 sms messages per batch. Google says that it doesn't work for international sms, but I have tons of friends that i sms all the time that are international, you might not get a message or two from international, but for the most part it seems to work (don't hold me to that) Once you have your Google Voice account all set up, go to www.contactexter.com and download the free desktop program that allows you to do the 'Group SMS' - You need this to do the Group messaging. This program connects to your Google Voice account and accesses your group folders. Simply pick a folder, type your message, press send and presto. Super fast!

You can set up a form on your dolphin site to capture cell phone numbers that will be stored in your data base, then you can contact the guy at Contactexter.com and he can modify the software so it pulls the phone numbers from your dolphin database.

Greg

Getting the question about international, they don't have international numbers that they are issuing yet, but you can use it if you are international and have a US phone number through a service like Skype.  Actually I use my account with skype and it works great and they are cheap.

DTSpace, your doing a great job of selling the service, but nothing in your posts actually references integrating the service into Dolphin which is what is being asked here.  Of course, a simple iFrame could be done, but that would require referencing the e-mail/phone number of the individual being texted and sending the text. 

Let me explain, right now Dolphin (even D7) basically has a closed network e-mail system.  While it's on the web, you can only message a member of Dolphin if you are also a member of the same exact site.  Dolphin will NOT accept e-mails currently from outside the system and I've never seen anyone pull this off yet, moreso it will not message anyone outside of Dolphin excluding notifications and such to e-mails.  You can't type bob@e-mailsite.com and have it go directly to their e-mail, it only sends a notification (which can inlcude a copy of the message).  Now to utilize the Google system you would have to find a way to tie the Dolphin system directly into the Google System, verification of cookies and such, synchronizing of accounts (means your members will have to join with a Google e-mail account) and so on and so forth from what I can see.

Perhaps I'm wrong on this, perhaps your users can just enter a number they want to message, in that case then your system will only work for those who actually know each other from the start.  At that point your limiting the SMS capabilities of the program due to the fact that most SNS's operate on the basis of people of a common interest meeting via the site and sharing those interests.  Even MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, Hi5 and so many others promote meeting new people and making new friends even more than they do in keeping in touch with those you already know, perhaps hooking up with "old Friends" is a catch, but they aren't touted as "Keep in touch with your wife while your at work".

Sorry if I seem like I'm beating on you, that's NOT my intention here, only trying to point out the multiple issues that a system like this faces from the devil's advocate side so to say. 

You know I didn't think of that, about having sms notification for the sites.  I am sure you have a better solution to the sms thing anyway..  Obviously the google thing doesn't work for site notifications.  It's more for mass text messages.  You know the text notification thing would be a nifty add on for the site.

Yes, a Dolphin SMS system would be an awesome add on for a site, the trick is to figure out how to do it within Dolphin either by creating our own with a phone number or through a system like Google.

So here are the options that we have so far:

1.  Using your google system that has alot of questions concerning can it actually happen for a D7 Site to pull off and that will take some research and development on this item to pull it off.  This means one of the major players with the resources to put programmers on this idea will have to pick up the idea.  Yes, my crew will be putting a couple programmers on this in about 4 1/2 hours.  When they get it, it's a great idea that I did not know about before your post.   No, I don't have a time frame on how long it'll take to make it happen.

2.  Create a system utilizing our own phone number & systems to send SMS Notifications.  That raises plenty of questions:

• What will be the cost to us (or any site owner) based upon usage/membership numbers to operate and pay for our own SMS system?
• Is it more cost effective to develop our own than to develop a system utilizing Googles?
• Can Dolphin be configured in a manner to accept notifications/SMS back?
• If Dolphin can be configured to send & accept SMS then is this opening the door finally for Dolphin to be the first SNS to permit e-mail from sources outside of it's member database?  (ie:  bob@yahoo or bob@msn or bob@google I think you get the picture here.)
• If this does open the door for us to configure D to accept e-mails from outside it's member DB then you can bet this is the route we will be taking in our development.

Actually DTSpace I'm going to thank you for annoying me there for a moment, had you not I wouldn't of put anymore thought into SMS for probably another year or 2.  But you've just given me a great idea to help D get to the next level within my own R&D crew.  Now I have to get my hands on ALL the mobile apps source code as they come out. 

Feel free to bust on my anytime now, this is way to good of a result (idea) to not be smiling and thinkin' of ya as my new best friend. 

Sounds awesome.  Not sure if you have seen this little iPhone app for group sms, don't even need to have a phone number, and like google voice it sends to the actual cell phone number, not the cell phone email address., you can use a 'nickname' (hmmm, dolphin uses nicknames)  maybe you might be able to do something with it.

Here is the link:  http://textplus.com/

There was a little misunderstanding with dtspace.

The google thing is NOT a text thing to a persons cell phone :(

So if anyone else know's how to send Free world wide text / sms, let us all know :)

Like I said, I know of no FREE sms gateways since Telefilp shut down.  Teleflip lost their ass by offering free SMS.

