080425moblog

Subject: UK mobile micropublishing choices? Tags: web, software, phones Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 01:08:35 +0100

My communications connection

I'm going travelling this summer. I don't know what internet connection I'll have (if any) but I'm pretty sure I'll have fairly cheap SMS access from my phone. Maybe even MMS. So, I want to use one of the mobile micropublishers to try to avoid sending international SMSes to lots of people.

Facebook doesn't look good - it gives a shortcode (which would cost me extra to use and I don't know whether it works while roaming), has no number for SMS that I found and it looks like O2 is the only UK carrier it knows - bizarre.

LiveJournal has mobile access but the FAQ makes it look like it's only for paying users. If I was sure it was going to work, I might pay and support the GPL'd codebase.

Jaiku is cost-free and gives an SMS number, but is joining the Goolag and I don't see how to download their Java applet.

Twitter is cost-free, gives an SMS number and looks like it plays nice with Jabber (which is already on my phone), so that looks good but I found some complaints about whether SMSes get through.

20six is a German-based cost-free service which takes SMS and email (which is also on my phone), so that also looks good, but there are some old doubts about whether it will stay cost-free.

Is there a service you'd recommend?