Ez Texting SMS Marketing News

The New York Times ran a story over the weekend over a different usage of text messaging related to the Haitian earthquake. The mobile donations story is important in so many ways, but so is this:

From his makeshift workstation, Ryan Bank spends hours sifting through thousands of electronic cries for help from Haitian earthquake victims, many detailing the horrors of dead family members, hunger and homelessness.

“I’m hungry and I have no one,” says one text message from a Haitian man living in a tent city with thousands of others whose homes were destroyed in the quake. “People are unable to breathe due to the smell of the dead,” says another.

Mr. Bank, a Coast Guard volunteer who runs his own technology company in Chicago, said he had received more than 18,000 messages. “Most of them are utterly heartbreaking,” he said while staring at a list of messages sent to him through a new emergency relief effort that relies on text messages and social networking Web sites to help coordinate humanitarian aid in Haiti.

Read more @ the New York Times.

As you probably already know, Haiti has been devastated by 7.0 magnitude earthquake:

The earthquake, the worst in the region in more than 200 years, left the country in a shambles. As night fell in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, fires burned near the shoreline downtown, but otherwise the city fell into darkness. The electricity was out, telephones were not working and relief workers struggled to make their way through streets blocked by rubble.

So what can you do to help? The New York Times has a collection of information. If you want to donate money to relief efforts right now, using your cell phone, you have three options:

• You can text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti.
• To make a $5 donation from your phone text "ONEHEART" to 85944 & confirm by replying "YES", or go to www.sophiasheart.org to make a donation.
• Text the word “Haiti” to 85944 to donate $5 on behalf of the Rescue Union Mission and MedCorp International.
• Text the word “Haiti” to 25383 to donate $5 On behalf of the Internal Rescue Committee.
• Or, you can donate $5 to Earthquake Relief In Haiti by texting YELE to 501501 and visit www.yele.org (supported by Wycelf Jean)
  

P.S.  In the past we've covered other mobile-based charity efforts. Read about them.

JP Morgan is out with their 2010 Internet Industry Outlook. If they're right, the mobile world is set to keep on growing:

JP Morgan’s leading industry analyst Imran Kahn released the 328-page Interest Industry outlook which notes that total U.S. mobile advertising for 2009 is estimated at $2.6 billion, up 62 percent, with $2.3 billion of that from text messaging. Just 178 million was mobile search, and $140 million was display. Both of these were up 80 percent last year.

Turn to 2010, and mobile advertising is, according to Kahn, forecast to grow 45 percent to $3.8 billion ($3.2 billion SMS advertising, $253 million mobile display, and $31 million mobile search.)

Read more:
Mobile Marketing Watch
OnlineMediaDaily

Another day, another SMS marketing success story. Of note, this one involves one of the decade's best personal branders:

HairTech International is using mobile marketing to promote the launch of Paris Hilton's huge new line of hair and beauty products.

The campaign, which kicked off in late November, already has budding socialites and fans opting-in to receive product information and giveaways via mobile from Ms. Hilton. Velti is powering the campaign.

...

The mobile program is focused around a certified, Velti-powered short code (text keyword PARIS to short code 72747) that enables fans to log on to a mobile Web site to learn about Ms. Hilton's new line, sign up for giveaways and get text alerts about upcoming promotions.

As a call to action the short code has a powerful media schedule behind it including social-media initiatives - with tweets to Ms. Hilton's 1 million Twitter followers and communications to her 140,000 Facebook friends.

For the large (and growing) group of developers who have hooked their own apps up to Ez Texting's Group SMS API, we've got some great news. Our new Developer Center is now open for business! We've added lots of new code samples, a partner showcase, a community forum, and more.

If you haven't worked with Ez Texting's group text messaging API in the past, we've got some news for you as well. Our own development team has put together an easy to follow, five step getting started guide. Follow the guide and you'll be sending out messages through our SMS gateway in minutes!

Whether you're an independent developer or you work on a team at Fortune 500 company, we're here to provide you with the right tools and the support you deserve. Ready to partner with us? Visit the Ez Texting Developer Center.

There's a texting-themed trend piece over at the New York Times today, that goes from funny to not so funny, when divorce trials come into play:

Text messages are the new lipstick on the collar, the mislaid credit card bill. Instantaneous and seemingly casual, they can be confirmation of a clandestine affair, a record of the not-so-discreet who sometimes forget that everything digital leaves a footprint.

This became painfully obvious a week ago when a woman who claims to have had an affair with Tiger Woods told a celebrity publication that he had sent her flirty text messages, some of which were published. It follows on the heels of politicians who ran afoul of text I.Q., including a former Detroit mayor who went to prison after his steamy text messages to an aide were revealed, and Senator John Ensign of Nevada, whose affair with a former employee was confirmed by an incriminating text message.

Sounds straightforward so far - cheaters cheat, and they got caught by SMS. But there's more:

Proving adultery is not the only value of a text message to a divorce lawyer. Last year Mr. Karpf, the lawyer from Miami, represented a husband whose wife was seeking sole custody of their child. The wife claimed the husband had left her and the child. He countered, saying he left because she was physically abusive. She denied it until Mr. Karpf produced several text messages the wife sent her husband apologizing for her inappropriate behavior. “She set up the whole case for me,” Mr. Karpf said.

Robert Stephan Cohen, the lawyer who represented Christie Brinkley in her divorce from Peter Cook, said a spouse’s finding out about a cheating partner by reading their personal text messages would have a profound effect on how such cases were played out, both in court and among friends and family. Mr. Cohen predicted that the battles in even the most routine divorces would become uglier with more text messages as evidence.

“It’s much different than rumor running around about a husband at dinner with a babe in the back booth,” he said. “It’s in the spouse’s face. They read it over and over again. It’s harsh and hurtful.”

Read it all at the New York Times

We'd like to take a few moments of your time to announce the launch of the new TellMyCell, now powered by Ez Texting. A little bit about TellMyCell:

At TellMyCell we call ourselves The Mobile Marketing Company, because we've spent the last six years helping hundreds of brands launch affordable enterprise-class mobile marketing campaigns.

With six years of experience in the mobile marketing business we're confident that we can offer an unparalleled enterprise-class platform at an affordable price. Whether you're looking to hook your application up to our SMS gateway using our robust API, or you're getting ready to launch an inexpensive mobile text message marketing campaign, TellMyCell can help you get started.

Visit TellMyCell and learn more!

We're proud to announce, as of this morning, that Ez Texting is one of the first mobile marketing firms in the country with a short code provisioned on metroPCS.

What does that mean? All MetroPCS customers can now text our customers' Keywords to 313131 from their mobile phones. 

If you have a MetroPCS phone, you can try it out by texting EZ to 313131.

Learn more about Ez Texting's mobile marketing solutions or see our pricing and plans to open a free, no obligation trial account now!

The future of Mobile Marketing is in jeopardy. Frivolous lawsuits have been moving through our nation's courts, and one closely watched case, Satterfield v. Simon & Schuster, Inc, has reached a critical moment. On June 19, 2009, The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Court ruled against Simon & Schuster, and in doing so, has twisted the meaning of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 in a way that imperils the entire mobile marketing industry.

The Mobile Advocacy Coalition is asking the FCC to find that the TCPA does not reach underlying technology providers and that the "sender" for TCPA liability purposes is the user of the mass texting technology, not the technology provider.

They need your help. Read more @ http://www.mobileac.org

techdirt reports on an amusing (depending on your perspective) texting newsbite:

Read more @ techdirt (via textually)