Suppose I wanted to change venue to a more developed country, where the income level allows people to use unlimited SMS, would that have made any difference?
In other words, is there a messaging system, OSS or not, that can be used both on phone and computers? I suppose Skype might be one, but it really is more of a phone system and not messaging tool. Email is not a solution, as you messages, in my mind, are not uniquely visible. Twitter is even more so - it is a broadcast tool more than anything else. I want individual and group conversations, but with the ability to view the web pages and videos that are sent on a normal size screen. THX. On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 2:39 PM, Micha Feigin <mi...@post.tau.ac.il> wrote: > On 10-Oct-13 3:11, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote: > > "Steve G." <word...@gmail.com> <word...@gmail.com> writes: > > > The question: > > Is there a messaging platform that is either open source or free (I > know of Viber and WhatsApp), BUT which can work on PC's AND cheap > phones (either feature phones, or text only phones) in addition to > smart phones. I believe that Viber runs on some tablet, but not > generally. Whatsapp is limited, I think, to cell phones. > > I am not sure if they can be used for older phones. > > Any ideas? > > Won't work on dumb phone but will on any phone that supports whatsapp > and viber and quite a few more - emails > > Eh, Twitter? ;-) > > I don't use it, but AFAIK it is supposed to work on computers and cheap > phones, over low bandwidth networks, over SMS (duh: obviously!), etc. > > If I understand how it operates correctly it is not really suitable for > private chats, but I suspect you are primarily interested in broadcasts. > > > I want to reach two levels of people - community health workers (CHW), > and the people who receive their services. So there are two 'target > audiences'. I can possibly provide CHW's with feature phones, but not > expensive smart phones. Regular people will only, or mostly, have text > phones, not smart phones. So I need a program that can send messages > to groups of 10-200, on text only cell phones. > > Feature phones can use Twitter. Really dumb phones that onlyq have SMS > can also use Twitter - it was an SMS service originally, as we all know. > I don't know if it is possible to set up a Twitter account via SMS (or > from a feature phone), but I would assume your CHW will visit some > office from time to time and can set up accounts for their "clients" who > can then activate them (sign up for updates) over SMS. > > SMS in the 3rd world may present logistical difficulties. E.g., I don't > know is whether Twitter has geographical restrictions. It is not clear > to me how Twitter is supposed to pay for SMS updates that the user > *receives* in a contry where Twitter does not ave a presence (I mean, an > international SMS is sent - someone has to pay, right?). It is probably > documented. The problem will be common for any SMS-based solution, I > suppose. > > A really "poor man's" solution is where your CHWs, who will presumably > have a small budget via government, supporting charities whatever, get > Twitter updates on their feature phones (over Internet, > withmobile.twitter.com, whatever) and then simply type a group SMS to their > "constituents": those updates will not be frequent and this may very > well be scalable enough (depending n how scalable group SMS realy is). > I don't know if it is possible to forward an individual tweet as an SMS > message. > http://support.twitter.com/articles/14014-twitter-via-sms-faqs > > > > _______________________________________________ > Linux-il mailing list > Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il > http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il > > -- Sincerely, Steve http://www.words2u.net - GPS points and tracks (mainly in Costa Rica) http://www.words2u.net/recipes - Recipe collection
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