A long time ago Twitter stopped allowing users outside the US to tweet via SMS. Some of you who haven’t been using twitter long enough probably didn’t event know that the twitter SMS feature existed. 3rd party sites came into being allowing you to receive twitter direct messages and mentions via SMS. These SMS messages were advertising supported but didn’t last very long. I went back to a previous post about such a free twitter sms service and found that it no longer existed. No surprise.
Free services are cool and all but without a viable business model they are just not sustainable. For some of you, myself included, twitter have become a very important part of your day to day communications and therefore missing a direct message or mention is something you just cannot do.
A short while ago an idea for international twitter SMS started here and became TweSMS which would solve that problem: Always be updated of any direct message or twitter mention via SMS from everyone or particular users on twittter (your boss or loved one for example). As a service like this could not be sustainable even for twitter so this is how you go about paying it a really good rates.
Connecting Clickatell to TweSMS
First you need to sign up for TweSMS (How to do it here). While you wait for the activation of your TweSMS account head on over to Clickatell and register for Clickatell Central here. Be sure to use a username and password that is unique and not the same as any other account because you will use these details at TweSMS later on.
Once your Clickatell registration is complete log into the Clickatell site here. Purchase some credits using PayPal (available in South Africa soon), bank transfer or credit card.
Now we need to setup a connection between your Clickatell and TweSMS account. Click on Manage My Products then from the Add Connection dropdown select HTTP.
- Enter a name for your connection (twesms)
- Prefix (your mobile number country dialing code)
- Callback Type: HTTP GET
- Click Submit
You will now see the twesms connection created and an API ID assigned to it.
Now head on over to TweSMS and enter your Clickatell username, password you signed up with and the API ID that has just been assigned to you over here and click update Settings.
You will now be able to receive your twitter DMs or mentions from specific users or everyone at during a time period set on the TweSMS site.
Have you read these yet?
HowTo Use Gmail to send and receive email from a non-Gmail address.
Free International Twitter SMS
Twitter SMS notifications for Africa… no, the wwworld
Twitter single purpose tools
Twitter Delayed Messages Warning
