In my last post about Google SMS channels, I discussed its usefulness and also brought into light some of its pros and cons. If you have already read the post, you can surely recall that, even after working hard we were unable to locate any disadvantages in this group messaging service. As a result more and more people started creating their own channels hastily.
Later on, it was discovered that many flaws and bugs were present in Google’s SMS service as well. In the Google help group, Sriganesh expressed how this service may be exploited and misused. He explained that, as Google SMS Channels are now opened only for Indian users, anyone can use the RSS feeds of foreign nation’s blogs like TechCrunch, lifehacker, etc and publish their contents via SMS, ultimately affecting the credibility of such web-sites. In response to this Google said someone can report the channels that are using others contents and stringent action would be taken.
Finally I was disappointed because this is not the only drawback, there are many others as well, some of them are listed below:
There is a cap to the number of channels that can be created, subscribed to and the number of customized SMS that can be sent per day.
Messages sent by channel owner will not be sent to his/her own mobile.
On the first day of its launch, the messages tend to get delivered within seconds but this is not the case now.
And the biggest drawback that Manoj Fracis suggested was, there is no option for channel owner to view the details of people subscribed to their channel. 🙁
So all these disadvantages are the basis of my disappointment, specially because the service is provided by Google. Can you ever imagine that the Internet giant like Google could come up with a service with so many flaws?
Did you ever wish for an SMS service similar to Yahoo Groups or Google Groups???
A service that you could help you send your one SMS to all your friends and if any one of them reply to it… the reply goes back as an SMS to mobile phone of all you friends in the group.
Well here is a cool usage of Google SMS Channels to create a similar service…..but before going into details…
Catch this situation…
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One lazy Sunday afternoon in Pune, sitting at home you feel like planning to watch a late night movie show….You type an SMS and send it to 6 of your friends to check who is interested to join you. Minutes later you start getting all types of queries.. one wants to watch “Drona” the other friend is ok with any movie but only in “Inox” … the third one can watch any movie but only in “Rahul cinema”…. while you start trying to collaborate using only SMS (as its only 10 paise per SMS) you actually end up doing 2-3 round robin of calling everyone to bring all to a conclusion…… Total time taken : 30 minutes
Now the same situation using “Group SMS”…
One lazy Sunday afternoon in Pune, sitting at home you feel like planning to watch a late night movie show….You type an SMS and post it to your “Google SMS channel”. All your friends receive this message (as an SMS on their mobile) as they have subscribed to your channel… now everyone post back to the channel (reply the SMS) what their preference is (You have set up your Google SMS channel in such a way that it allow its subscribers to post messages).
Everyone’ s SMS is further relayed to all other friend’s mobile handsets.. and after 2-3 iterations (posting back SMS on the group) you come to a unanimous plan. Total time taken : 5 minutes
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Before winding up here are few simple steps you need to take to create your own cool SMS group!!!!!
All your friends will receive an invitation SMS from Google on your behalf
They need to send an SMS ‘ON CoolGroup’ to 9870807070
and later ‘accept’ to 9870807070 to accept the terms and conditions
Step 4
To post a message to the channel (sending SMS to all your friends) any of the members can send an SMS <channel_name> <message> to 9870807070
In this case it will be sending an SMS ‘CoolGroup Hi all wanna go 4 any movie 2nite?’ to 9870807070
This message will reach everyone’s mobile to which they can further reply back using the same method
Google SMS channels are poised to bring a complete revolution in the way we exchange information today! People are already exploring ways to innovate cool applications using Google SMS channels….
So keep exploring the countless possibilities and do keep me posted…
[Editor Note: This is first post by Deepesh Sodhi on this blog. Deepesh works on innovative product based business opportunities in IT, Telecom and Personal finance management space for the Indian market.
Without a doubt, Google SMS Channels is really a good service. Many bloggers are creating SMS channels dedicated for their blog, so that their readers can follow their blog from mobile.
I have created Devils Workshop SMS channel last night and started receiving SMS for each post as it was getting published. But I was disappointed to see that there was no link to article in SMS I received. Links could help people having GPRS/wi-fi enabled cellphones browse articles from their handset.
I tried finding such option first, but I failed. So I created a small script which accept your original feed URL and give you link to a new feed which:
First shorten links to your article using famous service TinyUrl. This takes care of 160 character limit of SMS.
Next it append such shortened link to your feeds title.
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Now when Google SMS channel will fetch such converted link, they will send short urls to articles in SMS updates.
Below is screenshot which highlights this difference:
How to use:
1. Getting a converted link
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You can either get converted link using web interface provided at Google SMS Channels with TinyUrl
OR simply prefix http://gsmslinks.rtcamp.com/ to your feed URL.
Just edit RSS/Atom feed URL. If you are creating a new channel, enter converted feed link here otherwise replace old link with converted link. Please DO NOT forget to remove prefix http:// from links as it is added by Google by default.
Next better click on Preview button to check if desired results are coming in mobile emulator screen on page. If yes, click Update Channel button below.
If you have any question, please ask via comments only. If there exist option to do this, please let me know. 🙂
