I had a nice lunch with two friends who are really into SMS – both have built or run services using SMS, one in marketing and one as a corporate messaging tool.
Our discussion wandered over to the thought of subsidizing SMS sending by attaching little ads to the SMS, kinda like what a lot of the free email accounts do.
How would recipients feel receiving an ad that they didn’t ask for? And in the US, how would they feel paying to receive one? Are there legal issue, as well?
OK, we’ve been trained by the free email accounts, but those ads are not hogging space, the PC screen is large. On a mobile, it’s a bit different.
Also, the person sending the message is not seeing the ad and the person receiving it didn’t ask for it.
Oh, I could see this working within a community, such as a Web-based community, or within an operator – ‘Join and send free SMSs to other members’. I think that works, but requires a mass of folks.*
Does anyone know of services that tag on an advertisement to an SMS such that the recipient is the one who sees it?
Inquiring minds want to know (and I think Pondering Primates might know the answer).
*Hmm, is that a business? Any one want to send me money to start it up? I have target markets here just waiting to do this. 🙂
Do you mean create a special code for each user? That would be pretty hard.
Or do you mean make every ad SMS”able”
There are a couple companies that make ads “taggable”..either thru a special code, or a unique gimmick that highlights the ability to SMS.
Vazu is currently doing SMS service supported through ads:
https://www.vazu.com/
I’ve used them for a few projects, very neat.
some china operators send free weather report SMS to subscribers. because weather report is short,they have space add ads.like free email accouts,it is free!so they add ads:)
Scott,
I meant just tagging an ad, such as *Smooth skin with Palmolive* or *Cheap flights to Africa at http://www.bantuair.com*.
I don’t know what you mean by special code.
Tchau,
Charlie
Mike,
It’s US only, making me believe they are using the existing email gateways that are free.
Have you ever received a message from them? What’s written on them?
Tchau,
Charlie
give http://www.wnep.com/Global/link.asp?L=111957 a try. When you sign up, the first message is sponsored by “Toyota, ESSA Bank & Trust. An alert I received later was not sponsored.