To send sms/text via email to a verizon number you can email PHONENUMBER#vtext.com. To send it to att number you can email PHONENUMBER#txt.att.net . This requires knowing which mobile operator the phone number belongs. Is there any way to send sms/text to a number without knowing the operator the number belongs to.
If there is some such third party services, how do they implement this service. Do they email all the operators and hope that it reaches through atleast one of those emails OR do they use any sms gateway?
Twilio developer evangelist here.
Using the Twilio SMS API you can send messages to numbers all around the world. This is not using the often undocumented and potentially flaky phone number email scheme. Instead Twilio has deals and connections to carriers and other partners that we use to route messages around the world to the destination hand sets. We call this the Super Network and you can read more about it here.
I want to build an app whose core functionality is essentially the same as Pinger and other free SMS apps - that is, it needs to allow for texting without going through your phone's service provider by sending the data over the web. But I can't find any APIs or explanations as to how this is accomplished.
Pinger assigns you a phone number to use, which I assume means it must also run its own SMS gateways. But I don't know how to do either of these things (assign valid phone number and create SMS gateways), or whether I can even do them on my own and purely programatically. Does anybody know where I can find this information?
TL;DR: Essentially, I need to know how to create my own Pinger/free SMS app. My app will be different, but will employ the same underlying functionality.
SMS messages are not free to send and this is why Pinger's business model is based on advertising when you send and receive their messages, see http://www.pinger.com/content/advertise.html
In order to do this yourself you would need to work with one of the companies that offers a SMS gateway. You could use a whole bunch of different providers, take a look at this post I previously made with some of them How to send SMS programatically in a professional and reliable way?
I also add, you would need to work out a suitable business model to pay for the SMS messages you plan to send :-).
I am working on an app to send data to customers via sms. What I'd like to be able to do is send a welcome sms to a customer that includes my contact info in a format that can just be "click to add", for lack of a better term.
If there's no way to do this that will work across phone platforms, are there resources that show how to do it for the most common cell phones?
You could send an initial welcome SMS to introduce yourself and then send a subsequent message with your contact details as a VCARD.
You can send contact details via SMS as a VCARD and most mobile phones will be able decode that and add it to their address book simply.
At least if you sent an introductory text first they'd be expecting their phone would prompt them to save a new contact? Customers receiving a new contact might delete it if they didn't know someone was going to send it to them.
I've read this paragraph from the App Engine documentation a dozen times and still am completely in the dark about how chat invitations work:
Invitations
Google Talk and other chat servers
will only accept messages for users
that are "subscribed" to the sender,
either because the user invited the
sender to chat or because the user
accepted an invitation to chat sent by
the sender. An App Engine app can send
chat invitations using the service
API. As with sending email, a best
practice is to send a chat invitation
only when the user asks, such as by
clicking a button on a web page.
Alternatively, the app can ask the
user to send an invitation to the
app's XMPP address to enable receiving
of messages.
App Engine accepts all chat
invitations automatically, and does
not communicate invitations to the
application. App Engine will route all
chat messages to the application,
regardless of whether the sender
previously sent an invitation to the
app.
Maybe the problem is I haven't used chat so I'm not familiar with how invitations work in practice. But the first issue is how/why/whether an application needs/gets permission to chat with a user.
The paragraph above seems to say the following:
The application needs permission to send XMPP messages to the user (and the user needs permission to send XMPP messages to the app?), so
The user has to send an invitation to the app to allow it to send messages to the user (and the app has to send an invitation to the user to allow the user to send messages to the app?)
App Engine receives the chat invitation but does not communicate it to the app
Question: How does the app know whether it's ok to send messages to the user since App Engine does communicate anything to app about the user's response to the invitation?
Gmail is a great example:
I send a message to my friend who is not on my "Friend List". Gmail does not deliver my message, but instead delivers a message that says "Anthony would like to chat. Do you accept?"
If my friend clicks "yes", they get my message and I'm on their friend list and they are on my friend list, and we can chat freely without Gmail making sure it's okay.
If my friend clicks "no", they never see my original message and GMail asks permission if I try again later.
So the App does communicate with the user on the other end, it just doesn't relay the message, only that I'm interested in being chat-buddies.
quick update
Another way of looking at this (if you remember these days), is a collect call. The operator simply says "Do you wish to accept a collect call from Jones?" The operator doesn't say "He says it's really important, he's in jail." And the operator doesn't say "He said no, you can rot in jail." to Jones. They broker the connection without either party making real contact until both parties agree.
(Of course, we would always say our name was "I'm stuck at the mall!" when we tried calling home collect. But since there is no charge for a chat, such sneaky workarounds are not necessary in the XMPP world.)
Use the get_presence() function to determine if it's ok to send to the user. If you send a message to a user that has not accepted an invitation, most XMPP servers (including Google Talk) will not deliver either the message or an automatic invitation. With Google Talk at least, a user who has accepted an invitation will be "present" even when they're logged off, since Gmail can deliver your XMPP messages as pseudo-emails.
