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Introducing Our Ridiculously Simple Twilio SMS API

blog.twilio.com

31–40 of 45 posts

Re: Introducing Our Ridiculously Simple Twilio SMS API

#31
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, the throttle is 1 message per minute per phone number (which is $1/month), not per account. -danielle (@twilio)

Really? One per minute per number? That's a pretty big limitation. Edit: I think Danielle just mistyped. From the FAQ: "Each of your Twilio SMS-enabled phone numbers can send SMS messages at a rate of 1 message per second. You can make requests to Twilio as fast as you like, and Twilio will queue the messages, releasing them at a rate of 1 message per second. It is not possible to adjust this rate."

Either way, imagine you need to send out 100 messages. That would be 100 seconds (or even worse 100 minutes.) Imagine if you needed to send out 1,000 or a million. Its going to be hard to build a solely SMS service around this based on that limitation. I think this is awesome if you want to add SMS alerts to your existing website or build a proof of concept, but I don't think your going to build an SMS app on top of this API.

Re: Introducing Our Ridiculously Simple Twilio SMS API

#32
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? One per minute per number? That's a pretty big limitation. Edit: I think Danielle just mistyped. From the FAQ: "Each of your Twilio SMS-enabled phone numbers can send SMS messages at a rate of 1 message per second. You can make requests to Twilio as fast as you like, and Twilio will queue the messages, releasing them at a rate of 1 message per second. It is not possible to adjust this rate."

Either way, imagine you need to send out 100 messages. That would be 100 seconds (or even worse 100 minutes.) Imagine if you needed to send out 1,000 or a million. Its going to be hard to build a solely SMS service around this based on that limitation. I think this is awesome if you want to add SMS alerts to your existing website or build a proof of concept, but I don't think your going to build an SMS app on top of…

The point is: you buy more phone numbers at $1/month to increase your capacity.

Re: Introducing Our Ridiculously Simple Twilio SMS API

#33
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? One per minute per number? That's a pretty big limitation. Edit: I think Danielle just mistyped. From the FAQ: "Each of your Twilio SMS-enabled phone numbers can send SMS messages at a rate of 1 message per second. You can make requests to Twilio as fast as you like, and Twilio will queue the messages, releasing them at a rate of 1 message per second. It is not possible to adjust this rate."

Either way, imagine you need to send out 100 messages. That would be 100 seconds (or even worse 100 minutes.) Imagine if you needed to send out 1,000 or a million. Its going to be hard to build a solely SMS service around this based on that limitation. I think this is awesome if you want to add SMS alerts to your existing website or build a proof of concept, but I don't think your going to build an SMS app on top of…

Well if your service is sending out 100 messages in one second then you can probably afford the $1-$2/month charge to add more numbers.

Re: Introducing Our Ridiculously Simple Twilio SMS API

#34
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, the throttle is 1 message per minute per phone number (which is $1/month), not per account. -danielle (@twilio)

Really? One per minute per number? That's a pretty big limitation. Edit: I think Danielle just mistyped. From the FAQ: "Each of your Twilio SMS-enabled phone numbers can send SMS messages at a rate of 1 message per second. You can make requests to Twilio as fast as you like, and Twilio will queue the messages, releasing them at a rate of 1 message per second. It is not possible to adjust this rate."

Eek yes, 1 msg per second per number... I think it's time for me to go to bed.

danielle (@twilio)

Re: Introducing Our Ridiculously Simple Twilio SMS API

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either way, imagine you need to send out 100 messages. That would be 100 seconds (or even worse 100 minutes.) Imagine if you needed to send out 1,000 or a million. Its going to be hard to build a solely SMS service around this based on that limitation. I think this is awesome if you want to add SMS alerts to your existing website or build a proof of concept, but I don't think your going to build an SMS app on top of…

Well if your service is sending out 100 messages in one second then you can probably afford the $1-$2/month charge to add more numbers.

Especially since you are already paying $3 per minute for the 100 messages.

Re: Introducing Our Ridiculously Simple Twilio SMS API

#37
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Zackattack, It's bi-directional... ie, cookie state for the conversation. But in the quickstart, if you think about it... you only increment the counter once for the received message and the reply that the script is going to send, so the counter works out correctly. You had us thinking for a few minutes there :) -jeff @twilio

Cool, thanks for getting back to me so quickly. To clarify, the API/platform supports the following two scenarios: 1) You make an HTTP POST to the SMS resource 2) Twilio automatically sends out a text message, and simultaneously does a GET/POST of your script, and $_REQUEST contains "From", "To", and "Body" keys AND 1) Your Twilio phone # receives a text message 2) Twilio automatically pings your script, and inside t…

Twilio only hits your URL when somebody sends an SMS to your phone number. So in the #1 scenario, if you sent a message via the REST API, Twilio wouldn't hit your URL. If the person replied, then your URL would be hit.

Re: Introducing Our Ridiculously Simple Twilio SMS API

#38
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if your service is sending out 100 messages in one second then you can probably afford the $1-$2/month charge to add more numbers.

Especially since you are already paying $3 per minute for the 100 messages.

http://www.twilio.com/pricing-signup says that it's 3 cents/SMS - which, yes, works out to be $3 - but not because it's per minute.

Re: Introducing Our Ridiculously Simple Twilio SMS API

#40
"Previously, building SMS apps was hard... "

Is this true? In the UK at least it's been ridiculously simple and cheap to build SMS apps for years. I've built several and the last I had up and running in an hour from start to finish. What's a little harder (for me anyway) is coming up with ideas for SMS services that are actually useful.

The rest of Twilio's stuff looks awesome though, I wish they'd bring it to the UK!

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