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.
Join the SMS Channel of Million Clues! and Receive SMS updates on your mobile.
After you setup your channel, do come back and tell me about it. Leave a subscription link too. I love reading SMS 😉
I am a WordPress product developer and creator of Image Attributes Pro. I am passionate about solving problems and travelling the world.
Nice site. There
@Susan Kishner: I am glad that you liked my site. Thanks for the review.
Remember to keep an eye open for a contest. I will be having a give-away soon. Loyality is the key to victory.
Cheers
shortly, i’ll digg more about it. thanks to share with us.
@Sakib: No problem sakib, Thanks for dropping by, but make sure that I have your link here so that I can read your sms’s
Kudos…
@Balal,
thanks for the replay. Sorry, this features for India. I couldn’t able to track all features.
@Sakib: I have mentioned in the post, this is currently in India only 🙁 But lets hope that it would soon be available elsewhere too, by the time SMS is out of google labs.
@balal, Hey, I was just cheking out the new Threaded comments plugin… Cheers…
@balal, Wow, It worked
Oh yea I’m using this feature on my blog as well. I had come for an entrecard drop stopped by to comment here
@chethan, You mean the SMS subscription or the threaded comments..? If you are using sms subscription, do leave your link here so that everyone can subscribe..
Thanks for the drop, and cheers…
Yea i meant the SMS subscription 🙂
I’ve subscribed to your updates, here is my link
http://labs.google.co.in/smschannels/subscribe/chethstudios
Thanks 🙂
I had subscribed to your channel the day I came to read about your contest. Actually, i came to your site by reading the sms update announcing winners. Cool Service from Google. 🙂
Thanks. ^_^
anytime 🙂
It’s great that how people like you, I and all other young bloggers from India take Amit as an idol.
Any way, SMS channels are not that instant delivery type like twitter. So I would rather use twitter than SMS channels
Amit is an awesome guy, makes us proud to have a A-lister from India. I tried registering my device with Twitter, but it didnt work, so am sticking to SMS channels 🙂
Great Information!
Is any widget/ plugin available ?
I want to send sms via mobile, but i want that the subscription that i have got will come from net. So how can i get it??
Sorry about that, i guess the escape tags are not allowed in ur commenting, thats why the code got interpreted.
I do really want to have this sms subscrition on my blog but too bad when I check on the SMS Channel, the country code is only set to +91
Now available in India only
Hi send sms from your mobile to get free tricks and tips for life time..hurry only for indian users
send sms as “ON cyberattacks” to “+919870807070”
Please sms me at +91-7827799251 for more services
sir is tgere any wordpress widget for this subscribtion
Not yet I think.
Very nice! I need this sms channel in my blog. Thanks
Hi have tried creating the SMS Channel for my blog/site but it gives me error 500 .. Any Solution
My Channel Link : http://labs.google.co.in/smschannels/subscribe/ExploreIT
Sir,
I am unable to add SMS channel in my blog. http://www.jobsarunachal.blogspot.com.
my email : padikhr@gmail.com.