Comments on: Swarmteams: communicate like animals by SMS

By: Techcrunch » Blog Archive » Talkster Launches VOIP Bridging Service For The Enterprise

Mon, 11 Dec 2006 07:12:59 +0000

[...] Talkster’s device agnostic model is reminiscent of text based JumpChat and Swarmteams, but incorporating phone calls makes the model much more powerful. The Web interface was a sacrifice but it will at least get Talkster in front of the maximum number of people. An easy-to-use client will really make the service hum and make it far more attractive to test than Jajah or Rebtel. Still, we have yet to see if this is the killer VOIP service we have been waiting for. [...]

By: A look at eight multi-person SMS services « BIG Mobile research

A look at eight multi-person SMS services « BIG Mobile research — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 00:18:54 +0000

[...] Swarmteams does a whole lot of things, though we weren’t able to get it to work well in testing for our original review. You might have better luck, and if so then this Irish service could well be worth using. [...]

By: A look at eight multi-person SMS services » JenIT

A look at eight multi-person SMS services » JenIT — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 15:37:55 +0000

By: Techcrunch » Blog Archive » A look at eight multi-person SMS services

Techcrunch » Blog Archive » A look at eight multi-person SMS services — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 04:40:06 +0000

By: Anton

Anton — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 11:47:49 +0000

how about http://www.moblabber.com.. same features but different approach.

By: NeoTechie

NeoTechie — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 15:02:00 +0000

InWeb 2.0, there is always room for improvement. If one consumer had issues, then other will also have issues. However, thanks for the lowdown.

By: Ken Thompson

Ken Thompson — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 10:42:37 +0000

Marshall

Thanks for your comments which are very useful to us as we launch our new service! I am sorry you had some frustrations in testing the product but I am also encouraged by your very positive comments on the basic swarmteams concept and vision.

Heres a few quick things, which we have not yet properly communicated in the product user info, which should help a new user:

1. You only get copied on your own messages if the box in your profile is ticked – we find users like this comfort at the start when they are getting used to the system but then just turn it off by unticking the box ‘receive copy of own messages’

2. From our delivery statistics all your SMS messages in your 10 or so test group broadcasts were successfully sent and received – bar one which we are investigating. In terms of speed of delivery our consistent user feedback is that we generally achieve sub 10 seconds in all broadcasts and replies to the US or Europe so I will investigate why yours was slower.

3. One of the limits of SMS is the 160 character restriction. Only the text which you put in the ‘subject’ box of a message is sent via SMS. Any text you put in the ‘body’ goes out by email or IM – it does not go to SMS. This might have caused some of your frustration?

4. We need to ensure users understand that Swarmteams is a ‘short messaging system’ where you convey as much info as you can in the short message (subject) as this is all your mobile phone users will receive. Although the 160 characters appears a limitation of SMS it is in fact a major strength as it is exactly the right size for effective messaging in groups. This does cause user confusion at the start and we are looking at how we can improve how we manage it.

Anyway – many thanks for test driving Swarmteams and I look forward to ensuring you get a smoother ride next time!

Best Regards

Ken Thompson
Founder and CEO, Swarmteams

By: Shlomo Weizmann

Shlomo Weizmann — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 09:06:58 +0000

‘Mob of donkeys’ mwuhahahaha that was good…

By: Robin Good

Robin Good — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 07:16:48 +0000

Hi Marshall and thank you for this good review. I am rather curious to know more about the issues you have encountered when testing Swarmteams as my experience (which is definitely biased) has been quite positive until now. I even use Swarm-it! to send a daily notification to my virtual newsroom spread between Italy, Argentina and Japan with extreme ease of use and split-second performance.

To me Swarteams is very easy to use and outside of issues I may have not been able to be exposed to, very effective.

If you have not had the time to give it a look I have shot a full screencast video of how the tool works and shared my personal opinions about it on the day of its release:
http://tinyurl.com/jfwen

Look forward to learn more!

By: Brian McConnell

Brian McConnell — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 23:26:23 +0000

Radio Handi offers a similar service that enables users to create groups about any topic, and to communicate among themselves via email (listserv), SMS (alerts and chat) and voice (conference calling and group voice message boards). The service was relaunched recently with a new site design, and is a local call in over 30 countries (SMS is currently available in the US and Canada). It is a hosted service, so no desktop or mobile client software is required.

The service also includes some interesting telecasting features, such as the ability to broadcast a conference call as a live MP3 stream, which is useful for things like distance learning, ad hoc broadcasts for live events, etc. Although the service is more audio/voice focused, the email and SMS functionality makes it easy to send broadcast emails and SMS out to a group, as well as to do simple SMS group chats.