**Update 2011**
If you’re looking for SMS marketing software or a way to send SMS text messages from your WordPress web site, then look no further than our free WordPress Text Message Plugin. People can subscribe for text message updates via sidebar widget (or you can add them yourself. You can even set the plugin to auto-text updates out each time a post is published!
Old post below, information is most likely not valid anymore….
I noticed on one of my web sites that I was getting some hits from google with “sms send” and “(keyword) to cell”. It occurred to me that people wanted to send my content to a cell phone, probably a friend. So I set out to find what SMS tools were available for web sites. Honestly I thought that there would be more out there than what I found. Someone with a really cool plugin could really dominate in this area. One of the things I should mention though (if you already don’t know), is that SMS Text messages can only hold 140 characters or less. So whatever you or your visitors are sending – it’s got to be less than that (a few quick sentences).
After doing some research, this is what I found…
Send a Text Message to a Cell Phone from another site
One possibility is to just send users to a site with a free form to send a text message to any cellular phone. Not the best solution I admit – but probably the easiest.
SMS Text Message from Your Blog
Here’s a solution that’s a little better, this site offers free SMS text message service by placing some code for a form on your blog. Text messages are sent for free through their servers. They also have a myspace widget for SMS as well, but I sure couldn’t find the code.
SMS Everywhere also has a cool free widget that you can put on your site; people can send messages from anywhere in the USA or Canada. They have 3 or 4 versions, and the cool thing is you can get one where your visitors can send a message to anyone by entering their cell phone number, or you can have it setup to send an SMS text to the webmaster. Nice!
Bands – SMS Alert your fans when your next gig is
If you have a band Broadtexter.com has a sweet little widget you can add to your site or myspace which will allow fans to signup – and get text messages via cell phone from you. You can send updates, or the next time and place you play – it’s a free service that will allow you to build up a fan club you can communicate with instantly at any time.
Host Your own SMS Gateway on your web site or blog
You can always host your own form and send SMS messages directly from your site – you just need a script that can process the messages directly from your site. I thought that there would something available either open source or for free – but I sure couldn’t find anything out there at all.
Send Your SMS Messages through Google for FREE
*Update* – I believe this solution is now broken…
My last solution is to send your SMS messages through the most reliable place online – Google! All the major IM services have a feature to allow you to send a text message to cell phone through the IM client. But, the google toolbar also has that feature. Whether or not you have the google toolbar installed – you can still go to this URL directly and send an SMS to a cell. Why is this cool? With just a little code, you could just popup a new window from a link with this right from your blog to send a message to anyone quickly. Now one of the cool things that I found with the google SMS service is that if your text isn’t less than 140 characters – when you send the message google will break it down into multiples texts for you. Not bad, I don’t think any of the other scripts or services do that.
Do you have other SMS text web tools that I haven’t listed here? SMS Scripts? SMS myspace or blog widgets? SMS WordPress Plugins? Please comment now and share with everyone!
Hi nice list. I ma looking for a similar functionality. burrp.com has a feature like this. Any idea on how this can be done.
Open source is not FREE as in it costs no money, it’s FREE as in freedom.
thanks for sharing this. hope i can put that widget on my site too! =)]
text messagess last blog post..SMS Quote | Text Message #3270
Cool,
But, isn’t there a way, or better yet a service, that will allow me to update a “comments box” on my blog (website) by sending a txt message FROM my phone TO the website?
JC
I’m sure there is – that’s just not what I happenned to cover here…
I found a new one today – the WordPress plugin SMS Text Message. People can signup, and then you can send updates to whoever signed up via cell phone SMS text message.
Nice. Thanks for the tips. I like reading about ways to make my sites more functional and social.
Chris at prepaid cell phoness last blog post..Verizon Prepaid Cell Phones Review
As a heads up, the SMS TExt Msg plugin for WordPress (Semperfiwebdesigns.com) is not working. I’ve loaded the plugin and set up as a widget (all of which is very easy), but when tested I never received the text msg. I’ve tried to contact the creators, but no response.
It will be a great plugin when it works. Hope to get a response pretty soon.
Thanks for the tips!
Ok, pls disregard my last comment:) I got it working, apparently the iphone is Att cingular not wireless. Whoops.
Well, with that being said, the plugin is rocking right now.
I tried using Google but got this message “We’re sorry, but Send to SMS has been retired. You can continue to share web pages via email or blog using Send to Gmail or Send to Blogger.”
Services come and go on the web…I’ll have to research what’s no out there for SMS services and web sites…
Found your blog via the translated version… I first thought “oh my gosh – why is he writing in German?” Nice gadget though… is there a plugin for this kind of realtime-translation including comments?
ritchies last blog post..Xsara, Diaries of a SEO Dog #8
Nice list. i did not know about wordpress sms plug in. Thanks for sharing.
phpmysms leads to a dead parked page and smsnexus aren’t bothering answering their emails about script purchases.
Was thinking of adding sms everywhere but I would love a global free solution.
Free Gamess last blog post..Charger Escape Game
I’m looking for an SMS plugin for my wordpress site so potential tenants can send me a quick SMS and get me to contact them….
QuickSMS doesn’t seem to work in NZ tho 🙁
If anyone has any ideas I would be very grateful.
You may have left one out try http://www.mysmsaddress.com where they have free API’s and http://www.virtualtextmessenger.com
thanks for this very useful list!
Wow,
That is so kewl. I will add Google service to all of my blogs and website. To be honest I lived the Google service and the Bands service the most. Just one question, if a person has google and yahoo toolbar installed, will the yahoo toolbar block the pop up??
I’ll search a little more on this and keep you guys updated about my research.
.-= Dave´s last blog ..How does blackberry internet differ from that of a regular cell phone? =-.
Oh, just an update.
I tried using Google but G does not provide this service any longer. 🙁 So bad.
This is a cool tool… it allows to keep in touch by SMS but not only, it allows to exploit a huge and growing market, that of cell phone (that is using them as advertising means)
.-= Student Loans´s last blog ..Read Low Cost Consolidation & Student Loan Options – Auto Recovery =-.
Thanks for giving us the information on SMS plugin. I will try this plugin out 🙂
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Hey, I am looking for a Html widget that allows to send sms from your website and while looking for it I ran into your post. I see some old comments here and probably not too much interest in this topic any more but stil was wondering if you found any new ways to implement something like that. Post it here if you have an answer, I subscribed to get notified about following comments.
Btw already tried what you proposed in your post but nothing worked out for me.
Is this plugin still works?
What is international sms