This is another Lazyweb type post — I’m once again seeking advice.
The Quest
I’d like to find a cost-effective way to easily get a message to a small group of folks in a very timely fashion.
Approaches
I envision one of the following approaches (but am open to other ideas!):
- I call a phone number, leave a message. The service in turn calls each member of my group and plays the message to them. A simplified sort of Reverse-911, if you will.
- I send an SMS message to a service that in turn broadcasts that as SMS to my group’s phones/mobile devices
My hope is that I can easily notify 5 – 10 people of an emergency or outage without having to contact each individually.
The Plea
Anyone have experience with services that might fit the bill? Oh, and speaking of bill… I’d expect to pay a bit for the service, of course.
If I go with the phone option, it seems like maybe OneCallNow’s business continuity plan would fit the bill rather inexpensively… granted, I know nothing about them yet.
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June 2nd, 2008 
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My phone allows me to put my contacts into groups and I can send a text message to a GROUP of ppl at once.
I select the group, type the message, hit send and everybody gets the same message. it’s a life saver at my work. I’ve got 7 managers I need to tell the same thing to more than once a week I just txt them with 1 txt. It’s mui bueno.
you might also try Jott – you call the number it sends you an e-mail with your message transcribed.
You set up filters so that those messages are then forwarded to the phones you want it sent to in verizon it’s format 1234567890@vtext.com or some such and the phone gets it. I’m sure you could find a way to sms from e-mail by filter. You’re all smart like that.
Groups would rock. As near as I can tell, that’s not an option with Windows Mobile 6 though… seems like a critical gap!
Oh yeah, I had the Jott suggestion on twitter too.
My only real concern with Jott (or, I suppose, regular SMS) is that there’s not really any sort of SLA related to how quickly my messages will be sent.
Ultimately, that may be the kiss o’ death for the messaging options. If I’m sending a message that the data center is on fire I need to know that the message is going right now not later after Sprint reboots the SMS gateway…
I haven’t used this personally, but I remembered it being posted recently:
http://lifehacker.com/software/text-messaging/create-your-own-text-message-distribution-center-with-textmarks-240956.php
[...] http://www.solo-technology.com/blog/2008/06/02/seeking-message-broadcasting-service/ asks Hoosgot, [...]
Hi there
Love the site
Try http://remindthem.com/ – you get 4 free go’s
Marcus
You may want to try schoolmessenger notification services. They are at http://www.schoolmessenger.com. My school district uses schoolmessenger to send alerts like the type you are describing.
If it’s only five people would it not be best to ensure they get the message and send it one at a time?
I could understand if you needed to maybe contact fifty people but if only five that’s only a few minutes of time to get the message out, and then you know for sure it’s being sent.
You never know what type of flaw you’ll find with using a program to do what you’re asking.
-Scott
Thanks for all the suggestions folks, much appreciated.
@Scott (I modified your name a bit, you missed my comment policy link but I wanted to keep your thoughts)
When I get a page or call and a primary production server is down, the last thing I want to do is find a schedule, determine which pager group is “live” and then track down those 5 people. Some of these calling services allow multiple groups and multiple numbers per person. If the service works right it could prove invaluable in notifying the various ops, support and client facing folks.
At least, that’s the dream…
One Call Now is your best option for reaching people fast. Go to onecallnow.com for a free 30 day trial. I spent a lot of time comparing these services before signing up with them. They’re fast, reliable,easy to use, and the price is right so I won’t go anywhere else.