Having a Conversation on SMS
We’ll confess that we love Twitter and what it has done for the micro-blogging community. But, at the same time we’ve noticed that using Twitter over SMS tends to get out of hand very quickly. We’re focused on making Pring an excellent SMS-only experience and that means controlling the level of noise that is generated at Pring. Here’s an example from Twitter:
Suppose @Ali from Twitter says: “I LOVE the view from Burj Al-Khalifa!”
@Ali’s friend @Sana replies: “Me too, I love it!”
If you were following @Sana but not @Ali and were only on SMS, the message “Me too, I love it!” won’t fall in context. What are they talking about? A common solution to this problem is for twitterers to RT the old update:
@Sana replies: “Me too, I love it! RT @Ali I LOVE the view from Burj Al-Khalifa!”
This gives you the context but as you can see, it quickly takes away space for your comment. And what if @Ali comments back to @Sana?
Ali: @Sana where are you, let’s meet up! RT @Sana Me too, I love it! RT @Ali I LOVE the view from Burj Al-Khalifa!
See how quickly does the conversation get out of hand? The final issue with approach is that you may not be very interested in this particular conversation but might still like @Sana’s updates, so why should you get all these comments from @Sana?
We like how FriendFeed and Facebook have solved this problem. If Ali was on either of these networks, comments on his updates appear under his main update “I LOVE the view from Burj Al-Khalifa!”. This gives context on the conversation and reduces the amount of work @Sana has to do to have a conversation (no more RTs) and will give her more space for her comment.
This works well online, but how do we make it work on SMS? If you receive an update from someone you follow, this is how it’ll look:
Ali: I LOVE the view from Burj Al-Khalifa!
r10
Notice the r10 at the bottom? If you want to comment on this Pring, you can do so by prefixing your update with r10 such as:
r10 Me too, I love it!
This comment will be sent to the original Pringer as well as to anyone who has commented on this Pring so far. A comment appears in a different format:
r10 Sana: Me too, I love it!
We think this approach is better when having conversations over SMS but it still adds complexity which can be improved more. We’re working on a much better simplification of this feature so that conversations over SMS will not require any additional thought or prefixing by Pringers. We’ll be launching this feature this week for our Zong users. Please stay tuned, we will blog about it soon!
by @Nash
January 12th, 2010 at 11:01 am
I have only seen how facebook sends text messages and frankly they are bad. What they do is that they add a facebook url in the text. The users can go to that url and see whats happening. Then there are commands which the users can use described here http://www.du.ae/en/section/mobile/content-mobile/facebook-mobile
In essence they are using texting as notifications. I haven’t seen facebook use prefixes the way you’ve described for conversations, so I can’t comment on it.
I like the way you have proposed a prefix to keep track of the conversation on the server. For some phones perhaps you can give out a Java application to ease texting. The app would group conversations by their prefixes and on reply it would include the prefix and person’s name or handle.
Now the important part. You’ve tried to solve the issue of conversation on text using twitter’s model as a problem. Truth is twitter is much too restricted and people always find a way to communicate through it so taming the method fails because everyone has a different way of communication. Your prefix appears as a hash-tag to me in this context. People reply with a hash tag and the conversation happens through the tag. Since people always can relate to a text based tag they would know what they are commenting on. In your case r10 is a prefix which means it helps the servers know where the next comment would go but user if he leaves his cell phone collect different conversations overtime, he wouldn’t know what r10 conversation was about and what is he supposed to reply in r34 conversation a friend involved him into?
I hope I have made it clear that twitter’s descriptive hash tag seems better than a prefix, even with text messages. Even without a Java application this seems more user friendly. Downside, you won’t be able to keep track on the servers, which in case of Pring is important. You’ll have to stick with prefix in the matter.
January 15th, 2010 at 2:22 am
We can’t use a Java Application because in Pakistan, the only method of delivery would be GRPS which is very low penetration and that too over compatible handsets. We’re focused on achieving a broad audience by using SMS primarily.
We support Hash-Tags over SMS. You can track any word with the track command (like TRACK #LahoreFood) and you’ll get real-time updates when someone mentions the tracked word (you can also track yourself with TRACK @NAME).
But when replying to r10, the system links it to the main conversation (doesn’t actually show r10 to anyone other than you). Of course, when you’re involved in multiple conversations, it can get hard to know what was the original thread. We’re working on simplifying that with either a default RT of the parent at the end of a comment (auto-appended) or a command to get you the parent. Which one will work our best? We’ll let our users decide!
January 28th, 2010 at 9:39 pm
[...] talked about the complexity of having a conversation over SMS before. The updates you receive from anyone you follow on Pring has a number at the end. If you wanted to [...]
February 17th, 2010 at 8:11 pm
this service is nice but working very slow.make it fast thanx
March 12th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
nash yaaar ..tel me k wut can v do on facebook via ping except status uploads like
1.how can i reply to a status
2.can i add a friend
3.can i get my notifications etc..
is it possible then tell me howw..
regards
jibraan
May 10th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
hello pring is nice service but it is showing some problume on using UFONE..
August 10th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
This service is very good and nice but working very slow please make it fast
Thanks
August 16th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
cool i love it