Integrate SMS in your web application using TextMarks

Interacting with web applications is no longer confined to desktop web browsers. These days, web content can come from many different sources, including your camera or cell phone.

As mobile devices become more powerful and internet-ready, they act as mini wireless computers. However, accessing the internet over cellular networks can still be a slow and bumpy experience.

There is a more reliable gateway to use on mobile phones, one that’s been around for years, and that speaks seamlessly across mobile carriers, devices, and platforms: SMS (”text messaging” for the non-technical person).

But how can SMS be used to interact with web content?

Services such as TextMarks, Msgme, and Kwiry are some of the first mainstream services that offer the SMS gateway as an alternative way to promote or access content, as well as manage your web applications. You could call it “mobile content management.”

Does your web app offer SMS integration? If it doesn’t now, it should soon. There is a huge market for mobile compatibility with web services. Companies are just now scratching the surface.

Interacting with SMS

All three services mentioned above allow interaction via SMS. There are three aspects to consider:

1. Sending SMS messages to the service.
2. Receiving SMS messages from the service.
3. Sending and receiving SMS messages from your own web application.

This article will examine TextMarks since the API seems easiest to use.

Your TextMarks keyword

In order to use TextMarks, you’ll need to supply a unique keyword. Your keyword provides access to your application. For example, we’ll use the keyword INSPIRE. When a user sends a text message to TextMarks (41411), they’ll invoke the use of your custom keyword.

INSPIRE my message

When TextMarks receives an SMS with the keyword “INSPIRE,” it knows to trigger your custom application. Perhaps your application is a poll, a trivia question, or even your own blog content.

Take a look at the TextMarks application directory for different uses of the service. The ideas are endless!

Use the TextMarks web interface

If you’d like to quickly get up and running with an SMS application, you can use TextMarks web interface and control panel. The service is entirely free, but TextMarks will occasionally send promotional SMS messages.

Once you sign up for a unique keyword, you are provided a set of resources to help you manage how your users interact with your application. You’ll have visibility to your usage stats, and how your TextMark appears and behaves.

Use your own web application

Using the TextMarks built-in web interface is nice, but the real power comes from using your own web application. With the TextMarks API, you can programmatically send and receive text messages, right from your own code! This puts the power of SMS right in your own hands.

Imagine a web application that requires timely user input. You could make things much easier for users by allowing SMS interaction. If users are on the road, away from a reliable internet connection, they can still send and receive content from the web application.

The TextMarks API makes it easy to parse incoming text messages (for example, with PHP) and perform whatever action needs to be done (such as inserting into a personal database, or retrieving results from a database, and sending it back to the user).