There is a list of short codes for sending texts to Twitter here.

“Sending a text message (or SMS message) has always been one of the easiest ways to share information and keep up with your favorite accounts on Twitter,” the company says. “SMS is currently available in about 80 countries and nine languages and usage continues to grow. Nearly four billion SMS messages are sent and received on Twitter every month.”

The feature is available on AT&T, Verizon and Cellular South in the United States, Vodafone, O2 and Orange in the UK, Vodafone Italy, Rogers Communications in Canada, VIVA Bahrain, and TIM Brazil.

Twitter says it will work with other carriers to expand the feature.

Clearly Twitter is getting serious about photos now.

Tom Munro, CEO of Photobucket, which powers Twitter’s main photo feature, recently told us that mobile photo tweets will scale rapidly in the coming months. This new feature should certainly help with that.

Google is now letting users send the message to multiple people at once. Users now just need to click on the SMS button at the top of their Google Voice inbox, enter the names/numbers in the "To" field, separated by commas, and write the message.

"Replies from each recipient will be threaded into separate conversations, so you can keep track of them in your Google Voice inbox," explains

Google’s Greg Hecht. "To prevent spam, we’ve set a maximum of five recipients per message."

The feature is also available in the Google Voice Chrome extension in the recently released gallery. Google says it will soon be adding it to the Google Voice mobile app.

Last week Google launched the new Google Voice mobile web app for iPhone OS 3.0 and higher and Palm Web OS devices. It utilizes HTML5.

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In a letter, Senator Kohl asked for an explanation from Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile who serve more than 90 percent of the nation’s cell phone users.

Since 2005 the cost for a person to send or receive a text message via one of the four companies has increased 100 percent. Text messages have risen from 10 cents to 20 cents on all four wireless providers. Sprint was the first major provider to raise text message rates last fall, and the remaining three have followed suit.

"What is particularly alarming about this industry-wide rate increase is that it does not appear to be justified by rising costs in delivering text messages," Kohl wrote. "Text messaging files are very small, as the size of text messages are generally limited to 160 characters per message, and therefore cost carriers very little to transmit."

"Also of concern is that it appears that each of companies has changed the price for text messaging at nearly the same time, with identical price increases," he wrote. "This conduct is hardly consistent with the vigorous price competition we hope to see in a competitive marketplace."

Kohl asked the four providers to explain why the price of texting had increased, and how the price of texting compares with making phone calls or sending emails. He requested that the information be received by October 6, 2008.
 

"Most of us send emails and texts everyday, so it comes as no surprise they are now being used to ditch someone- however distasteful this is," said Rob Barnes, head of mobiles and broadband at moneysupermarket.com.

The survey did find that 25 percent of people between the ages to 18 to 24 would write a letter by hand to end a relationship. Other tactics used to end a relationship include moving home (2%) and ignoring all communications from a partner (4%).

It’s not just text messages and emails people are using to ditch partners. Some are using social networks like Facebook and MySpace.

"The results show one per cent of the population would use a social networking site to dump a partner. It would be interesting to see how this changes as sites such as Facebook and MySpace become more apparent in our everyday lives," said Barnes.

"Who knows what will be next? Will people consider leaving the country or perhaps sending a USB stick with a message on?"

Close to one in five of the Louisville based company’s orders are currently made online. Rivals such as Domino’s Pizza promote mobile orders with Web-enabled phones.

Papa John’s Chief Executive Nigel Travis said the company is the first to offer text message ordering on such a large scale. "Text ordering will allow us to reach a different group of customers who prefer text over online and email," Travis said.

To use the text service customers register online to create accounts. They can save four favorite orders, along with the delivery address and payment preference. Users can select "FAV1", "FAV2", "FAV3", or FAV4,’ to text message orders. Papa John’s sends a reply and the customer has the option to change or confirm the order.

Papa John’s will also send promotions and advertisements to the cell phone users who sign up for the text service. Users can choose to opt out of the ads. Jim Ensign, vice president of marketing communications at Papa John’s said the company would be careful not to deluge customers with promotional messages.

"Consumers today are looking for more convenience," Ensign said in an interview with the Courier-Journal. "That’s the way people live today. They can’t be tethered down to one way of doing things."

Lindsey Abrams of Patriot, Indiana, says she began receiving text messages that were meant for other Facebook members after she received a new cell number from Verizon in November 2006.

The text messages contained explicit language, according to Abram’s civil complaint. Allegedly she was charged 10 cents per message and was told she could not block the Facebook text messages without blocking messages she wanted to receive.

Abram’s lawyer wants to make the lawsuit a certified class action, and maintains that other subscribers with recycled phone numbers have been inundated with unwanted Facebook text messages containing party invitations and unwanted sexual advances.

Jay Edelson, a Chicago attorney representing Abrams, said he wants to make Facebook take action so it members would not be able to send text messages to recycled phone numbers.

Facebook would not comment on the suit saying its company policy not to discuss lawsuits.

EU Wants Price Caps On Text Messages

"I call on operators to deal with the problem of high prices for text messages and data," EU Telecommunications Commissioner Viviane Reding said.

Reding said if her recommendations are ignored by mobile operators that she would release a report at the end of next year examining if price caps should also be applied to text messages.

EU mobile users have seen the cost of using their mobile phones while traveling in Europe drop by 60 percent since roaming price caps were put into place over the summer, according to the European Commission.

European mobile operators are prohibited from charging EU subscribers making country-to-country calls in the 27-nation bloc more than 49-euro cents (69 U.S. cents) a minutes in the first year of application and receiving a call could not cost more than 24 cents.

The price cap for roaming services is scheduled to drop again in the second year to 46 and 22 cents and then 43 and 19 cents in the third year according to the AP.

The European Commission said that 200 million users had switched to the Eurotariff and that the majority of mobile operators had made the transition faster than they were legally required to and activated the Eurotariff in July or August.

Colleges Use Texting To Warn Students

In response to the Virginia Tech murders, colleges are reaching out to those who specialize in text- messaging systems. One such company is Omnilert, based in Leesburg, VA, which is now supplying over 250 colleges and universities with instant messaging capability through a system called e2Campus.

S. Daniel Carter, senior vice president of Security on Campus, a nonprofit organization based in King of Prussia, Pa., told the AP, "Nearly every major college and university in the country is either in the process of implementing a text message warning system or seriously considering do it."

At the University of Wisconsin, the school sent out bulk emails and bought an ad on Facebook to alerts students of a suicidal gunman who was on campus. University officials paid Facebook $100 to post a flier on the school’s social network. The ad instructed users to click on a link so they could stay informed about the search for the gunman.

While getting the word out in an emergency is important it can also present some challenges. James F. McShane, associate vice president for public safety at Columbia University told the New York Times that it can be difficult to create a message in a chaotic moment.

"You don’t know who’s out there," he said. "If you tell people to run, you’re telling people to abandon secure cover without really knowing what the risks are."

Even with the challenges that mass communication presents schools are taking advantage of the technology that is available in order to better communicate with students in the event of a crisis.