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if you think Twitter is all about personal micro-blogging and basically a waste of time, think again. with their recent API-extension, it’s now possible to integrate Twitter as a cost-free SMS gateway into your own applications (like the guys at Tupalo have already done).

of course there are loads of SMS-based monitoring services out there, but the good ones aren’t free, and most aren’t very customizable. my simple demo PHP-script monitors any number of web-servers and alerts me by direct SMS if one of them goes down. just insert you account-credentials and make it a 5min-cronjob. keep in mind that you’ll need two Twitter-accounts for this kind of application, with the sending-account added as a friend to the receiver. otherwise the script can be easily customized and extended for you own needs…have fun!

ps: it might be a good idea to simultaneously run the script on two independent machines on different locations!

Texteln.de = german Twitter-clone with a reduced feature set and small community.

in case you haven’t been aware how easy it is to fake the originating number (’from’) of an SMS message, ONLamp features a step-by-step guide on spoofing Twitter (and similar services involving authentication mechanisms solely based on the senders phone number). this basically means that attackers only need to know a users associated cellphone number and an SMS-service like FakeMyText to post messages in his name. there goes your identity…

Jaiku = Twitter + a little bit of geo-information + iconography + mobile client (currently S60, Nokia only).

cool: after signing up, Jaiku checks several IM-services (GTalk/Gmail, Hotmail, Jabber) for other existing Jaiku-users you’re already connected to. Jaiku also allows easy integration of existing blog-feeds. on the downside, I wasn’t able to find a feature for directly messaging a single user. other than that, it’s really very similar to Twitter. according to this post by Robert Scoble, they’re even dealing with the same load-problems (I experienced quite some delay when posting via my mobile, which btw. involves an SMS-gateway in finland, where Jaiku was created).

update: 606Tech features an interview with Jaiku-founder Jyri Engeström.

Steve Rubel (yes, Edelman, that is) asks the same question I did (implicitly) few days ago: how is Twitter going to cope with that SMS-bills? I really have no idea, but Rubel claims that “In the good ol’ United States of America, the receiver pays the SMS bill”. the comments on that post seem to be quite indifferent, but I guess the “recveiver” means the receiving network, not the individual customer? (at least from a ‘european’ standpoint, there’s no way the receiver is to bear the cost). some yanks wanting to comment? (please!!!) how are kick-ass services like Google Calendar’s SMS-reminders (I - thankfully - receive at least two each day) not going to be loss-leaders?

anyway, It’s probably obvious, that merging web2 with ‘oldschool’ mobile services is the thing to do right now.

Dave Winer is routing news-feeds of Wired and the New York Times through Twitter. I wonder how Twitter is going to pay their communications-bills, once every website pushes latest news to their community through the service (maybe that’s another weekend-extension for PLAY.FM…regarding the API, this should be fairly easy).

oh,  I tried out 5 Ways to SMS for Free, but none of the services worked for my austrian cellphone, not even GizmoSMS which supposedly should. any alternatives?

so, after all the buzz during past weeks, I finally signed-up for a Twitter-account (in case you’re of the hype-resistant type, Twitter is basically free, public group-SMS + Web 2.0-features, a mixture between blog & IM). turns out it is one of few SMS-based services from the United States that actually works on European (or at least Austrian) networks/contracts. plus its really fun to use… subscribe to (or “follow”) some of the heavy-users and your phone won’t be quiet anymore but seriously, this is a great tool for marketing your blog/event/party/product/website/ego to hardcore-followers, with a biiig potential for annoyance

interested? follow me on Twitter!

update: posting to your Twitter-account from Austria requires SMSing to a german phone-number, which - depending on your contract - might be (slightly) more expensive than national SMS.

btw, don’t follow Twitter’s in other timezones and forget to turn off your mobile at night!