Looking for Ideas to facilitate group communication on the road

[Mark Phillips]

Eric,

You are correct, I can send am email to sms. The problem is enabling
everyone in the group, with only SMS on the phone, to send messages to
everyone else, or a sub group, using just sms.

Mark

On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 1:02 PM, Eric Shubert <ejs at shubes.net> wrote:

> 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
>>
>>
>
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