Looking for Ideas to facilitate group communication on the road

[Eric Shubert]

Most (all?) have email to sms gateways.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/email-to-sms/
http://sms411.net/how-to-send-email-to-a-phone/
You should be able to use any sort of email list software to send a 
message to list members' SMS addresses.

I'm not sure about sending from SMS to email though.

-- 
-Eric 'shubes'

On 06/05/2011 12:32 PM, Mark Phillips wrote:
> This group always has great suggestions for my odd requirements, so here
> I go again....;-)
>
> My two club softball teams are going to out of town for nationals at the
> end of June (~26 families). (We might even make ESPN...) We need a way
> to send messages to each other, and as a group. Up to this point, I have
> been running a private group email list that everyone can use to send
> and receive emails for the group. But not everyone has Internet or email
> on their phone, so the group email list is not the best option for
> everyone. My android phone can send a text message to a group, so I can
> handle the issue of schedule changes. But, not everyone's phone on the
> two teams can send a group text, which makes those impromptu 'team
> lunch' difficult for someone in the group to schedule, unless I become
> the group sms operator, which is **not** something I want to do! I am
> wondering if there is some open source technology that can help us....
>
> My requirements
> 1. Send sms to a whole group, part of a group, or individually
> 2. Work on low end cell phones - ie no Internet plan or email
> 3. Does not require a lot of setup, either for me or for each person
> going. The people on the trip are not techies, but parents of 11-15 year
> old softball players (and the players as well).
> 4. Free, or really low cost as I only need it for ~10 days.
>
> I have a Debian server on Linode for our web site, so I could add some
> more software....
>
> I thought of these ideas:
> 1. pass out a cell phone list to everyone. That solves individual sms
> messages, but not group/sub group messaging for those who don't have
> that on their phone
> 2. twitter - maybe a private group? I have not used twitter before, but
> I will have challenges getting everyone to sign up for an account.
> 3. some other sms micro-blog app on my own server?
> 4. Face to face communication.....how old fashion!
> 5. Phone trees......from my experience, only works in an emergency.
>
> I am focused on sms only because it seems to be available to every
> player and parent on the trip. I am open to any other suggestions y'all
> may have!
>
> Thanks,
>
> Mark
>