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On 10-Oct-13 9:08, geoffrey mendelson
wrote:
On
10/10/2013 3:50 PM, Steve G. wrote:
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.
The problem that I see is that you simply can't do it. People with
dumb phones are limited to what they can receive, people with
computers and smart phones are somewhat less.
There are MANY instant message clients for both computers and
phones, SKYPE is one of the few that runs on all of them.
Dumb phones are limited to SMS's, so a combined system is needed.
On the other hand, if you look at the thread that followed my
asking about an iPod replacement, I found a suitable smartphone
for your needs for 549 NIS. ($135). That's a lot of money to give
to a lot of people, but you may be able to get a lower price if
you buy many. There are also the cheap Chinese Android phones,
which are a lot cheaper if you buy them by the case directly from
China.
But then you need to buy them a cellular data plan.
Geoff.
I've been told that if you are interested in designing your own
android phone you can do it for something like 35$ a piece in (not
too) large numbers. I know somebody who's done it for some project.
But that discussion is a bit off topic.
Something similar to skype that is a bit more instant message
oriented and less talk oriented is google hangouts (previously
google talk). You are limited to google accounts though (although it
would be the same with any other messaging system other than sms and
email). I think that you can archive messages as emails if you use
that system.
I still think that you would get more devices to support email than
any other test messaging system other than sms. I don't understand
what by messages not being uniquely visible though. You can send
them to a specific person or a group. If you add read receipts you
can even tell if people opened the message. You have timestamps and
from field on each email and can group them into discussions, etc.
And if you are using a data plan then they would be as immediate as
text messaging programs, especially if you use a service that
supports push notifications (gmail and android applications do)
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