Saturday, May 15, 2010

Google SMS Channels

Google SMS Channels is Google’s solution to SMS groups message broadcasting and subscription. This service enables you to get content from Google, Google partners, and all other websites and blogs with RSS support.
You can create your own channel and publish content that other users can subscribe to. You can also create groups over SMS to communicate with your friends, family, and co-workers.
This is a free service. You don’t pay anything to send or receive messages using Google SMS Channels website. When you post a message to your channel, all the members of your channel get the message forwarded for free. Any Indian mobile number will work with this service.
Google SMS Channel uses the normal number 9870807070, and not the premium short codes. So any SMS charge you incur is as low as you sending an SMS to your friend. There is no charge for receiving the updates.
SMS tariff charges may apply when you configure the service or publish to a channel using a mobile phone.

Most of you don’t do this unless you want to start a new channel.

You can use the service on the website or via your mobile phone.

How Do I Use SMS Channel from Mobile Phones?
Create a Channel
To create a channel using phone, send the following SMS to 9870807070.
CREATE
The Channel name should be at least 8 characters long. I have created a channel for JOBTWEET using the format
CREATE JOBTWEET Updates from http://jobtweet.blogspot.com/ on various jobs and vaccancies.
This creates a public channel with name JOBTWEET.

Modify Channel

You can change the properties by using the MODIFY command as below:
  • To make the channel “private” (only allow people to subscribe by invitation by the owner) send the following SMS to 9870807070: MODIFY PRI
  • To make a channel “public“, send the following SMS to 9870807070: MODIFY PUB
  • To make channel publish privilege limited (only the owner can publish), send the following SMS to 9870807070: MODIFY PRISEND
  • To allow all subscribers to publish to a channel send the following SMS to 9870807070: MODIFY PUBSEND

Search

To search for a channel  SMS SEARCH to 9870807070. You’ll be sent up to 3 channels matching your keyword(s) over SMS. To see more channels, you can reply MORE

Subscribe to a Channel

Send an SMS ON to 9870807070. is the name of the channel.
To subscribe to the http://jobtweet.blogspot.com/ blog update channel, you would send the following SMS to 9870807070:
ON JOBTWEET
You’ll receive a confirmation message and the last message posted on the channel to confirm your subscription.

Control Maximum Alerts and Timing

To specify the maximum number of messages along with the time interval when you wish to receive the alerts in a day, send an SMS PREF to 9870807070. to be specified in hh:mm:am(or pm)format.

Unsubscribe

To unsubscribe using your phone, SMS OFF to 9870807070