Guest chucky.egg Posted January 9, 2006 Report Posted January 9, 2006 Nah, missed that one, and it was one I really wanted to get on too! (still got a 3G data card gathering dust if anyone wants one! :)) A while back I built an SMS interface onto our company network, so I was hoping to get on the trial and see what it could do for us. Hijacking it for business use may not have been what they had in mind though?
Guest chucky.egg Posted January 10, 2006 Report Posted January 10, 2006 Ahh, government contracts - that's what you want! 3p/msg on a ?3/month subscription
Guest atonks Posted January 10, 2006 Report Posted January 10, 2006 ' date='Jan 9 2006, 20:13' post='23']I thought Orange Gatherings (the SMS based community) was fantastic, but the trial ended (I provided my feedback when they called) and I never heard anything again :) I wonder what happened to it? I guess they canned it? P I was on that trial. Great concept, which worked really well for me. I had a family group, and a couple of work groups set up. The pricing on the trial was great, but I guess it would've increased if it had gone 'commercial' Real shame it died. I'm sure it would have made Orange some money. But.... Orange do seem to have lost it recently. I've gone to T-Mobile. Better products available on better tarrifs.
Guest James Posted January 10, 2006 Report Posted January 10, 2006 Real shame it died. I'm sure it would have made Orange some money. But.... Orange do seem to have lost it recently. I've gone to T-Mobile. Better products available on better tarrifs. Yep was a shame, orange are losing it... i was with orange for 8 years then went to T-Mobile..
Guest Dade Posted January 11, 2006 Report Posted January 11, 2006 ' date='Jan 9 2006, 21:32' post='31']Yeah, i've built SMS software in the past too, killed dead by the ridiculous charges for SMS now of course! :) P Remember the good 'ol days when SMS was only 2p?
Guest Jay3gsm Posted January 11, 2006 Report Posted January 11, 2006 Or even free? How many of you were on Locust, when it was around?
Guest chucky.egg Posted January 11, 2006 Report Posted January 11, 2006 Yeah, I remember Locust In fact I think it's still going, although they must be struggling now with the advent of readily available smart phones.
Guest chucky.egg Posted January 11, 2006 Report Posted January 11, 2006 ' date='Jan 11 2006, 20:15' post='107']Doesn't seem to have been updated in a LOOOOOOOOOONG time. Their banner says "Texting since 1996 and onwards into 2003!" :) The only thing I regularly used Locust for was mobile email in the days when I had a Nokia 3110 I don't know if that sort of thing really has a future anymore. SMS, Email, IM, PushToTalk and even forums like these are readily available from smartphones. Maybe a dignified burial is more fitting?
Guest chucky.egg Posted January 11, 2006 Report Posted January 11, 2006 Just browsing Locust forums and came across this: http://www.locust.net/modules.php?op=modlo...c=121&forum=1&1 Those names look familiar to anyone?
Guest Vanessa Posted January 11, 2006 Report Posted January 11, 2006 Locust was fantastic. I loved the way people could start groups based on a topic, and that you got kicked out regularly for no reason whatsoever other than the fact that everyone seems to find it so entertaining! X-Chat was a good initiative too (but you wasted some serious hours in there Paul!) :)
Guest bronksy Posted January 11, 2006 Report Posted January 11, 2006 yes yes yes.. locust.. was hilarious. The days gone by trying to find a foreign SMS centre that would allow us to send sms via it because the networks had not sorted out x-network SMS/billing. Austria was my favourite :) 0973 numbers could send for free to more centres than other numbers. I was unlucky with my 0976 number! Does anyone else remember when people got paranoid in thinking that something more sinister was afoot.. like someone was saving all the SMS sent through it and monitoring what we were all 'chatting' about...
Guest Tim Posted January 12, 2006 Report Posted January 12, 2006 It was a real shame about Gatherings. Why do they trial things, get good response and then never pursue it. I used it with a group of mates on holiday which was great for all keeping in touch etc.
Guest Jay3gsm Posted January 12, 2006 Report Posted January 12, 2006 I was user Jay on Locust (tried Jay3gsm but I wanted a shorter name, so I could use the extra few characters for my messages!!) I used to mod on the 3G, mobilechat and mobilenews channels, plus there were quite a few more mobile focused channels, mainly surrounding Orange as at least 95% of users were on the Orange network at the time. Some months I couls send 700+ SMS to Locust and I know a few people whou would send even more! It was great when a GPRS gateway was set up so you could post messages that way but still receive via SMS. Saved me a small fortune. Back then the best GPRS phone was probably the 6310i, the 8310 came to market shortly after, and the 7650 was released shortly before Locust started to decline to Orange imagineering pulling its support. I recall the service went to IM, where you could login via Yahoo messenger (MSN was always too unreliable) and read all messages that were sent whilst you were offline (I used agile messenger on my phone for this, worked very well) or otherwise I'd use the two way GPRS gateway, but over time as peoplel ost interest it became unreliable. I think for most people back in those days the simplicity of SMS is what made Locust easy to use. Now, though, with people more tuned in to browsing, and with 3G access, etc, a Locust system could work again. I'm certainly interested.
Guest sporkguy Posted February 11, 2006 Report Posted February 11, 2006 Is anyone else on the i-text beta? Basically I-Text (www.i-text.it) is a Java App that runs on pretty much any phone that supports it, that allows you to send texts for free thru your GPRS or 3G connection. You basically earn credits by viewing small ads on your mobile or on the website - so far I've sent about a hundred and my GPRS bill for last month wasn't much over what I usually spend.
Guest shuurajou Posted February 11, 2006 Report Posted February 11, 2006 ' date='Jan 9 2006, 20:13' post='23']I thought Orange Gatherings (the SMS based community) was fantastic, but the trial ended (I provided my feedback when they called) and I never heard anything again :) I wonder what happened to it? I guess they canned it? P You know what's funny? My next door neighbor was contracted by Orange and hosted part of that trial in his attic lol.
Guest pcdoc Posted February 14, 2006 Report Posted February 14, 2006 might try that i-text doins myself
Guest fluffcat1 Posted February 15, 2006 Report Posted February 15, 2006 ' date='Jan 11 2006, 21:40' post='123']I had, and still have, an 0(7)973. Oh, the Kudos :) There were some great foreign SMSCs that worked for ages, then some that would survive an hour before being killed by all the traffic. Those were the days... P P 07973 prefixes - are they good then? Orange still issue numbers with them, got one just over a year ago. Richard
Guest sporkguy Posted February 15, 2006 Report Posted February 15, 2006 For a while D500s were being issued with 07973, and even now its one of the more popular prefixes I hear daily.
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