iPhones and Blackberries with all-you-can-eat data plans may be commonplace in Silicon Valley, but for the vast majority of mobile phone users in the United States, data plans are still an unneeded luxury. That said, nearly every phone built in the last decade includes SMS – the immensely popular text messaging format that now counts over 2.4 billion users worldwide.
To capitalize on the ubiquity of SMS, a number of companies such as Pizza Hut and Amazon now allow users to place orders and query information using some basic commands in a text messages. Unfortunately, these commands are clunky and impractical for most users (for example, to order my favorite Pizza from Pizza Hut I would need to enter “O FAV”).
SmartTouch, a mobile software company that launched at last week’s TechCrunch50 DemoPit, is looking to fix this. The company has developed a suite of basic widgets for mobile phones that visualize these SMS services, allowing users to navigate through an intuitive menu instead of having to remember keywords and commands. As CEO John McDonough explains, it’s sort of “like moving from the days of command line MS-DOS to Windows 3.1″.
At launch the site is offering a widget bundle that includes support for Amazon, Chase Bank, Facebook, Google, and over 20 other widgets, with more on the way. Widgets are currently available on phones running Windows Mobile 6, with plans to expand to more platforms by the end of the year.
SmartTouch has a good idea, but the technology behind it seems extremely basic – essentially assigning commands to buttons on the keypad. The fact that it’s also a download also hinders it, as the people who this will appeal to most probably won’t be comfortable downloading new software onto their phones. But if the company can partner with manufacturers and come as a default app on new handsets, it could become a very popular way to incorporate extra functionality into even the most basic mobile phones.
I would love to order pizza without having to talk on the phone. I’m glad someone’s working on that. Seriously. I don’t want to TALK on my phone. I’d rather text.
Man I really hope you were being sarcastic there about TALKING on a PHONE.
Hey Mixergy dude! You are becoming very very very irritating now. Stop spamming all techcrunch posts with your nonsense and forced comments just so your blog gets a few clicks.
^_^
http://gamepver.com
How long before these companies start SMS spamming (as signup probably includes opt-in)? For example, Pizza Hut sending me advert around dinner time?
I’m not sure I’m cool with such a direct relationship and I’d rather have an intermediary brokering relationships with fast food joints.
Amazon would also be somewhat of a problem for me (I get too much bacn from them already). Chase? maybe, but everytime I have to go into an actual chase branch, the people want to upsell me on some account offering or some other crap.
Unfortunately, 99.9% of large commercial operations have done nothing to gain my trust, and seem intent on trying to “sell” something when I’m clearly nt in “buy mode”.
P.S. Funny that the Mixergy dude makes it into the top 5 comment spots of every post, often having to reply to someone else’s comment to get there (whether it is truly related or not).
Two issues I see…
1) I assume you want to use this because you don’t have a data plan. How are those same people going to download the program?
2) Partnering with manufactures? I’m sure carriers want to pre-install applications that are designed to get around having a data plan…
but then again SMS texts do probably have higher profit margins….
Let’s bring it on to my country; Indonesia! Wait, let’s just steal the idea ok.
now, people will be able to order pizza by sms. ha ha ha
@Frank – funny you mention that. The first time I ordered online via pizza hut, they sent me a text message letting me know that I had opted-out of text message ordering. Hah hah hah.
So interesting side note: Why didn’t SmartTouch announce an iPhone app as well? Oh, wait, you can’t [REDACTED] using the existing [REDACTED].
Seems like a good idea. As per smarttouch team, smarttouch users can use features of the internet without any dataplan. But the problem is users need internet connection to download both the application and widgets. Also to view some of the ads served through this application. I think this is just contradictory to what smarttouch offers.
One more thing is that, in Asian countries like India, dataplan is much cheaper than sms charge for shortcodes. Otherwise smarttouch has to cope with sms service providers to reduce user’s burden.
Let us see how smartouch hits other countries….
Then regarding data sent as sms, smarttouch doesnt assure any security. How can I trust you to give my account details just as an sms text?
Regards
Nash
Hi Nash,
You can also download the application to your computer and then install it to ur phone..
- sridhar
Getting mobile users to download is a challenge for any off-deck app. While not the only way to get SmartTouch on your phone, for many people, OTA downloads will be the easiest (at least in the short-term). SmartTouch attempts to break down these barriers by 1) creating one download for many branded widgets, 2) making it dead simple for the end user, 3) one time download and then use your existing text messaging plan, 4) offering a free application, 5) depending on your carrier’s pay-as-you-go data rates, the charge will be about the cost of a ringtone – which fits into current purchasing behavior. This is especially true for our upcoming J2ME release.
SmartTouch is working on more ways to break down barriers and give mass-market users dead simple, intuitive access to useful content and services on their phone.
And Alex – I’m with you. If choosing between 6 clicks on my phone or having to walk through my order with a CSR at Pizza Hut (or Papa John’s) while I’m trying to watch a game….give me the 6 clicks.
-Craig
Feel free get in touch: craig (at) smarttouchmobileinc.com
“SmartTouch. Cool stuff without the sucky 3G network.”
I could see the widgets morphing to cover non-SMS applications & interfaces, too. Because SmartTouch is basically putting a better user-friendly interface onto a cumbersome, old, yet ubiquitous (i.e. text messaging) interface. As apps become more complex and stress SMS’ usability I can see more true apps instead of just text message wrappers.
Smart Touch could very well revolutionize the industry. This is definitely a case of needing to reach out to early adopters and college students as part of the platform roll-out nationwide. I’m interested to see what happens next.
good smarttouch sms apps for iphone users, it will be easy for us to order pizza and other service.
get smarttouch for Blackberry too… I m really exicted to play with it….!!11