I have seen a disturbing trend where websites are starting to require verification sent to cellphones by text message (SMS). Gmail and Facebook are two of them. What I want to know are the following:
Is it a good idea to start requiring cellphones instead of emails now?
How do I do it on my own website?
Edit
Here are some of my new questions on the topic in response to the answers:
I see that most of you are saying that SMS registrations is ok. But what about the people who don't have cell phones? And why is it accepted to give out your cell phone information freely?
Do those big providers really pay per message to a gateway service? Is it not possible to set up a server with the correct SMS software, or at least buy a subscription directly instead of having a middleman?
Most SMS Gateway services have some kind of API. An HTTP interface seems to be the norm.
Just make sure you sign up for a service that allows receiving of messages because not all do. It's more work for them since they have to send some kind of data back to you.
Some services offer send receipts too which lets you see if the receiver got the SMS.
Some examples follows.
Esendex API docs
TxtLocal
In regard to question number one, I think Commander Keen's advice is sound.
It is a good idea if you want to limit the number of fake accounts. I see it used lots in local newspapers here in Norway. I guess it makes people think twice before posting useless crap on their discussion forums.
But do you really hate your users that much? Gmail and Facebook are big enough now that people will accept jumping a few hurdles to use the service, but you need something really interesting to make the user accept this inconvenience.
SMS is the reason I can't use App Engine ().
The first problem is that some people do not have cell phone. I can use Facebook almost completely without validating cell, but uses CAPTCHA to get through certain actions. Therefore, CAPTCHA is one of the good alternatives.
I personally think, cell phone stuff belongs to cell phones and should not be in the Web.
What if every forum admins and newbie PHP developers in the world used SMS validation and someone hacked (cracked) into their database? Do you trust a small forum? Is anti-fraud measure required so desperately?
If your site is very large and popular, it may be good to get SMS validation.
As a member of CS Networks Support team. I am going to give you some answers.
People use their cell phones as a medium of verification, so the service providers can be sure that registered member is not a bot or something else.
Yes it is true. Big providers pay for SMS gateway services. Yes it is possible to have an infrastructure like that, but it is recommended that you have a team of people that are in this business for a long period of time.
The one main reason for using SMS as a way of authentication is that you link the account to a mobile phone, which effectively reduces the chance of fake user accounts by a very large margin.
To implement this feature, you will need to sign an agreement with a SMS Gateway that has coverage for the countries (and operators) that your customers are located in..
Most SMS Gateways can easily be integrated in your software, and will most often provide you with access to all the mobile operators that you require.
I would not recommend using an email to sms gateway if you can use an API, as these are most often less responsive than using a proper API to send messages, where you will get a live connection with the SMS gateway itself, not an email server in front of the gateway.
Examples of SMS Gateway providers:
PSWinCom - www.pswin.com (Note: I am employed in this company.)
Clickatell - www.clickatell.com
HSL - http://www.hslsms.com/
Answer to 1st question: One reason which I can think of that led Gmail and Facebook to follow this trend is the emergence of bogus accounts. Now-a-days, there are use-n-throw email availabe for free like www.10minutemail.com which gives u an email address for 10 minutes. So the use can take such an email address and start a new account in the site.
But in the case of 'sms'-registration, I dont know of any such use-n-throw service provider. So everyone needs to give his own number for registration. This leads to registration by legitimate users.
Answer to 2nd question: This depends on which language u are using. Moreover, you may need a SMS gateway to achieve this.
Since you dont care about the language, try to look for SMS gateway for sending sms through computer or your web server. Some of the cellphone network providers provide an email service to send sms to a phone. For example, you are sending an sms to +910123456789 of 'xyz' network provider, you just need send the sms in the body of an email with the to-address as +910123456789#xyzmail.com
'xyzmail' part of the mail address will change according to the network provider. Plus this option is not found to be reliabe.
check out TeleSign.com
they offer phone verification solutions that you can implement into your website
phone verification is a way to reduce fraud and spam significantly
There's a trust issue here that goes both ways. If you're the provider of a service that can be spammed, you can trust that your users are people and that their email addresses are legitimate. This is probably irrational. Or you can force your users to trust that you'll deal with their cell number information safely. Many users will feel this is irrational.
And then there are people without cell phones (I happen to be one). Most discussions on the web aren't very important, but if you're trying to foster a discussion on anything important, limiting the discussion to people that have cell phones and know how to receive text messages will limit your discussion to the viewpoints of the rich and technologically savvy. If you're providing an important service like email, a texting requirement sets up a barrier to entry and saps the democratizing power of the web. It amounts to shunting the cost of your spam problem onto the disadvantaged. To me, that's unacceptable. Again, though, if your site is just inane pop culture or a marketing exercise, as most are, who cares, go right ahead.