Using SMS as a Unified Communications Tool

Featured Resources:

SMS has never been quite as widely received in the US as it has in other parts of the world, but I think that's changing. For me, SMS is quickly replacing all the IM programs as the chat/IM solution of choice. It's more universally available and works on any number of mobile phones. In short, SMS is client agnostic, eliminating the need for MSN Live Messenger, Yahoo Instant Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger and a plethora of other clients. While these other clients add other featuers, for the most part, what I want from them is IM.

As part of my own increased use of SMS, I've become a big fan of Twitter. Twitter allows group subscriptions so that you can automatically receive SMS updates from whoever you choose to "follow."

Beyond pure SMS, Twitter can communicate via the web and, using either Google Talk or Gizmo, IM clients. Here's an example of how Twitter can also update a web page.

follow kencamp at http://twitter.com

I've become a big fan of Twitter as a social networking tool, but I've also experimented with it as an emergency response team communications method. I remain a big fan.

Thanks to Stowe Boyd, I've now learned of another service that intrigues me called Joopz.

Joopz provides a different set of features than Twitter:

Two-Way “Web Texting” - Joopz
lets you send and receive text messages (SMS) from the Web to any
mobile phone for free. A real-time history of all your conversations is
included.
Group Chat- With the Joopz Group Chat feature, you can have conversations via text with all your friends at once.
Text Reminders - Don't
forget the party! Joopz helps you manage your life by tracking what you
need to do and when, and then sending a text reminder.
Scheduled Messages -A
birthday, an anniversary, a graduation – send delayed text messages for
the recipient to receive at a specific time – a day from now, a week
from now, a year from now.