It’s one thing to learn about a closed highway ramp by seeing the information while visiting a newspaper Web site before you leave your home or office, says Alain Villafranca, mobile strategy officer for Landmark Publishing Group. It’s quite another to learn of that ramp closure via mobile phone text-message in the car, just minutes before making the mistake of driving into an ensuing traffic jam.

Increasingly, newspapers are dipping a toe into the world of short message service, or SMS. The same technology that allows people to check in with friends and loved ones via short (160 characters at most) text messages, is allowing newspapers to send news alerts or other information to hundreds of mobile phones simultaneously. By enabling readers to sign up for text alerts for breaking news, severe weather and traffic bulletins, sports scores and more, newspapers can send valuable information to readers in a format that is useful to readers on the go.

Landmark Publishing Group launched several different SMS programs last summer for its newspapers, including The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, The Roanoke (Va.) Times and the News & Record in Greensboro, N.C., Villafranca says.

“It made all the sense in the world because the printed version of the newspaper is somewhat static, but the world now is no longer static.”

Gannett Co.’s USA Today finds the SMS products it offers via its parent company’s minority stake in 4INFO are a way to introduce readers to the newspaper’s entire mobile Web experience, says Matthew C. Jones, director of mobile strategies and operations for Gannett Digital. “You don’t have to have the latest BlackBerry and the phone is something you always have with you.” Stock quotes, sports scores and weather information lead the newspaper’s alerts in popularity.

While spreading your newspaper’s brand is valuable in its own right, text-alert costs are significant enough to require plans for monetizing your SMS products. That means advertising.

Occasionally USA Today places advertiser messages at the end of its text alerts tied to ads in its print editions and on its Web site, Jones says.

The 4INFO Web-based platform the newspaper uses can even generate alerts automatically via RSS feeds, he adds, freeing up staff to do other things. However, glitches can sometimes occur.

There are several avenues for newspapers interested in an SMS program. Newspapers can handle the set up and management of the program themselves, or hire a so-called SMS aggregator to make the necessary arrangements with regulatory bodies and wireless carriers. For most small and mid-size newspapers, the business of publishing print and online editions every day is taxing enough on time and budget without adding the cost and attention involved in creating and managing text-messaging products.

Reserve a short code. Before a newspaper can roll out a text-messaging system, it must apply for what is called a short code – a five- or six-digit number users can dial to send a keyword from their cell phones to access the newspaper’s SMS-based services. In America, these short codes are administered by the Common Short Code Administration with help from a third-party company called NeuStar Inc.

Short codes come at a cost of $1,000 per month for a specific code. For example, The New York Times’ short code is 698698, which spells out NYTNYT on phone keypads. Newspapers can purchase a random code for $500 per month. Contracts come in three-month, six-month or one-year increments, so a company requesting a specific code will have to pay $3,000-$12,000 up front.

Arrange agreements with wireless carriers. Once the newspaper reserves a short code, the next step is negotiating with each of the nation’s wireless carriers to recognize it. This lengthy process will probably be the biggest headache in implementing a texting campaign. Each carrier reviews applications based on a number of criteria, such as what type of service the code will provide, how it will be promoted and the estimated number of messages it will generate.

This review process takes about four weeks, or as much as eight weeks if the negotiating company has no previous experience dealing with the carriers, says Jim Washok, co-founder of OTAir. His Richmond, Va. company is one of many that specializes in helping other companies get into the mobile space, including text messaging.

SMS aggregators such as Simplewire, OpenMarket and Mobile Media Technologies already have pre-existing arrangements with wireless carriers, which can dramatically cut down the time it takes to get a texting program up and running and sparing companies the bureaucratic challenges involved in the process. Some SMS aggregators that have relationships with most U.S. carriers sometimes can have a client ready to roll in as little as one day.

“Some carriers are very picky,” Washok says. “It’s not a fun process if you don’t know what you’re doing,” he says.

Even after a company has had its SMS system connected to the wireless carriers, those phone-service providers test the short codes and perform monthly audits to ensure compliance with its own guidelines, as well as those set out by the Mobile Marketing Association.

Cutting through the red tape to get an SMS program up and running is only the beginning, however.

Decide what to send. Readers often welcome mobile messages from their local newspaper, provided they aren’t legion in number and, more importantly, they provide a necessary service.

