Update: Stone told us: “Nothing concrete to report just yet.”
Apologies for another post about the messaging-service-without-a-business-model, but co-founder Biz Stone has promised inbound SMS service is coming back to the UK – a move likely to see an acceleration in already fast-growing take-up. Twitter canceled the service here in August, claiming excessive SMS termination fees could make it cost $1,000 per user per year, despite having raised a healthy $20 million venture capital previously.
But @biz told Times Online the “service was going to be restored soon and negotiations were under way for better deals with telecoms operators in individual countries, after the hiring of a director of mobile business development last week”: “We are close with Canada and the UK is on our list as the first place to go next. We know that it will be well received there.”
Twitter and O2’s Manx Telecom, which was routing Twitter’s UK SMS, have ignored our requests for comment throughout. Having grown 10 percent in the last year after the addition of celebs like Jonathan Ross to the geek clique, there’s a real risk Twitter could approach mainstream popularity – but that will always be held back if SMS is not restored.
(Photo: juanjaen)