SMS FAQ
Last week at Catalyst, we built several interactive elements that promoted YouVersion.com in the general sessions. All of the applications utilized sms (text messaging), and we have been receiving phone calls every day this week from people asking about how we did that and where can they get it.
Here is a quick post to describe who/what we used and explain a little bit about the technology involved, and also get ideas/feedback from all of you.
1. What is SMS?
SMS or “Short Message Service” (wiki) allows you to send short (160 character) messages to and from mobile phones. SMS is often referred to as “texting”.
2. What did you do with texting at Catalyst (for those of you who were not there)?
- Thursday morning we introduced YouVersion.com and asked that people text Bible verses (ex. Hebrews 13:17) about leadership to a 5 digit number (it’s called a “shortcode”). We then displayed in real-time the full verses that were submitted on the screens in the arena.
- Thursday afternoon we had people text (a,b,c or d) to the shortcode to vote on which song was their favorite “reverb” song. We displayed the results and the band played that song.
- Friday morning we asked people to text words that they felt described Craig’s session. It could be a word that described how it made them feel, or a words that were “take away” words from the session. We then displayed a tag cloud of the words people submitted at the end of the session.
- Late Friday morning we asked people to text their names or email addresses if they were committing to pursue radical integrity and grace. It was in association with the Deadly Viper book that was launched at the conference.
3. How did you do it?
We worked with OpenMarket aka simplewire.com. They have connections to many of the cell phone carriers around the world and are able to send and receive SMS messages to each of those providers. They also provided our programmers with the ability to write web applications that connect to their services. Basically we wrote an application that would save all of the text messages to a database and in some cases respond to the user with a text message that told them more about YouVersion or asked them for more information. Additionally, we built a few flash applications that would query the database and display the information I described above to the audience in the arena.
4. How much does it cost?
It does require a financial investment to do it well. It really varies based on what you are trying to do, and it would be best to call the folks at simplewire to have them help you navigate through the costs of their service.
5. How long did it take to build?
It took our talented Digerati team a little over a week to build and test the various pieces of it once we had everything setup with simplewire.
6. Why didn’t you use Twitter or another “free” sms application?
Twitter is great…it just would not allow us to build the types of applications we built, and it has had some reliability challenges on top of that.
I am sure there are many other questions, but those are the main ones that we have been getting. I’d be happy to answer any other questions in the comments. We have additional plans to use the technology in our weekend experiences…but instead of telling you our plans, I’d love to hear what your thoughts/ideas would be for sms applications in the church. If you are already using it, I’d love to hear about that too!
Visit 
Awesome information! Thanks for writing this up, Bobby. I’ve really been intrigued with the growing trend of blending mobile and web technologies. We need to be all over this!
I used similar technology for a Boy Scout conference in 2006. We were doing an interactive stage production and needed a way for over 10,000 individuals to be personally involved. This technology was an easy way to achieve that goal and got rave reviews.
Will LC publish its application or one similar for simplewire for other churches to use?
I have not used this yet but it is a great way to increase participation in a service. I am always trying to find ways for people to interact and this is great. I am not sure if we can pull it off yet but I going to look into. Thanks for all the info!
Our staff went to a Milwaukee Brewers game a month ago and they did a “text a message and random ones will appear on the scoreboard after the 5th inning” We began to joke about doing this during sermons and now we know HOW!! Now we just need to determine if we SHOULD.
Does this contribute to community or is is just a “wow! factor”?
[...] Ok, I have received a ton of emails and now phone calls about the SMS technology that we displayed at Catalyst. So much so, that Bobby and I decided to post about it. Check out this Swerve post to learn more about the details. [...]
We used text messaging during our services as a part of a “Q and A” series where we tackled questions from the congregation both presubmitted and live through text messages. While the wow factor was huge, the connect point with the congregation and opportunity to take the teaching to the next level is what stood out most to me.
Dave S,
I’ll talk with the team…I’m sure we could make the code available to someone who has setup stuff with simplewire. The real cost though is in the simplewire costs…the code part is the easy part. Our application was pretty specific too.
[...] How Catalyst used SMS technology at their conference [...]
Is the church ahead of academia?…
Check out the following video and ask yourself… is my church, my youth ministry, my household… am I educating my students in a way that is relevant to today’s culture? I am sick of hearing people complain about the church saying that we are ineffe…
I too would be interested in doing this live during weekend services… So if that app comes available it would be a blessing. In the mean time, I’m gonna do some simplewire research… THANK YOU!