Twitter ceases to distribute updates via SMS
by Andrew Redfern @ 14th August 2008 3:34 pm
People with an over-inflated sense of their own importance were aghast today as Twitter, the popular microblogging site, announced it would no longer be distributing user updates to user’s mobile phones.
According to a wonderfully sarcastic Guardian article the system of distribution was simply costing Twitter too much “It pains us to take this measure. However, we need to avoid placing undue burden on our company and our service,” said a spokesperson for Twitter “Even with a limit of 250 messages received per week, it could cost Twitter about $1,000 per user, per year to send SMS outside of Canada, India, or the US. It makes more sense for us to establish fair billing arrangements with mobile operators than it does to pass these high fees on to our users.”
The decision will not affect users in the North America but was met with dismay by UK users. It will be interesting to see whether this move will be a pre-cursor to a pay-per-update charging system although the Guardian article contains a quote from Ev Williams saying that nothing along those lines was imminent “We don’t have any specific plans for a payment system, though that’s interesting,” he said. “But we definitely are striving for (and believe we can achieve) a built-in revenue model that is compatible with the open nature of Twitter and its ecosystem, rather than something tacked-on.”
Read the full Guardian article here : Twitter drops text support in UK
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