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Twilio Adds Low-Cost, Two-Way MMS Picture Messaging to Its API Cloud

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Re: Twilio Adds Low-Cost, Two-Way MMS Picture Messaging to Its API Cloud

#2
This is an amazing biz dev achievement. Twilio seems to be getting closer to aggregating all of the hard stuff in telco land every day.

It's hard to overstate just how hard this is to do. This isn't as simple as going to an aggregator and getting SMS done, MMS has been one of the last bastions of exerted carrier influence and it's slowly being democratized. This is the first time I can recall someone getting this level of access to MMS services within operators (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Re: Twilio Adds Low-Cost, Two-Way MMS Picture Messaging to Its API Cloud

#3
I've played wit Twilio and have used it to extend some of the hooks I previously had in IFTTT. Additionally I've been toying with porting my number out of Google Voice for compatibility (ie. no MMS) and privacy reasons. My question is, how hard would it be to build your own personal Google Voice like service around the twilio API, or has anyone done this?

Re: Twilio Adds Low-Cost, Two-Way MMS Picture Messaging to Its API Cloud

#4
post #2

This is an amazing biz dev achievement. Twilio seems to be getting closer to aggregating all of the hard stuff in telco land every day. It's hard to overstate just how hard this is to do. This isn't as simple as going to an aggregator and getting SMS done, MMS has been one of the last bastions of exerted carrier influence and it's slowly being democratized. This is the first time I can recall someone getting this lev…

Much obliged Josh. Took a while, but we're having a lot of fun with it.

Text a pic of yourself to (646) 846-8238 - you should get a sweet mustache back.

Re: Twilio Adds Low-Cost, Two-Way MMS Picture Messaging to Its API Cloud

#7
post #2

This is an amazing biz dev achievement. Twilio seems to be getting closer to aggregating all of the hard stuff in telco land every day. It's hard to overstate just how hard this is to do. This isn't as simple as going to an aggregator and getting SMS done, MMS has been one of the last bastions of exerted carrier influence and it's slowly being democratized. This is the first time I can recall someone getting this lev…

> This is the first time I can recall someone getting this level of access to MMS services within operators (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Would Mogreet qualify? I've used their MMS support for a side project more than a year ago, and found that it works well across carriers in the US.

https://developer.mogreet.com/

Re: Twilio Adds Low-Cost, Two-Way MMS Picture Messaging to Its API Cloud

#9
post #3

I've played wit Twilio and have used it to extend some of the hooks I previously had in IFTTT. Additionally I've been toying with porting my number out of Google Voice for compatibility (ie. no MMS) and privacy reasons. My question is, how hard would it be to build your own personal Google Voice like service around the twilio API, or has anyone done this?

I set up a quick and dirty version of GV with one of their provided Twimlets[1]. All it does is record a message, transcribe it, then send the results to my email address. My wife and I used this, for example, when looking for a mortgage loan (they never. stop. calling.)

I've thought long and hard about building something more complicated but I was always sort of stopped by the lack of MMS and my (apparently faulty) understanding of how their Caller ID works[2]. Not anymore!

[1]: https://www.twilio.com/labs/twimlets/voicemail

[2]: Previously I had thought you could only set registered numbers as caller ID, but turns out if you dial out while processing an incoming call you can set the caller ID as the incoming number. See here: https://www.twilio.com/docs/api/twiml/dial#attributes-caller...

Re: Twilio Adds Low-Cost, Two-Way MMS Picture Messaging to Its API Cloud

#10
post #7
post #2

This is an amazing biz dev achievement. Twilio seems to be getting closer to aggregating all of the hard stuff in telco land every day. It's hard to overstate just how hard this is to do. This isn't as simple as going to an aggregator and getting SMS done, MMS has been one of the last bastions of exerted carrier influence and it's slowly being democratized. This is the first time I can recall someone getting this lev…

> This is the first time I can recall someone getting this level of access to MMS services within operators (please correct me if I'm wrong). Would Mogreet qualify? I've used their MMS support for a side project more than a year ago, and found that it works well across carriers in the US. https://developer.mogreet.com/

Mogreet only does short codes for MMS, though. I've been looking for a service that has MMS support for long codes/full phone numbers for a while so seeing this news today was pretty exciting for me!
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