Google Opens SMS-to-chat Gateway to More African Countries

Google already allows Gmail users to exchange chat messages with mobile phone users via SMS in 23 countries worldwide, but now French mobile phone operator Orange wants to help the search giant extend the service across Africa and the Middle East. PC World reports.

Gmail SMS Chat allows a Gmail user to send short text messages to someone with only a basic mobile phone and no Internet access or Gmail account. The phone owner can also reply to the Gmail user. Phone users pay to send messages, and may also pay to receive them depending on their contract with their operator. The Gmail user pays nothing, although Google does impose a limit on the number of messages that can be sent: each message replied to raises the limit, allowing five new messages to be sent.

Read more.

Mobile social netoworking, via cell, taking off

While people have been using their cell phones to send text messages to friends and relatives for years, technology companies and carriers are expanding this ability to unite people with friends and strangers, writes the Denver Post.

"Chat rooms, once a bastion of the personal computer, have exploded on cell phones. The experience of typing in messages to friends, or hooking up with potential new ones is being replicated in the mobile world.

Instead of sending text or e-mail messages to friends via cell phone, mobile chat rooms let users interact with people of similar interests, for example snowboarding or local bands. It's different from sending a text message to someone you know, as messages in chat rooms appear on the cell phones of all users in that particular room.

Companies that offer mobile chat services include AirG - where ssers spend an average 59 minutes each day chatting -- on and off -- according to Fred Ghahramani, founder and CEO of AirG, - Power Chat and Upoc."

Public gets chance to text Tony Blair

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair will be answering questions from the public via a mobile phone chatroom session hosted by O2, reports Netimperative.

"The 45-minute session will be transmitted live from No.10 Downing Street on Thursday 25th November, at 1pm."

The opportunity is available to any mobile user, who can text the letters PM and then their question to 80202. Alternatively, they can join the chat by going to O2 Active on the day. Questions can be submitted in advance by SMS, photo messaging or WAP.

A full transcript of the interview will be available on the internet when the session is over.

Other political SMS chats:

-- 1.3 million SMS sent to French Prime Minister Raffarin - On Tuesday June 1st, 2004, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin answered questions online on several Websites SMS, via mobile community Freever's website.

-- Texting campaign for US presidential candidate - Presidential canditate Howard Dean's used SMS to build grassroots support with young voters by setting up his texto campaign headquarters on Upoc.com.

-- French politicans participate in SMS chat sessions In 2002, before and during the presidential elections in France, candidates Jean-Pierre Chevènement, Alain Madelin, François Bayrou and extreme right wing Jean-Marie Lepen all participated in SMS chat sessions organized by (youth) mobile community Freever, with an astounding 250'000 questions logged in for Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Vodaphone to Hire Chat Room Monitors

Smarting from the bad publicity surrounding a pedophile case involving mobile phone chat-rooms, Vodafone Australia announced its intention to employ round-the-clock moderators and install profanity filters. Mark Frauenfelder comments in The Feature.com.

Upoc SMS Chats with gold medallists

Last week, AT&T Wireless and Upoc Networks hosted a moderated, live "TXT Chat" for fans of swimming phenomenon Michael Phelps. Subscribers were invited to join the chat session by texting the word "swim" to the number 11111 from their handsets, and could then send in their questions for Phelps via text message, according to a company press release.

Another TXT Chat with All-Around Gold Medalist Carly Patterson is scheduled for September 7th at 8:30 pm EDT. For more information, visit www.attwireless.com/usolympics.

SMS Celeb Chats

1000 fans connected to the SMS live chat with mega rock star Johnny Hallyday, organized by French mobile operator SFR, according to French e-zine Mobicity.

Organizing SMS chat sessions is becoming a popular way in Europe for singers to promote a new album or a concert tour such as the Star Academy group (France's version of American Idol), and even politicans have organized SMS chats to reach young voters. Last year before and during the presidential elections in France, candidates Jean-Pierre Chevènement, Alain Madelin, François Bayrou and extreme right wing Jean-Marie Lepen all participated in chat sessions organized by (youth) mobile community Freever, with an astounding 250'000 questions logged in for Jean-Marie Le Pen.

How does it work? I witnessed a chat seesion last year in Geneva, in a fashionable café, where Axel Red was visting to promote her new album. The organizers sat in front of a PC with the singer where they handled the incoming text messages and the replies on a PC platform developed by wireless technology company Echovox. Fans who had signed up for the chat by sending an SMS to a short code, could then send their question and received on their handset, all SMS sent out by everyone else (questions and answers). With premium SMS and a popular star, this can be a lucrative deal.

SMS Chat Danger

Per an article in The Copenhagen Post, a 14-year-old Swedish girl came face to face with a 55 year-old man dressed only in his underwear. He had passed himself off as 16-year-old Kevin. The two had gotten to know each other by SMS Chat and were meeting for the first time. She fled onto the street crying and passers-by helped her call the police. The man was charged with indecent exposure and for attempting to have sex with a minor.

There has been much (good) work done to guard children against the dangers of online chatrooms, but very little to date, on warning them about the perils of meeting the wrong person in an SMS chat. The whole appeal of an SMS chat is to meet other people in your area and one of the key features of these services are their localisation capabilities, which are able to narrow down a person's whereabouts to 500 meters. That's awfully close.