There has been of course much talk on the web following Twitters announcement that they would be stopping SMS out from the service in all territories save the US, Canada and India. Why these regions? Well, in the US and Canada, as it was about 6/7 years ago here in the UK, you pay to receive SMS. India I’m not certain of, but it doesn’t *seem* to be the case looking at operators local sites, and considering the intense mobile culture out there, as well as the proliferation of free SMS services it doesn’t seem likely that that is the case there (please let me know if it is).
So Twitter have managed to negotiate and maintain deals with carriers in these regions and of course in these cases it is certainly in the carriers best interests as it really drives SMS use in the US and Canada where SMS uptake has been extremely slow. That’s great, and laudable, and as Sarah Lacy said today in amongst the ’stop whinging UK!” jibes, “They’re trying to build a business!” I couldn’t agree more, but I believe that if their model is predicated upon this one solution they have at their core – getting operators to agree to send their messages at no charge to Twitter – then it is as it always was; kinda broken.
We knew here in the UK when the service first took hold that it was non-sustainable, and there has always been a tacit understanding that the fail whale of free sms love might sink; we’re willing to pay! Sarah says in her post “…it can not be beholden to carriers” – but isn’t that exactly what continuing with only this model represents? Being totally beholden to the carriers that allow them to send messages from the service at no cost to their business? What about the day (which will definitely come) when the US and Canada follow the rest of the world in making receiving SMS free? Look, SMS is frankly in and of itself ridiculous; it’s DATA, and it’s data charged at £374.49 per MB… THAT, is unsustainable, in any market, and will be another bolt that comes shooting out of the bloated bodies of carriers worldwide eventually. So, the carriers are as much to blame/myopic.
The fact is, Twitters model has been partially broken from the outset, and the close down of European services is indicative of that. It’s also indicative of a telco community who can’t see the wood for the trees. Most importantly, this was an opportunity for Twitter to truly experiment with it’s model; keep the service free and bung a 40 character ad into the second text! Give me a bundle option! I disagree with Sarah’s position that Twitter finding new ways to continue sending me the messages I want to receive sets a bad precedent; I think it sets an excellent one, one which scales, one which presents Twitter with new business and revenue generating opportunities, and most importantly to me, means I continue to get the DM’s which have become a big part of how I communicate online.
Please take as read that of course I am not privvy to the nature nor detail of any operator deals struck here, I am speaking solely from what I see and understand of this subject, and am always happy to be corrected.
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