08 Sep 08 Pinger
This free service has been around for a while, but there’s so much new stuff out there, that it’s impossible to keep up, and it’s inevitable that you miss some things along the way. Pinger is one of those.
What does it do?
First, go to http://pinger.com and sign up. Then you can start adding contacts. All you need to do is to add their name, their mobiel number, and perhaps their email address.
You get a number from pinger to call when you set the service up. You call this number, say your friends name, and speak your message. They get a text message giving them a number to call back on. They call back, listen to the message, and they can reply to you.
So, you say, what’s special about that? It sounds like voicemail. This is true, but there’s more.
You can ask for a text message to be sent back to you when your friend listens to their message, so you know they’ve received it.
You can also put your contacts into groups. Perhaps you meet up with a regular few friends on Friday night. You could add them to a group, and then send a message to the whole group at once. That’s one phone call, one number to remember, and one message to speak.
If you’ve got bluetooth, you could set Pinger on a speed dial, and even drop a quick message when you’re in the car, to everyone you want to at once. It works too, when you want to message your friends to meet for lunch, but you don’t want the boss to see you calling everyone on the phone to arrange it. One quick call, it’s done.
As yet, and I’ve only been playing around with it for a few hours – I can’t see any cons. I recommend you give it a try.
Tags: boss, friday night, friends name, lunch, new stuff, phone call, pinger, speed dial, text message
10 Aug 08 Social Media – Twitter
I guess when you use many online services, and when many people in your online circle do too, you tend to be a little surprised when you find those that have never heard of it.
One example of this is Twitter.
I use Twitter daily, multiple times daily. What do I use it for? I keep in touch with the wide world with world news from the BBC; I get hurricane alert news; Cricket scores, and local weather. I also keep track of some of the local bloggers and them of me, as we tweet snippets during the day.
I also use it to keep in touch with my wife when we in different places, as it’s easy to use via SMS on a cellphone. It’s the brevity that’s good too. Not a huge amount of options – just 140 characters of text (which can be a URL) and away you go.
Perhaps it sounds a pointless little app. What’s wrong with a phone call, or just a text message. Well, nothing perhaps, but that forced brevity is good compared to a phone call that is meant to be short, but goes on for a half hour or more; twittering is easier if you’re at a PC, than finding the cellphone and using the keypad, even if you’ve got a latest generation smartphone.
I would suggest you try it out if you haven’t. You might find it’s more useful than you imagined.
Tags: alert news, bbc, bloggers, brevity, cellphone, cricket scores, different places, half hour, hurricane, local weather, multiple times, phone call, sms, snippets, text message
