Building the Realtime User Experience

Chapter 8. SMS

Previous chapters have focused on communicating with users in realtime while they are sitting in front of their computer. In this chapter, we step back from the desktop and venture out into the real world.

A big part of creating realtime user experiences means delivering messages to a user, whether she is on the website, in a chat window, or via text messages sent to her phone. Users increasingly expect that the applications they use online can notify them of updates long after they have stepped away from the computer. But sending a message to a user is only half the battle; modern applications need to be able to receive messages that originate as SMS messages from any old mobile phone. Luckily, there are several ways to accomplish this.

The SMS Landscape

There are several different methods of sending or receiving an SMS message sent to or from a user. Most wireless providers offer an email address that can be used to send an SMS message to a user. There are also several different providers of that offer varying degrees of SMS integration, including the ability to send and receive messages to specific mobile phones through a simple API. The most complete option wold be to connect a GSM/GPRS modem to a computer and send and receive messages just like you’re reading from and writing to a local landline-based modem. Sadly, that’s outside the scope of this chapter.

Email to SMS

The easiest way to send an SMS to a user is simply by sending an email. If your application ...