Thanks Robin
Robin gave me this idea; well I stole it from one of his Tweets! He is flying the Flag for Ireland this week as a Seedcamp Finalist with new business venture Decisions For Heroes .
11850 announces they have a new SMS service that is free while they launch it. You can text them any question and they’ll answer it (no-doubt using Google) with an SMS. (In UK use 63336)
It wasn’t until I heard that the people answering us were a team waiting for our questions in Manilla was I seriously intrigued. Had I got my business message right? Could a person in the Philippines not only find but also summarise my new business into 160 characters for me?
I got out my phone and texted 11850:
What is “Decisions For Heroes”.
It is a collaborative rescue team management tool to record and analyze rescue operations.
Now you can’t blame me for trying…. a girl needs to keep on top of things
So I sent a text:
Who is Grannymar?
Back flew the answer:
AQA: Grannymar is an internet blogger from Ireland, who was the winner of the ‘Best Personal Blog’ award at the Irish Blog Awards in 2008.
Primal Sneeze said,
September 19, 2008 at 9:40 am
Impressive. On both counts.
Stel said,
September 19, 2008 at 9:50 am
Must have been nice to get the impressive CV of yourself back! Belated congrats on the award.
Grannymar said,
September 19, 2008 at 11:30 am
@Primal - Not that difficult since Google has about 29,200 results for this old bird!
@Stel - it was the idea that the msg came back from Manilla that caught my attention.
le craic said,
September 19, 2008 at 11:32 am
I set such a service up a few years back as a bit of a project - had to close it down after a while as too many questions were coming in. Subsequently, I did some part time research work on the actual service you used (AQA). It had a slicker backend system than mine, but same result (questions answered to mobile phone).
So, hurrah for me and coming up with the idea before they did. I am magic
Grannymar said,
September 19, 2008 at 11:35 am
le craic
Sure I knew you were magic! Now how can I …..
TheChrisD said,
September 19, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Wow, the amount of info they can fit into a text - it’s actually quite scary…
Jim said,
September 19, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Hold on a sec - AQA’s number in Ireland is 57275? Surely this is what you texted rather than 11850? You must have, cos you got AQA in the answer. You can try it out for free on their website at http://www.57275.ie
K8 said,
September 19, 2008 at 9:38 pm
*tsk* I had to do it too, big head that I have on me.
It backfired though…
“The 11850 text team felt that the last question took us longer to answer than we’d like. So this time we haven’t charged you.”
Disgusted. Mind you, I wouldn’t like to be the one to summarize myself much, I’m a bit all over the place
Nasty job, wouldn’t blame them!
I wonder is it ’spensive? Probably but VERY handy at table quizzes!
K8 said,
September 19, 2008 at 9:41 pm
I asked them what discombobulated means…
“Discombobulate (verb) to confuse or disconcert; upset; frustrate. Yes, we are a bit.”
Okay so I added that last bit myself.
Grannymar said,
September 19, 2008 at 9:44 pm
@ChrisD - I expected the answer ‘Never heard of you’!
@K8 did you use your real name or your blog handle?
@K8 -
Baino said,
September 19, 2008 at 9:51 pm
I did that once re a horoscopey thing and I keep getting messages from them even though I’ve unsubscribed!k I’m a bit fussy who I leave my phone number with these days.
Alice said,
September 20, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Cool!