Michael Yuan

My little holiday project was to write a very simple wordpress plugin that allows people to get SMS notifications, along with “mobile web links”, whenever a wordpress blog is updated. I just tried it on my own blog and it worked like a charm:

1. You can subscribe to my blog feed by entering your phone number below. Or, you can text in word yuan to short number 41411 to subscribe.

2. When I post a new blog entry, you will get a SMS message on your phone with a link to the post, which you can open directly on your phone’s web browser (if you have a mobile data plan, as all iphone users, all blackberry users, and many smartphone users do)

That is it! Have fun guys! In the next post (probably on Monday), I will release the wordpress plugin and explain how to use it. Stay tuned! (Actually, subscribe now so that you do not miss my next post! ;))

Here is how the service works on a real phone:

1. Get a SMS link when the blog is updated

2. Open the link in the SMS

3. See the page in action on the phone!

Courtesy to Textmarks for providing the SMS services (including the short number 41411), and Mowser for providing transcoding services to re-format my blog pages for better display on small phone screens.

PS. This service only works on US phone numbers. Sorry guys, but if you find an equivalent to textmarks in Europe or Asia, please please let me know! Thanks.