2008 Woodie Awards
Tech Talk: Stay connected with text messaging services, manage them Online
Zachary Leahan
Issue date: 4/23/08 Section: Features
E-mail is the main form of communication for student organizations, but it has its limitations. Students do not constantly check their e-mail. If an event is canceled, a text message would be better than a just an e-mail. Within Greek life, sober brother/sister systems could use text messaging. When in a jam on a Friday or Saturday night, the brother or sister could just pull out their phone and retrieve the text message reminder for the name and number of the sober brother or sister.
Without using a mass text messaging service, the sender would have to have all of the recipient's numbers in their phone and be charged for each text. Fortunately, there is a free alternative. TXt_blaster (txtblaster.com/) is an ad-supported mass text messaging service. I used it within the business fraternity and it has gained great reception. Members in my tXt_blaster group get text messages on Friday and Saturday nights with sober brother contact information. I would use it if a meeting or event was canceled. This is useful for publicity officers in any club. Consider offering the option of joining the group for text message reminders at the end of your e-mails. Set up a policy so the members know what they are getting into. A policy is important since this could easily be abused by sending out too many texts.
The person that will be sending the texts creates an account at txtblaster.com and manages the group Online. The service provides simple instructions for the members to join. Anyone can join by texting "[group name]" to BLAST (25278). Then the service responds with a request for a name. The user texts back his name and now he is a member. The sender can see the member list Online. There are two ways to "blast" the text messages, create the message Online within the tXt_blaster site or from your phone by texting the message to BLAST (25278). The message is limited to 100 characters.
There's a catch. This is free and ad-supported, which I prefer since I have no budget for this otherwise. The recipients get the text message right away but there is a text ad at the end. The typical message will read as "Zachary Leahan writes Tonight's Meeting is Cancelled. Proactiv student specials! Call 1-800-298-2933 From: Blast." If your members do not mind the ad, then this is worth a try.
Without using a mass text messaging service, the sender would have to have all of the recipient's numbers in their phone and be charged for each text. Fortunately, there is a free alternative. TXt_blaster (txtblaster.com/) is an ad-supported mass text messaging service. I used it within the business fraternity and it has gained great reception. Members in my tXt_blaster group get text messages on Friday and Saturday nights with sober brother contact information. I would use it if a meeting or event was canceled. This is useful for publicity officers in any club. Consider offering the option of joining the group for text message reminders at the end of your e-mails. Set up a policy so the members know what they are getting into. A policy is important since this could easily be abused by sending out too many texts.
The person that will be sending the texts creates an account at txtblaster.com and manages the group Online. The service provides simple instructions for the members to join. Anyone can join by texting "[group name]" to BLAST (25278). Then the service responds with a request for a name. The user texts back his name and now he is a member. The sender can see the member list Online. There are two ways to "blast" the text messages, create the message Online within the tXt_blaster site or from your phone by texting the message to BLAST (25278). The message is limited to 100 characters.
There's a catch. This is free and ad-supported, which I prefer since I have no budget for this otherwise. The recipients get the text message right away but there is a text ad at the end. The typical message will read as "Zachary Leahan writes Tonight's Meeting is Cancelled. Proactiv student specials! Call 1-800-298-2933 From: Blast." If your members do not mind the ad, then this is worth a try.
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