Twitter cuts UK texting service
MICROBLOGGING SYSTEM TWITTER is fast losing popularity as last night it informed customers that it will no longer be providing text support in the UK.
The email sent to Twitter users last night said that the company will no longer be able to afford to support outbound SMS without improved arrangements with UK mobile operators.
The Twitter site, which allows users to send messages to people over the web, SMS and instant messages, will continue to allow messages to Twitter by mobile phone but will disappointingly no longer deliver messages and updates to people over SMS.
Twitter's co-founder Biz Stone said with a noticeable tear in his eye, "It pains us to take this measure. However, we need to avoid placing undue burden on our company and our service."
Stone estimates that even with a limit of 250 messages received per week, it could cost Twitter about $1,000 per user, per year to send out texts in the UK. The excuse for stopping this service was that Stone didn't want these charges to be passed on to the customers.
This announcement caused expected back-lash with confusion and anger among Twitter's large British contingent.
Since its launch in 2006 Twitter has gained 2.2 million users and last year received $15 million in funding from investors, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Union Square Ventures.
Alongside this latest blunder, the company has also never been able to say how to make the service pay.
Talking to The Guardian recently, Twitter's other co-founder Ev Williams lamented: "We don't have any specific plans for a payment system…but we definitely are striving for (and believe we can achieve) a built-in revenue model that is compatible with the open nature of Twitter and its ecosystem, rather than something tacked-on." µ
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It's not only in UK, it's ALL sms messages sent from their uk number, even to international phone numbers have been cut.

Twitter it's looking to establish some deals with local/regional telecoms so that it can avoid at least sending international SMSs, which cost quite a lot if they send in the volume they were used to.

All their sms users received the following message:

=====
Hi,

I'm sending you this note because you registered a mobile device to work with Twitter over our UK number. I wanted to let you know that we are making some changes to the way SMS works on Twitter. There is some good news and some bad news.

I'll start with the bad news. Beginning today, Twitter is no longer delivering outbound SMS over our UK number. If you enjoy receiving updates from Twitter via +44 762 480 1423, we are recommending that you explore some suggested alternatives.

Note: You will still be able to UPDATE over our UK number.

Before I go into more detail, here's a bit of good news: Twitter will be introducing several new, local SMS numbers in countries throughout Europe in the coming weeks and months. These new numbers will make Twittering more accessible for you if you've been using SMS to send long-distance updates from outside the UK.

Why are we making these changes?

Mobile operators in most of the world charge users to send updates. When you send one message to Twitter and we send it to ten followers, you aren't charged ten times--that's because we've been footing the bill. When we launched our free SMS service to the world, we set the clock ticking. As the service grew in popularity, so too would the price.

Our challenge during this window of time was to establish relationships with mobile operators around the world such that our SMS services could become sustainable from a cost perspective.
We achieved this goal in Canada, India, and the United States.
We can provide full incoming and outgoing SMS service without passing along operator fees in these countries.

We took a risk hoping to bring more nations onboard and more mobile operators around to our way of thinking but we've arrived at a point where the responsible thing to do is slow our costs and take a different approach. Since you probably don't live in Canada, India, or the US, we recommend receiving your Twitter updates via one of the following methods.

m.twitter.com works on browser-enabled phones
m.slandr.net works on browser-enabled phones
TwitterMail.com works on email-enabled phones
Cellity [http://bit.ly/12bw4R] works on java-enabled phones
TwitterBerry [http://bit.ly/MFAfJ] works on BlackBerry phones
Twitterific [http://bit.ly/1WxjwQ] works on iPhones

Twitter SMS by The Numbers

It pains us to take this measure. However, we need to avoid placing undue burden on our company and our service. Even with a limit of 250 messages received per week, it could cost Twitter about $1,000 per user, per year to send SMS outside of Canada, India, or the US. It makes more sense for us to establish fair billing arrangements with mobile operators than it does to pass these high fees on to our users.

Twitter will continue to negotiate with mobile operators in Europe, Asia, China, and The Americas to forge relationships that benefit all our users. Our goal is to provide full, two-way
service with Twitter via SMS to every nation in a way that is sustainable from a cost perspective. Talks with mobile companies
around the world continue. In the meantime, more local numbers for updating via SMS are on the way. We'll keep you posted.

Thank you for your attention,
Biz Stone, Co-founder
Twitter, Inc.
http://twitter.com/biz
These are the kinds of idiotic unprofitable ventures that caused the dot-com bust in 2001. You can't just attract users to some free service and think it'll bringing in money in the end without a plan. Not every company can be bought up by some sugar daddy like Google.