This week has seen an announcement from Twitter – the social networking site that allows updates that are up to 140 characters long – that has upset many of its users.
You’d think at that length the updates would be perfect to send to a phone – there’s even a little room to add a small advertising message – and for a long time Twitter agreed with you. However, they’ve now changed their mind and will no longer be sending texts to anyone who doesn’t live in the US, Canada or India.
The website claims that the financial burden of the service was too much – saying that they would have to pay $1000 per user because of rising costs from mobile operators – but they will continue to negotiate in an attempt to bring it back at some stage.
Other mobile services are still available – you can still update your Twitter status by phone – and users with new-gen, hi-tech phones will have no problem updating their pages, but people with old, non-WAP enabled handsets are going to struggle. Some of these people are already thinking of deserting the site and already have new pastures in their mind, such is their dismay at the loss of the service. Of course, not everyone used the service and some people are struggling to see what all the fuss is about, even suggesting that the idea of sending out free texts was doomed from the start.
Twitter themselves remain optimistic. They say that over the coming weeks and months they will be bringing local numbers to a few countries across Europe – rather than just the one UK number they previously had – making Twittering even more accessible for European users.
August 15, 2008
social media