Something different - useful text service!

alleepally

Check it out

http://www.brainstoburn.com

handy where you're out and about and you're trying to think of the answer to something but your brain is stuck - have the answer sent to your phone.

Rabies

Just wait until you get spammed by text because they sold your number to some marketing company.

Johnny Versace

They'll prob get bored of doing this after a month... especially after they get their phone bill...

Tusky

sounds good...

radiospan

Has anyone tried it yet? I'm a bit reluctant seeing as there's no Terms of Use or anything on the site.

Strange how its an ordinary 086 number, and not a 53xxx number.

Kone

I don't trust it,

<pictures shady text-spammer handing over tons of cash for their mobile number database>

alleepally

My fault for not putting terms there. Site is updated now with terms.

Can absolutely guarantee there is no danger of anyone ever being spammed by using the service.

This has been in my head for about a year now and I just recently got a chance to get the website up.

Sev

I have to say... thats a fairly slick idea.

Tusky

Very slick...im wary though.

Lenny

haha, brillant idea
I'm just wondering though, if people want to help. do they use their own credit to send the txt back? and how many people are giving a hand at the mo?

alleepally

Cheers lads. No, it's pretty much automated and you definitely wouldn't have to use your own credit!

byte

Good enough idea.

I've added teh number to meh phone should the need to txt arises!

I'd offer my services as a volunteer but 64k may be too slow?

Lenny

Byte, I recieved those cd's today
many thanks,and yea shouldn't have put those stamps in!!

Mercury_Tilt

This post has been deleted.

alleepally

Originally posted by byte
Good enough idea.

I've added teh number to meh phone should the need to txt arises!

I'd offer my services as a volunteer but 64k may be too slow?

64k should be ok but is are you paying as long as you are connected?

alleepally

Originally posted by Mercury_Tilt
I have bought the international rights to this.

Thanks!

PM me and start the bidding!

Auburn

Really cool idea! Number is stored for when I need to wow people with my boundless knowledge

davej

A nice idea, which might come in handy the odd time for about the next year or so. However it's about 5 years too late. The upcoming generation of 3G mobile phones will essentially give all users full access to the internet on their phone (gprs isn't bad as it is for searching). Why would you want to wait for an indeterminate amount of time for an answer back from this service when you could just fire up your mobile web browser and get the answer yourself? It would be like me sending someone an email asking them to do a search for me....

davej

alleepally

Originally posted by davej
A nice idea, which might come in handy the odd time for about the next year or so. However it's about 5 years too late. The upcoming generation of 3G mobile phones will essentially give all users full access to the internet on their phone (gprs isn't bad as it is for searching). Why would you want to wait for an indeterminate amount of time for an answer back from this service when you could just fire up your mobile web browser and get the answer yourself? It would be like me sending someone an email asking them to do a search for me....

davej

I've had this said to me before and to be honest, I have tried using gprs for web browsing and it is brutal. 3g services, I think that eventually it will become widespread (a 1 year timeframe for Ireland is extremely optimistic) but even when it does become widespread, there is still the usabilty question. A phone is a small device and doing research to find the answer to a question on a mobile phone is fiddly.

The value of this service is the human aspect. You're out and about, send the text, carry on with what you're doing and a short time later, you get a researched answer back as a text. No interruption of what you're doing; carry on with your conversation in the pub, stay fully attentive to what's happening about you etc. Even with web access on a phone, there will still be a lot of people out there who aren't technically savvy to enter the right search terms or find the right source of information. I have friends who would take an hour to find the same information I can get in maybe 3 or 4 minutes.

I'm not really arguing your point, but I do believe there will be a market for it even with widespread 3g adoption.

At the moment, this is gauging reaction to the service and seeing if it's viable. If this becomes a paid for text service, then the support and infrastructure will be there to give a specified time for when an answer will be returned.

So,in conclusion - I can see your point absolutely and maybe you could comment on the merits (or not) of the points I made above. It's valuable learning for me to get these points of view at this stage.

AdMMM

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Bah! In saying that, I'll probably use it!

BuffyBot

phone is a small device and doing research to find the answer to a question on a mobile phone is fiddly.

3G phones are a bugger to access anything on, trust me

shepthedog

Congrats.

Looks like you could be onto a winner there, its simple yet effective...

One problem, how do you expect to cope with demand once it hopefully becomes v popular?

alleepally

Originally posted by shepthedog
Congrats.

Looks like you could be onto a winner there, its simple yet effective...

One problem, how do you expect to cope with demand once it hopefully becomes v popular?

Cheers.

After establishing demand and people liked the concept, it would be a paid for text service and in that case there would be a team of researchers working remotely answering questions. Basically, anyone with a BB connection who had time to spare could log in to a web interface and take questions off the queue. The researchers would be paid of course.

It's early days but the feedback has been very positive so far.

Sev

Im actually quite impressed... on the bus, I tried to think of the most difficult question I could in the realm of a realistic answer, and settled on "Who named the duck-billed platypus"? and found it to be answered quite quickly and comprehensively. The internet truly is a wonderful tool.

I also had the nerve to ask what had been the most annoying question asked so far. Turns out it was "how many people does a giraffe kill in the average year".

What sadistic bastard sent that?

alleepally

I've had to suspend the service unfortunately.

There is a strong suspicion that an individual is sending "spoof" messages to the service (i.e. using software to generate a message pretending to be from another mobile number). This means a response goes out to someone who didn't even ask a question and the last thing I want is to be accused of spam.

So sadly, until I finish investigations , the service is offline.

I never thought that after only a few short days of the service getting some really good feedback and a bit of fun for all, that a spoilsport or spoilsports have gone out of their way to ruin it before it even has a chance to get going.

byte

That's a shame! Hope you resume soon. :dunno:

alleepally

Hopefully, I've been making progress in tracing the source. Some of the questions have been very entertaining! I'll be posting a few on the new forum feature on BTB soon.