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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.

• Yahoo! not only announced unlimited storage for their Yahoo! Mail service recently, but - according to GigaOM - is also going to add an API to their mail-platform soon, enabling third-party developers to build on top of probably the most popular mailing-product on the web.
• TechCrunch reports on upcoming extensions to the Twitter API, which will allow developers to send SMS-posts to single, targetted Twitter-accounts (currently its only possible to send to all followers of an account). the implications might be profound, as TechCrunch and others have noticed:

Currently, it costs a lot of money to launch a start-up in the SMS/mobile space - you have to license a shortcode monthly ($500-$1000/mo), pay a SMS gateway provider, and then pay anywhere from $0.03 - $0.05 per inbound or outbound text message. It adds up. But now, if a start-up chooses to use Twitter as a command line to their web service, it’s free (until Twitter starts charging for it).

however, the upcoming API-features haven’t been announced officialy yet.

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.

this one has been around for a few days… David Troy is mashing up Twitter & Google Maps for that global-village feeling, plus he’s built a search-interface on Twitter user-data. while waking up today, I had a useful twitter-idea myself, maybe I can put it together after the game tonight

Highrise, 37signals’ eagerly anticipated CRM-tool, has been released today. looks like another great app - especially - for virtual companies. just take the tour to see a why 37signals is where they’re today - doesn’t this just make you wanna sign-up?

an alpha-version of Adobe Apollo (you know, the framework enabling flash-apps for the offline-world) has been released on sunday. Arrington - who’s been praising Apollo since day 0 - is calling developers to arms start coding. he’s either right in that Apollo is a game-changer, or he’s got a nice promotion-gig seriously, I think Apollo might indeed bring a new generation of hybrid apps (though I’ld obviously prefer open approaches, but honestly, it looks like Adobe’s got a pretty decent headstart).

Twitter-hype & associated gets maddening. Dashboard-widgets, local apps for mac and windows, flash-widgets. guess that’s what you get when offering a dead-easy API …the downside: their servers tend to be ridiculously slow, or they go down (for maintenance) at all. meanwhile, Twitterholic unveils A-list twitters - there are currently only 5 people/accounts attracting more than 1.000 follower. I subscribed to #5, Darthvader.

ps: if only my Google Reader had a ’search’-box (the greasemonkey-scripts available somehow didn’t work for me)

pps: a linkup between Google Reader & Google Calendar would be nice too - I just had to copy&paste this Subotron lecture on (video)game journalism…that’s so web 1.0

that was almost too easy: thanks to Paul’s RSS-to-Twitter script, PLAY.FM has now got a Twitter-channel announcing our latest DJ-sets

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?