Changes To Our International SMS

This is why I left Jaiku.

this is why i left jaiku and twitter !! pls bring back the sms notification !!

Good to hear you are preventing the abuse and fix the problems with the international SMS. This appears to be important feature for many, but I think we all can wait. At least it's still possible to use SMS for check-ins and posting.

Please fix the abuse problem and bring back SMS notifications for non US users ASAP.
A good deal of the appeal of BrightKite (and other similar services) is the instant notifications. If you don't solve this fast, I'm sure you will start loosing a lot of international users (including me).

PS. How come there is no abuse problem in the US?

I wonder how exactly "abuse" is defined here...

Oh, and by the way: I'd be willing to pay a monthly fee for a "Brightkite Plus" with international SMS.

Can we get a timeframe?

I really can't stress enough how important this feature is in the decision of which service to use. I moved to BK when Twitter disabled sms notification for international users, as did most of my friends. I like BK, but I think some of my friends found Twitter easier to use. If BK doesn't have sms notification available, I suspect a lot of people will either return to Twitter or give up on this kind of networking altogether.

I can't stress enough how SMS notifications on BK are the cherry. I, like a few others, wouldn't have issue with paying a monthly fee to have them. Please bring SMS notifications back to the UK ASAP!!!

I can only echo the above. SMS notifications are the reason for using Brightkite.

I'm going back to Jaiku for a while, I hope the problem will be fixed before I forget about Brightkite...

Just want to echo what everyone else is saying. SMS notifications was the reason for moving to BK from Twitter in the first place, and with many of my friends preferring Twitter I can see a move back there if it takes too long to resolve. I'd also be interested how abuse is only a problem for international notifications and not US ones.

so brightkite have finally followed twitter where SMS is concerned. they obviously can no longer afford to let us international users get SMS for free and so see this as an 'abuse of the feature'. the thing that gets me is that they surely must have seen this coming but decided to get enough of us hooked by attracting international twitter users before indefinitely stopping the service.

its a shame because BK was looking to be so much more than just a clone of twitter. the support guys have also been very good at responding to issues. though i have to say the SMS notification was always flaky to begin with.

for me it's time to switch back to twitter. particularly now that you can get FREE INTERNATIONAL SMS notifications via twe2.com!!!!!!

Very disappointed that this has happened, like many of the ppl above, I moved from twitter because of this. Also not very happy that this hasn't been properly publicised, hardly think little note on a settings page is fair notice for ppl using it primarily from their phones and wondering why the world has stopped

is this ever going to come back? or is it disable indefinitely ? if there's no chance of it ever coming back soon at least let us know.

This sucks...

Why don't you implement a limit on the number of sms received per week/day per user??? That way the "abuse" is controlled right???

Jaiku is working fine...

Almost three weeks since we lost international sms, and no communication about if or when it's coming back. I've heard several people express doubts that it will be back at all, and I know that a lot of people - myself included - are using BK much less than we were. If there's abuse, I understand that it has to be addressed, but surely there are better ways than removing the sms facility from *all* international users. I still like BK better than twitter, mainly because of the threading of comments - but twitter has a much larger number of users (including, I think, all of my BK contacts), which leaves BK needing something major to hold onto users - and that means sms. We need more updates on this at the very least, and the reinstatement of international sms as soon as possible.

any updates on the status of this?

Twitter & Bk are the only two i know that let international users to use txt, it is really missed and hopefully will be back on soon.

Well... this makes brightkite just another micro blogging site with no real advantage on twitter or jaiku! It's a pitty! Considering this was anounced a month ago and no real news since... I think now it would be time to know what to expect from bk and any further changes!!!

So with twitters announcement of sms notifications for vodafone users in the UK will this give BK the kick up the bum needed to get its international users back up and texting? If not, I guess we'll all go back to using twitter....

I have to say I'm very disappointed that there's been no action from BK on this. Not even an update on this thread for over a month. The reasons I switched to BK - the sms facility, the responsiveness to users - seem to be disappearing. I'm using BK less and less, as are most of my friends, and I can't see me bothering to check the webpage for updates for much longer. If abuse of the sms feature is the reason it was pulled, it shouldn't take too much to return it - perhaps with per-user limits or something - and I have to question whether the will to return international sms is actually there at all.

Any news about the problem? Do you have the solution in sight? This makes it difficult to tempt my friends to use Brightkite when SMS notifications not working.

This makes me really sad...

First Twitter removes SMS for international users, now you remove the SMS service altogether. What's next, removing the IM notifications? :(

Please give us some updates on this matter its really important for us...

For those that like the SMS option, they can sign up for Ping.fm which offers free SMS updating for every service that exists out here, you can update all of them at once or one at a time with their shortcuts...

Twitter now provides sms updates for Vodafone and O2 users in the UK - that includes me, as I'm on O2.

I like BK much better than Twitter. Don't make me go back...