BBC News Alerts

As you are aware SMS alerts are a core part of WIN's offering. We supply text and MMS alert services to the likes of Vodafone, T-mobile and the BBC in the UK and can offer the service in all other territories.

A great example of these services is the BBC News alerts that deliver the flagship news service direct to your mobile. The BBC service only delivers significant news stories, so you never miss an important story, but you are not constantly being messaged about who has dumped who.

So give it a go, messages are charged at only 10/12p per sms received depending on network, and like all subscription services simply text STOP to the shortcode to end the service, so in this case send STOP to 82002.

To join send ALERTS START to 82002, on sign-up you get a confirmation sms with the price and stop instructions (as required by Phone Pay Plus the UK regulator of premium rate service, but more about them another time).

Enjoy.

Haiti - Charity Short Codes

The terrible earthquake in Haiti has required a swift fund raising response by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC). One of the tools that they have chosen to deploy is a Charity Short Code. This provides a simple, swift way for mobile users to make a donation.

To make a donation users simply text GIVE to 70077. The cost is £5 plus the cost of a standard text message.

The advantage of a charity shortcode is that no VAT is taken by the taxman, and there are significantly better payouts from the operators, in some cases 100%.

There are a series of similar initiatives in the US and Canada, and these have raised over $7M so far.

WIN also offer Charity Short Codes, and have taken a corporate decision not to take any fee from the text donation - something that not all other suppliers have committed to. One of our first campaigns has been working with London based Kids Company. We have enabled their first text donation campaign, that saw poster sites across a number of London buses stops, example below. We will be continuing to help develop campaigns for Kids Co in 2010.

Shazam

Shazam has many definitions but for mobile users it is an innovative music identification service - although its actually been around since 2002. The service's elegance is in its simplicity, dial 2580 (numbers down the middle of your mobile), hold you phone up to the music, and after around 20 sec the call will end and shortly afterwards you get a message identifying the track.

There are also iPhone/Android/Nokia apps so have a look here for a version for your phone, many have a free trial period. (BTW the apps work internationally.)

Interestingly the technology behind Shazam has also been deployed to audit Radio station air play of tracks. It provides a list of what was actually playing to audit against what was subbmitted for rights payments.

So long 2009... Year of the App Store?

People would be forgiven for thinking that 2009 was the year that the Application Store was invented. It is certainly true that Apple's iPhone made App Stores and Apps the big mobile story of the year, but there have been many App Store before, and the grand daddy is probably GetJar.

GetJar is the world’s largest cross platform app store with over a half billion downloads since launch in 2005. The site provides more than 50,000 mobile applications across all major handsets and platforms to consumers in more than 200 countries. The name of the site refferes to the JAR (or Java ARchive) file format that is used to distribute Java applications.

So why not give the site a try and see what they have for your phone... first you'll need to set your handset so that you get the right apps.

Just click on the phone icon (top right) and select your device. The selection process is very slick, and much better than many other sites. If you browse to http://www.getjar.com/ on your mobile it will auto detect your handset.

There are lots of free applications, and plenty of pay ones too, for pretty much every handset, just remember to ensure you are on a data tarrif before downloading them all. If you try one may be you could post a comment about the download, and if it was any good.

Happy New Year.