Messaging system that works on older text phones, PCs, in addition to feature and smart phones

[Steve G.]

Suppose I wanted to change venue to a more developed country, where the
income level allows people to use unlimited SMS, would that have made any
difference?

In other words, is there a messaging system, OSS or not, that can be used
both on phone and computers? I suppose Skype might be one, but it really is
more of a phone system and not messaging tool.

Email is not a solution, as you messages, in my mind, are not uniquely
visible. Twitter is even more so - it is a broadcast tool more than
anything else. I want individual and group conversations, but with the
ability to view the web pages and videos that are sent on a normal size
screen.

THX.


On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 2:39 PM, Micha Feigin <michf at post.tau.ac.il> wrote:

>  On 10-Oct-13 3:11, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote:
>
> "Steve G." <wordz2u at gmail.com> <wordz2u at gmail.com> writes:
>
>
>  The question:
>
> Is there a messaging platform that is either open source or free (I
> know of Viber and WhatsApp), BUT which can work on PC's AND cheap
> phones (either feature phones, or text only phones) in addition to
> smart phones. I believe that Viber runs on some tablet, but not
> generally. Whatsapp is limited, I think, to cell phones.
>
> I am not sure if they can be used for older phones.
>
> Any ideas?
>
>  Won't work on dumb phone but will on any phone that supports whatsapp
> and viber and quite a few more - emails
>
>   Eh, Twitter? ;-)
>
> I don't use it, but AFAIK it is supposed to work on computers and cheap
> phones, over low bandwidth networks, over SMS (duh: obviously!), etc.
>
> If I understand how it operates correctly it is not really suitable for
> private chats, but I suspect you are primarily interested in broadcasts.
>
>
>  I want to reach two levels of people - community health workers (CHW),
> and the people who receive their services. So there are two 'target
> audiences'. I can possibly provide CHW's with feature phones, but not
> expensive smart phones. Regular people will only, or mostly, have text
> phones, not smart phones. So I need a program that can send messages
> to groups of 10-200, on text only cell phones.
>
>  Feature phones can use Twitter. Really dumb phones that onlyq have SMS
> can also use Twitter - it was an SMS service originally, as we all know.
> I don't know if it is possible to set up a Twitter account via SMS (or
> from a feature phone), but I would assume your CHW will visit some
> office from time to time and can set up accounts for their "clients" who
> can then activate them (sign up for updates) over SMS.
>
> SMS in the 3rd world may present logistical difficulties. E.g., I don't
> know is whether Twitter has geographical restrictions. It is not clear
> to me how Twitter is supposed to pay for SMS updates that the user
> *receives* in a contry where Twitter does not ave a presence (I mean, an
> international SMS is sent - someone has to pay, right?). It is probably
> documented. The problem will be common for any SMS-based solution, I
> suppose.
>
> A really "poor man's" solution is where your CHWs, who will presumably
> have a small budget via government, supporting charities whatever, get
> Twitter updates on their feature phones (over Internet, withmobile.twitter.com, whatever) and then simply type a group SMS to their
> "constituents": those updates will not be frequent and this may very
> well be scalable enough (depending n how scalable group SMS realy is).
> I don't know if it is possible to forward an individual tweet as an SMS
> message.
> http://support.twitter.com/articles/14014-twitter-via-sms-faqs
>
>
>
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>


-- 
Sincerely,

Steve

http://www.words2u.net - GPS points and tracks (mainly in Costa Rica)

http://www.words2u.net/recipes - Recipe collection
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