November 03, 2006
Shhhhh... isn't it quiet?
You’ve probably not noticed I’ve not been writing. That’s the point of RSS — silence is invisible. I’m not going to apologise. The day job is a “change the world” project (don’t ask, I won’t tell); the other day job is build a great company project; between those is a ton of world travel; and my wife and kids have indicated they’d like to see me once in a while too. This weekend will be the first real rest in about two months. I’m knackered.
I’ve got some big ideas to share, but not today. Oh boy, yes.
So here’s a little bit of fun from the bus shelter in San Francisco, shakily snatched just as the bus was coming:
Notice anything? The call to action is a web page, not a text short code! Madness. If you’re looking for the future of telecom, don’t search within the US telecom industry. It’s not hidden here anywhere. I’ve looked.
Posted by Martin Geddes at 10:31 PMTrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.telepocalypse.net/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/mgeddes/MT/mt-tb.cgi/815.
And when you look at the website it accepts only North-American-format phone numbers and US mobile carriers. So much for the blurb on the site which says it's for visitors.
Posted by: at November 6, 2006 05:28 PMNot sure why this is madness? It says wireless device, not cellphone, and text-based doesn't necessarily mean SMS. Perhaps you made a bit of a Euro-leap to GSM conclusions?
Seems like it is using all methods, including email and paging.
I certainly don't see the future of telecom in SMS short-codes, but I'm not sure it's in a DNS domain name either.
It's a bit cheeky having to pay extra for the texts - the Cell Broadcast network in the UK has to provide certain channels to broadcast emergency information, regardless of network. The reserved channels don't have much capacity for characters though, which means if we get invaded by a country with a long name we won't be sure exactly who it is until we get home/are captured.
Posted by: at November 24, 2006 03:02 PM