B. Mann Consulting

I'm going to be on CTV Newsnet again, this afternoon at 3:15PM PST, live with Marcia MacMillan. Below are a few notes and links, I'll clean this up and post a link to the clip once it's wrapped. I talked about the iPhone last time, and somehow I think it's going to come up again.

in fact, Rogers is the only firm NOT charging for incoming texts, they now have a decent data plan, they have the high end Nokia phones, AND they have the iPhone.

Only North America charges for incoming text messages -- Europe and Asia have always been free.

via Ian Bell - http://www.physorg.com/news129793047.html - "SMS costs are, in the aggregate, 4x higher than getting data from the Hubble space telescope. Global SMS revenues are larger than the Hollywood movie, music and video game industries combined."

Lots more from Ian, like "I could personally store-and-forward all of Canada’s SMS traffic myself via my Novus broadband in Yaletown, and it would have limited impact on my BitTorrenting". Oh, right, and of course the fact that SMS effectively is NO extra load on carriers - "As such it costs the network exactly nothing and uses no bandwidth that isn’t already in use — traffic load is the same on the network even if no SMS messages are being transferred." - http://www.kenneyjacob.com/2007/06/19/how-sms-works/

via Yule Heibel - Productivity is boosted by mobile - "They say that by 2016 the value of the combined mobile wireless voice and broadband productivity gains to the US economy will equal $427 billion per year" - http://www.psfk.com/2008/07/how-mobile-boosts-productivity.html

Bell and Telus being called before Jim Prentice, Minister of Industry - http://www.smstextnews.com/2008/07/bell_telus_called_before_federal_indu... - of course, I'm going to mention C-61 and cellphone locking that Mr. Prentice has a hand in

Update: I was off at a photowalk this evening and am just getting back. My segment was quite short, but I'm glad I got a C-61 mention in. Thanks to Mr. iPhone John Biehler for digging up the direct link to my clip: http://watch.ctv.ca/news/latest/text-charges/#clip65669

Flingit is a free text messaging site.

With Flingit you can send SMS messages to friends from all over the world, and receive replies back in your Flingit Inbox!

To use the Flingit SMS service you need to register an account - but don't worry, it's absolutely free to register!

Once you register you'll be able to add all your friends to your Buddy List. Sending free text messages online just got easier!

My usage of Facebook has dropped. At the same time, people messaging me / contacting me through there has increased. At least the message shows in email now.

What I am still using quite a bit is the SMS integration for status messages. I know that updating my status sends out SMS notifications to a bunch of my friends, and vice versa. Yes, this is not new -- it's microblogging / Twitter / Jaiku, etc.

The mobile integration grounds the social in the "real world". There is an element of serendipity in sending a ping out to the world, and wondering who might respond back, who else is wandering the streets, cellphone in hand, ready to go for a drink or join an activity.

I imagine when Jaiku gets their US / Canadian mobile integration up and running, I'll use that more.

What SMS services are you using in Canada? Travis' description of SpinVox sounds great -- except for the whole Rogers is the devil and expense of it :P

John and Igor at Handimobility are following the mantra of ship early, ship often, and have launched LiveVote.ca. It's a service that allows you to set up free SMS polling -- you sign up on the LiveVote website, and then you can create as many free polls as you like.

I've been kicking the tires on this for a bit and already have some feedback in to them. If you click through and read this entry on the blog, you'll see that I've got a Flash widget embedded in the upper right where you can see the live results from SMS voting. The vote I'm running is "what are eggs cooked in bread called?", after the long thread of comments that erupted on my Flickr picture.

So, if you come to the site here with your web browser and text one of the choices to 868464, you'll actually see the pie chart update in real time. Note: Canada only for now! You can change your vote at any time by just texting a different choice: your last choice before time runs out (you've got another 7 days) is what will count.

Follow their progress on the new Handimobility blog. I'm looking forward to seeing LiveVote evolve, and also to see what else John and Igor have up their sleeves.

For future reference, I found a Palm article that mentions the Rogers SMS message center number. The number is +17057969300 for Rogers, and +15149931123 for Fido. You'll need to change this in Messaging > Settings > Text Message > Message centres (on Series 60 phones), as well as set the Message centre in use. A reboot is required, and any messages in the Outbox won't work...they'll still have the old message center number in it.

Yes, I do have a new phone. But just use the listed contact number -- it rings at home and my phone.

The best technical analysis on Indian stock market. Day Trading involves taking a position in the markets with a view of squaring that position before the end of that day.

Send free SMS worldwide for free at www.phreakyphonez.net

Welcome to www.text-one-free.com. From here you'll be able to send one free SMS everyday to many different nations. No hassling such as registration, sign-ups or news letters. You just have to make two banner clicks to get through and send your daily free SMS, instant, direct and fast.

Winner of the sweetest, craziest website name. Seems to be an East Indian provider that has ads, Flash, and many other things to offer.

A whole host of SMS related services. The commenter who mentioned had a great posting:

What a wild thread! So for my $.02 worth (euro, if only I knew the key-combo), I throw the ring at pswin.com which at less than a dime a pop ain't free, but so far that's been the best real deal, and *much* cheaper than actually calling the damn mobiles, in Europe anyway. I figure I can say what I want to say for less than a dime via sms, and if the other party, who forces me onto their expensive network in the first place, wants to contact me, they can pay whatever they feel its worth. Pfffft!

That said, I've seen recent ads for even cheaper sms, but my ad retention is low. Still, I'm willing to pay for an actual web interface/ keyboard combo. I'm not willing to pay to call those damn pricey little phones. hrrmmmph.

oh, one nice thing about pswin.com, I can enter whatever i want (subject to non-abuse terms, natch), into the 'sender's address/number field. I can actually write my name, as opposed to my cell number, which I might prefer not to.