Fifteen Cents a Tweet? No Thanks
That groan you hear is from from our Twitter friends north of the border.
The good news. Late last week Mashable reported that Twitter partnered with Bell Mobility so Canadian users could send and receive tweets via SMS.
The bad? The Star reports that the cost for doing so will be 15 cents for incoming and outgoing messages.
Those pennies add up. An incoming stream of 1,000 tweets a day isn’t unreasonable (100 people tweeting 10 times per day) but would cost you $150 if you’re accessing them by phone.
“Because Twitter is a third-party service, the messages are considered premium and not covered by our plans,” said Julie Smithers, a Bell spokesperson. “This aligns with industry standards regarding third-party premium messaging.”
The irony? The New York Times outlined in December how charging for SMS is a boondoggle to begin with. Simply, it doesn’t cost the carriers anything to carry the data.
Michael Cervieri is a ScribeLabs co-founder and an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs where he teaches a course called Tubes, Code and Content. On Twitter, he's @bmunch.
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