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Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage

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Re: Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage

#31

Post by john_strinlai »

garygao wrote: post #17
frumplestlatz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely going to get banned, and as a customer of Apple’s, I will be glad for it. I don’t need more iMessage spam.

We're not encouraging spam with this. We're mainly focused on existing conversational use cases that's currently done over SMS/RCS. They can be more human and expressive when done over iMessage.

>We're not encouraging spam with this.

what you encourage and what actually happens are two different things, though. gmail does not actively encourage spam, yet most spam emails i receive are from gmail addresses.

you have to actively fight against malicious uses, like spam. "not encouraging" is nowhere near enough.

what systems/processes/safeguards do you have in place to prevent abuse?

Re: Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage

#32

Post by frumplestlatz »

garygao wrote: post #26
frumplestlatz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They developed AppleScript for people to do this individually, at limited scale. Push notifications, attached to an application or website, and controllable by a user on that basis, are the solution for corporate messaging at scale. This will get you banned. It’s not a question of if, but when. Users will hit the report spam button. Apple will shut you down.

People don't report our phone lines to be spam because the use cases that we focus on are either mostly inbound (e.g. customer service, the user is the one who texts first) or warm opt-in outbound (e.g. form-fill text back or follow ups). Businesses want a better medium to communicate with their users and users want something more conversational and native to their messaging behaviors.

I genuinely can’t tell if this is naivety or willful ignorance, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter.

This is in direct violation of the terms of service, and Apple invests a lot of money in keeping iMessage clean of this kind of misuse.

They control the servers, the client, certificate provisioning, hardware identification, and user identification. They can trivially trace a registered account to the point of sale and the card and PII used to buy the hardware on which the account was registered.

You will fly under the radar for just as long as it takes to annoy enough of their customers that Apple brings down a massive ban hammer.

Re: Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage

#33

Post by garygao »

frumplestlatz wrote: post #28

> iMessage is intended for communicating with family and friends, and is not for conducting commercial activities or disseminating unwanted messages. iMessage misuse may result in service limitations. https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/messages/ Seems pretty damn clear.

We are not "disseminating unwanted messages". A lot of what we're doing (e.g. customer support or missed call text back) would be things that users would already be doing conversationally over iMessage.

Re: Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage

#34

Post by dave_xt »

garygao wrote: post #24
dubcanada wrote: post #15

How is this any different then https://blooio.com/ https://www.sendblue.com/ https://www.lindy.ai/ etc? I will say I am the exact opposite of your market, I want absolutely nothing like this. In fact I'd prefer iMessage to allow ZERO programmatic interfacing.

While Blooio and Sendblue are more focused on B2C agents and sales, we're more focused on 2-way conversational business use cases such as customer service that require scale and stability.

Lol not true. Blooio also starts at $39 for shared and $98 for dedicated. Source: I'm the co-founder of blooio. https://blooio.com/

Re: Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage

#35

Post by dgellow »

> the blue bubble interface, typing indicators, and reactions made agentic conversations feel more human than ones on SMS/RCS

Would you mind detailing your reasoning why agents should feel humans, when they very obviously aren’t? Why should we want AI to impersonate humans?

Re: Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage

#36

Post by liamcardenas »

A few ideas for you guys: 1. Apple already supports iMessage for Business which is intended to cover the use cases you are targeting. But the set up process is ridiculous (for example: https://help.webexconnect.io/docs/wxcc-apple-messages-for-bu...). It would be amazing to have "Vercel/Resend for iMessage for Business" 2. If you go the send blue route, please support iMessage app payloads. Send blue doesn't support that

Re: Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage

#37

Post by zwily »

frumplestlatz wrote: post #23
garygao wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple doesn't inherently prohibit programmatic messaging. In fact, they actually developed Applescript for people to do that. What they are against is spam and abuse. Therefore, as long as we stay compliant and prevent spam, Apple is not necessarily against this.

They developed AppleScript for people to do this individually, at limited scale. Push notifications, attached to an application or website, and controllable by a user on that basis, are the solution for corporate messaging at scale. This will get you banned. It’s not a question of if, but when. Users will hit the report spam button. Apple will shut you down.

Are you telling me that the “report spam” button actually does something??!?!?!!!

Re: Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage

#38

Post by [deleted] »

garygao wrote: post #33
frumplestlatz wrote: post #28

> iMessage is intended for communicating with family and friends, and is not for conducting commercial activities or disseminating unwanted messages. iMessage misuse may result in service limitations. https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/messages/ Seems pretty damn clear.

We are not "disseminating unwanted messages". A lot of what we're doing (e.g. customer support or missed call text back) would be things that users would already be doing conversationally over iMessage.

[deleted]

Re: Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage

#39

Post by garygao »

dave_xt wrote: post #34
garygao wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While Blooio and Sendblue are more focused on B2C agents and sales, we're more focused on 2-way conversational business use cases such as customer service that require scale and stability.

Lol not true. Blooio also starts at $39 for shared and $98 for dedicated. Source: I'm the co-founder of blooio. https://blooio.com/

The $98 dedicated line is inbound only. A lot of our application comes in the form of warm, consented outbound.

Re: Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage

#40

Post by [deleted] »

garygao wrote: post #27
wewtyflakes wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much of what you mention in your post seemed spammy; messaging regarding cart abandonment, etc. I aggressively label messages like that as spam, and I suspect others do too. I also suspect after blasting out messages like that, your accounts will get burned.

We work with our customers to make those messages consent-based and feel non-spam.

[deleted]
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