Rogers Wireless announced today that customers can
now send and receive updates from popular messaging service Twitter by SMS
text message over their mobile phones, via Short Code 21212. The feature comes
at no additional cost for customers on text messaging plans.
When the service goes live today, Rogers Wireless customers who subscribe
to a text messaging plan will be able to update their Twitter status and
receive updates (known as “tweets”) via text messages on their mobile phones.
Twitter texts are treated as standard messages under all text messaging plans.
“Our text messaging partnership with Twitter is the latest way Rogers is
helping our customers to connect and stay up-to-date on their wireless
device,” said John Boynton, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer,
Rogers Wireless. “Rogers was first to enable Twitter through a wireless
browser and we’re excited to now provide Twitter by SMS as well.”
“We’re thrilled to be working with Canada’s largest wireless provider,”
said Kevin Thau, Twitter’s Director of Mobile Business Development. “Twitter
is a real-time messaging service for sharing and discovering what’s happening
– right now. By partnering with Rogers Wireless, customers using Twitter can
now view, post and reply to messages, ensuring the application stays
affordable and true to its real-time nature.”
In addition to being able to send and receive tweets, customers will also
have access to all Twitter capabilities including the ability to add (or
“follow”) new people and reply to updates. Customers will also be able to
select whether they want to receive updates from all the people they follow or
from a select group of people.
Traffic to Twitter continues to accelerate with a yearly growth rate of
more than 1,300 percent.
Twitter will not be charged as a premium SMS service on Rogers Wireless.
Each outgoing tweet will be counted as one message within a customer’s text
messaging plan. Messages outside of a plan are 15 cents each. If customers do
not subscribe to a text messaging plan, out-of-plan text messaging charges
apply. These rates apply anywhere in Canada on the Rogers Network.
