How to Create SMS Subscription Service for your Blog

By Arun Basil Lal | Published: November 27, 2008

There are many ways of subscribing to a blog. RSS and Email are the traditional ones. Users are not satisfied with these Subscription Services alone. Now, you can subscribe via twitter, Yahoo Messenger or Skype using the unique Subscription options of Feedblitz. If you are not satisfied with any of these, you may try adding a SMS Subscription Service using the Google SMS Channels. The set-up procedure follows.

Setting Up SMS Subscription Service

Step 1: Go to Google SMS Channels Homepage. You will be asked to login. Login with your Google Account. If you don’t have a Google Account yet, make one at the Google Homepage.

Step 2: You will be taken to the SMS Channel Directory where you can search for and subscribe to various channels. On the right sidebar there is a Section ‘Create your own channel’. Click the ‘Try Now’ Link.

Step 3: If you have not registered a mobile with Google yet, you will be asked to do so. Just give your mobile number. You will be sent a verification code to your mobile phone, enter the code and verify your mobile phone. Now click the ‘Try Now’ link again.

Step 4: Give the name of the channel, Description, Category, and Location.

Step 5: Now provide the source as RSS/Atom Feed, and give your feed address there. If you publish on Blogger, you can choose to give your blogspot blog address (in the first option) instead of giving the feed address. Check the ‘Title’ and ‘Body’ boxes, if you wish to send both the post title and post body.

Step 6: Select ‘Allow Publishing By’ as ‘Only Me’ and ‘Who can subscribe’ as ‘Any User’.

Step 7: Press ‘Create Channel’. Your SMS Channel is ready. Place the link to your channel on your blog and you are done. You will get the subscription link in ‘Manage channels’ under the ‘My Channels’ Tab in the Directory index

Now every time your feed is updated, an SMS would be sent to your subscribers containing the title and/or body of your post.

You can also send other messages to your readers. Just visit your channel and enter the text in the text box. You can use this facility to notify your readers of important updates.

Currently, this service is available in India only ( ). By the time Google SMS Channels would graduate from Google Labs, we can hope that it would be available globally.