Comments on: Twitter Kills SMS in Canada

By: sukhwinder singh

sukhwinder singh — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:35:04 +0000

@Sean @Mark I agree. Maybe they’re canceling the costly services to finally charge for them. Hard to make a business model when everything is free. @PaulJ They may have been rate-limiting, and have had availability issues, but they haven’t been blocking direct messages in or out yet. Now, outbound

By: 2008 Year in Review for Canadian Internet Marketing & Website Properties

2008 Year in Review for Canadian Internet Marketing & Website Properties — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 22:25:09 +0000

[...] Twitter shuts down SMS in Canada [...]

By: canada - blogring

canada - blogring — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:06:11 +0000

[...] Kills SMS in Canada – Gi… +0 digs From : gigaom.com , All Term : 0digs,0buries Twitter Kills SMS in Canada Alistair Croll | Wednesday, November 26, [...]

By: Bryan Karl

Bryan Karl — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 09:47:32 +0000

Well I thought Canada is a very rich country. Well, maybe Twitter is really just having a hard time in expenses right now because they’re not yet really established in the WWW .

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 07:51:34 +0000

Blame it on the lobbyists who influence our politicians to protect huge corporations while chipping away at the rights of every other group that tries to gain a foothold in business. I mean what’s 5 bucks times a few million per month anyway? The little guy can afford it and the big corporations certainly need it so they can continue providing lousy service to all Canadians.

By: Alistair Croll

Alistair Croll — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:11:10 +0000

@Sean @Mark I agree. Maybe they’re canceling the costly services to finally charge for them. Hard to make a business model when everything is free.
@PaulJ They may have been rate-limiting, and have had availability issues, but they haven’t been blocking direct messages in or out yet. Now, outbound DMs are blocked too.

One of the sad things here is that Americans can switch to a North American plan and get fixed-rate data and voice, so they don’t need SMS — they can just use data. But for a Canadian using Rogers, Fido, Telus or Bell, that’s not the case. My voice bill alone when I’m roaming in the US is often over $800 a month, and I don’t bother using data at all; it’s simply too expensive.

The imbalance between US and Canadian telecom rates is a restraint of trade for us Cannucks, and the erosion of services like Twitter SMS is just another symptom of misguided policies.

By: » Is Canada Becoming a Digital Ghetto? » The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century : Joey deVilla’s Personal Blog

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 15:27:16 +0000

[...] has just announced that they are killing outbound SMS messaging in Canada due to exorbitant and constant rate hikes [...]

By: Is Canada Becoming a Digital Ghetto? — Global Nerdy

Is Canada Becoming a Digital Ghetto? — Global Nerdy — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 15:23:39 +0000

[...] has just announced that they are killing outbound SMS messaging in Canada due to exorbitant and constant rate hikes [...]

By: Sean

Sean — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 07:59:55 +0000

Twitter is incredibly stupid. Here’s an idea, guys – try charging for SMS, and maybe you’ll actually make some money!

By: Twitter In But Not Out : BigSnit.com

Twitter In But Not Out : BigSnit.com — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 07:17:03 +0000

[...] more at GigaOm [...]

By: Paul J

Paul J — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 06:28:55 +0000

This isn’t news. Twitter was blocking SMS tweets for probably a year now. When I lived in Canada I think I actually received 3-4 sms tweets tops. It was very frustrating.

By: Mark MacLeod

Mark MacLeod — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 23:43:09 +0000

I don’t blame Twitter for this. When you have a free service, your incremental cost of delivering it should be close to zero. This is not the case with SMS delivery. I lived this exact issue when I was CFO at Mobivox and always pushed to limit what we gave away. Mobivox finally faced reality and got rid of free calling. You cannot sustain it when you have to pay carriers for every minute of use. Same deal for Twitter with SMS.

By: Twitter Stops Its SMS Service in Canada | Raging Analytics

Twitter Stops Its SMS Service in Canada | Raging Analytics — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 22:21:17 +0000

[...] blog as news becomes available. Hope this doesn’t slowdown Twitter adoption rates in Canada. Gigaom has the full story and Twitter statement here. addthis_url = [...]

By: ian

ian — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 22:12:05 +0000

It is highway robbery. Workaround: subscribe to the e-mail to SMS gateway services ($5 per mo for Rogers I think) and have inbound tweets delivered to that address (5141231234@pcs.rogers.com). I’m sure Bell and Telus have a similar service.

By: Neil Phillips

Neil Phillips — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 21:31:14 +0000

I assumed that the headline meant that people were generally using SMS less, and using twitter for their messaging needs instead. If you’ve got a generous data allowance, it’s not such an unlikely prospect.