Just wanted to quickly tell you about a new feature for Padpaw. You can now use the group SMS function to collect data. This is perfect for a business that needs a quick an easy way to enter remote data. To use it, just text:

data [group name] [data goes here]

To retrieve the data, just log into Padpaw and look for the “Export Data” link under your group’s description. Click on the link and you’ll download a tab delimited file suitable for import into your favorite spreadsheet. Right now the data will be in one field, but we’d like your input on how to make parsing better and easier. Give it a try and let us know.

Occasionally, Padpaw gets audited by a carrier to make sure our SMS opt-in process is up to standards. A recent audit made me do some research on best practice guidelines and that’s when I found a statement regarding email-to-sms gateways.

I’ve exchanged a lot of information with people using Email-to-SMS gateways for text messaging. We used them when Padpaw was being prototyped which gave us a quick solution for testing with members. Using the gateways for production systems is another matter. Different companies have different experiences, but the consensus is that if carrier sees a large number (anyone’s guess as to what that number is) from one email address or domain, they’ll designate it as a spam source and ignore further emails. This is regardless of your best intentions, and quite frankly the carriers want to see the revenue from those messages.

You can find the industry position in the Mobile Marketing Associates Consumer Best Practices Guidelines. This is the rule book companies like Padpaw have follow if we want to use SMS in our applications (see 14.0 Use of Carrier SMTP Gateways for Commercial Traffic , excepted here):

Messages sent via SMTP are subject to Section 14(b)(1) of the CAN-SPAM act and may result in prosecution of any entities sending unsolicited messages via this route. Put simply, SMTP-based delivery provides no guarantee messages will be received by the recipient, offer none of the benefits of a direct or aggregator connection and, none of the capabilities required by Consumer Best Practices, and may run the risk of legal action against the sender. It is not considered a Consumer Best Practice, therefore, to direct any application- to-person or commercial traffic via carrier SMTP gateways.

I’d like to announce that we’ll be closing our own hosted service for the time being within the next 90 days. If you have a group that you want to organize in that time frame, please feel free to use the site, but know that it might not be around this summer.

We’ve decided to focus on bringing our experience in mobile messaging (i.e. SMS and making it work on your web service) to other projects. We’ll be making some announcements on that in the near future.

A couple of weeks ago I had coffee with Rich Sands and we talked about smart phone demand in 2009. Here’s what we resolved:

• US market (which I most concerned about) is at saturation (90%). Major growth in sales to new customers are over.
• Consumer market will delay upgrading current phones as long as possible. This will track with overall consumer confidence
• But, when they do replace their existing phone, they’ll most likely go for a smart phone over another clamshell
• Data plans will be purchased with these new phones

Rich and I have some different ideas on when this will happen, but timing this is next to impossible. However, the implications for Padpaw are big in regards to messaging. The more people with data plans means more options for sending messages other than through SMS. I’m currently using GTalk on my G1 and it presents IMs just like email or text messages. The other opportunity is in application development, but that’s for another post.

As some of you know, I hang out with a bunch of musicians in my spare time. It’s always hearting to work with people that feel they’re only musicians when they’re making music. So to make music, they’re constantly partnering with other musicians doing gigs. Is this the future for all work? Tina Brown thinks so as I saw on CNBC this morning. You can read about “The Gig Economy” on her blog:

To people I know in the bottom income brackets, living paycheck to paycheck, the Gig Economy has been old news for years. What’s new is the way it’s hit the demographic that used to assume that a college degree from an elite school was the passport to job security.

Therein lies an opportunity

Google announced that they’re shutting down Dodgeball and Jaiku. Dennis Crowley has some perspective. Padpaw used a lot of ideas from Dodgeball when we were starting and it’s a shame Google gave up on it.

In related news, Control Yourself, Inc., the company behind Identi.ca and it’s OSS platform Laconica, just got an Angel round. I found out about Identi.ca from adjusting my settings on Twitroid, and am hearing more about it everyday. Dennis says he’d like to re-create Dodgeball for its users. Maybe this is the platform to do it on?

The next time you have pancakes and pour some (I hope) pure maple syrup on them, realize that it takes one gallon of maple sap to make about 3 ounces of syrup. The process of making maple syrup is a good analogy for a start-up. A lot of times, we (entrepreneurs) look at the operations and strategies of successful companies as reason for their success and try to copy them (Example: Company X is getting a lot of buzz and is located in the SF Bay area, so my company should be located there). In actuality, the company that you see is the result of all everything they needed to support the base idea of their success.

This past year has been a challenge on a number of levels. At times its made me envious of other start-ups that seem to have it easier. Until I realize that envy is a sin (covet thy neighbor’s etc..) and I don’t know what private hell they might be going through right now. For all I know, they’re looking at Padpaw and saying “boy, those guys have it easy..” While I feel blessed I have a business that everyone seems to understand, I now look on 2008 as the gathering of a lot of sap. 2009 will be about firing up the boiler and making some syrup.

I hope everyone had a great holiday. Now back to work!

Here’s a link to my upcoming presentation at MobileCampNYC3

Howdy - we’ve been busy at the factory, but I wanted to let you all know that I’ll be at MobileCampNYC3 this Saturday, Nov. 15 in New York City. Also, the whole team will be at Mobile Monday Boston’s meeting on Nov. 17. We’ll be presenting Padpaw and also doing lots of demos. Come by and say Hi!