A paid alternative is http://www.clickatell.com/index2.php

Offering this kind of service free to members would make no sense.... you'd lose your ass just like Teleflip.  People would be joining your site just so they could send spam to cell phones.

I thought about getting a webmail system like socketmail integrated into D7, but I didn't think about it very long.  People already have enough ways to receive spam.  Nevertheless, it's pretty easy to send a text message to a cell phone via email, if you know how to properly format the email address for the cell phone provider, and this could be done with the php sendmail function.

For instance:

All those sms gateways do for you, is allow you to send an email to any cell phone number without knowing the carrier.  If your Dolphin site users wanted to receive text massages from other site members, which I doubt they would, it would be easily possible, if they entered their complete cell phone email address.  Then you could add an action button to their profile, 'Send SMS' .... controlled by privacy settings, of course.  The action button would just have to popup a sendmail form, which upon submission, would be sent to the cell phone email address.  This might be usefull to send group or event notifications, but it would have to be something the member opted in for.  Outbound SMS is a little easier than inbound.  For inbound, you need that mail server integrated.



To receive inbound text messages from a cell phone, you'd need to integrate a mail server into Dolphin, so that each user on your site has an email address that inbound messages could be routed to.  Socketmail Lite is the only one that I know of that will allow you to run a mail server on a shared hosting account, but your hosting provider probably wouldn't like it too much.  On a dedicated server you have a lot more options. 

I think it's all a lot more trouble than it's worth.  Giving members a way to send sms from you website, might not be perceived as very useful.  Most of them couls just as easily reach in their pocket for their cell phone, and do the same thing. 

Not ture what your saying above.  There are two ways to send FREE SMS one is using Google Voice www.google.com/voice - the second is if you have an iPhone or iPod you can http://textplus.com/, they both send sms directly to Cell Phones using the recipients actual cell phone Number, not the phones email address.  And with textplus you don't even need to have a phone number to send from.

Now, Both those systems are stand alone sms systems that are both FREE that you can use for mass group text messaging to actual cell phones, what they don't do is integrate as a 'mod' or 'widget' into your Dolphin website.  It would be really cool if someone could figure a way to do this.  I suppose that someone could find a way to make them work with dolphin as a mod.  Or perhaps figure out a way to integrate the textplus iphone app into the dolphin iphone app.... hmmm  Anyone have any ideas?

Greg

Basically what I am saying is that you can send an SMS text to any cell phone, through the cell phone carriers web gateway by sending it to an email address, formatted per above list.  What paid SMS gateways like clickatell.com do for you,  is allow you to send sms through their web gateway without knowing the cell phone carrier.... you only need to provide the number.  The sms web gateway, free or otherwise, still needs to go through the individual carriers gateway to get the sms to their subscribers phone.  There is really no such thing as free sms.  Somebody pays for it sooner or later... most likely the person receiving it. 

If you know the cell phone provider, you can send an sms to that phone via any email client, by formatting the 'TO' email address as shown in the list of providers I posted.  You can also use the php sendmail function to send an sms to the cell number.

For instance, if you know the carrier is Nextel, and the cell number is 714-555-1212, sending an email to 7145551212@messaging.nextel.com  will deliver that email to the cell number via sms through the cell phone carriers web gateway.  You still have to keep the email character count =< 140, or else it won't be delivered.

With all that said, I can't imagine why anyone besides prepubescent teenagers, would have any interest in such a feature on a social networking website.  I really don't see what the big attraction would be other than sending unwanted spam to people's phones.  I don't know of too many people dumb enough to provide their phone number to a website, unless they are involved in an ecommerce transaction.

I agree with HL on the subject of SMS on a conventional Open Web Social Networking Site as far as providing cell phone numbers goes.  However, to flip this, in the instance of a Closed Web Networking Site (notice I didn't use the word social) this is a useful tool.  It comes into play when there is a true need for the members to be able to message either one or a large group of members in regards to a specific item that does not and should not be placed in an area subject to be interecepted by the overall public and in the instance where notification is of the utmost importance (time is of the essence) in regards to getting it to the member(s).

As far as what HL posted in regards to the gateways this is info we pulled up ourselves earlier today and just didn't have time to update it.  The list is a good place for anyone looking to integrate this option into their system.  But beware as HL has advised you, spammers will massively abuse this system if you give them the chance, which in turn will lead to heavier controls being placed on all of us by gov't agencies as the members begin to complain.  Not to mention you'll lose members very quickly if you open this door up on a free site.

You don't need Google Voice for this - plain old Google Talk does it now too.  I noticed it about a month ago while sending an IM to someone - it asked if I wanted to send it by SMS and the little "switch to SMS" link has been there ever since.

I have no idea if it is possible to put this on Dolphin - it is easy for Yahoo, MSN, Skype, etc but I haven't seen people do much of this kind of integration with Google.

That's when I'd go with something like clickatell.com though.

To reply to a question:

WHY this would be good?

If you could offer free SMS, you would do it for your premiere users only, this way you would get many premiere members each month :)

Click a tell is very expensive :(

I found a place that seems cheeper.. http://www.hqsms.com/