Weather, traffic, sports scores and breaking news seem to be the most popular topics for alerts sent from the newspaper to cell phone users.

This spring, severe storms and tornadoes punished large parts of the United States and the Southeast is already keeping an eye on the ocean for developing hurricanes.

In West Palm Beach, Fla., The Palm Beach Post provides those who sign up the opportunity to receive text alerts every few hours whenever a tropical storm or hurricane threatens the area. Users also can text the keyword STORM to the newspaper’s short code during a weather event to receive a text message containing the storm or hurricane’s latest coordinates. The information is derived from the National Weather Service.

Since last summer, The Virginian-Pilot has sent breaking news alerts to readers who text the keyword “BNEWS” to its short code, Villafranca says. To date, about 500 people have signed up for the breaking news alerts.

About 300 people have opted for its second-most popular offering: traffic alerts. In signing up for traffic alerts, users can choose from a long list of local streets and highways about which they wish to be kept informed, as well as what times of day and days of the week they typically travel those routes. During those times, the newspaper sends alerts to users’ mobile phones through SMS aggregator OTAir if there is any major disruption to traffic flow on their pre-chosen avenues.

OTAir’s servers check those maintained by the Virginia Department of Transportation every two minutes for new road incidents, Washok says. VDOT shares the information with the newspaper for free, provided that sponsorships and other types of advertising are not sold against it. Sponsorships are an overall goal for the newspaper’s alerts, Villafranca says, but adds that most newspapers’ immediate concern is to aggregate a strong audience for its text products.

KnoxNews.com, the online presence of The E.W. Scripps Co.’s Knoxville News Sentinel, delivers the winning Powerball lottery numbers after the big drawing; K-12, college and university school closings; and coupons targeted to a reader’s ZIP code all via text message. The number of KnoxNews.com’s alerts is “pretty intense,” says Laura Lombardi, senior vice president of the media division of Mobile Media Technologies, maker of the TextCaster application that the Knoxville newspaper uses to supply its alerts. “Most newspapers will not be this intense.”

At other newspapers, high school and other sports scores are also very popular subjects of text alerts, Lombardi says.

The World Co.’s KUSports.com, a University of Kansas Jayhawks fan site operated by the publisher of the Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World, started sending sports score text alerts in 2003. Interest in the scores varies by sports, with men’s basketball being the most popular.

“If you want the score itself, you want it more often,” says Dan Cox, president of The World Co.’s Mediaphormedia. More than 1,500 people have signed up to receive the final score for KU men’s basketball games, but more than 3,000 have signed up for score alerts at halftime and final and more than 4,000 have signed up for quarterly score updates.

The company also has select alerts available for other content, including breaking news and severe weather.

“We like to deploy [text messaging] situationally,” Cox says. “I think it’s really good for very focused, very niche uses,” but the company has focused more resources into developing mobile sites.

The Arizona Republic in Phoenix, a Gannett Co. newspaper, provides text message alerts concerning security lockdowns at local schools, updates on traffic conditions on the area’s clogged major arteries, and even daily horoscopes. The messages are dispatched using technology from 4INFO in San Mateo, Calif., which is partially owned by Gannett.

The U.K.’s Daily Mail has one of the most radical uses of text-messaging by a newspaper. In February, the newspaper started giving away messaging service itself. Partnering with British technology company CommuniGate Ltd., the newspaper’s MailTXT program enables people who download a special Java application to their mobile phones to send messages to other MailTXT users for free by connecting briefly to the Web via their phones’ Internet connections.

While dodging the mobile phone carrier’s SMS per-message charge of several cents, the user still must pay the U.S. equivalent of about one cent. To cover this already discounted charge, the Daily Mail provides users with an equivalent “MailTXT Credit” for each message sent and received. The credits can be used towards the purchase of products – from games to jewelry – sold on the newspaper’s online store. The credits also can be used as coupons to purchase a copy of the newspaper. In addition, for every five people a MailTXT user convinces to start using the service, the Daily Mail will give the influencer a coupon for $9.75 off at the U.K.’s Marks and Spencer department stores, up to $19.50.

Get people to sign up. Once a company has a conduit to the nation’s wireless pipelines, it must get people to sign up for the service.

Technology
OTAir’s solution can be implemented by dropping a ready-made form into a newspaper’s existing Web site. Readers can either sign-up for text alerts through the site, via their mobile phone or PDA, or even by filling out a paper form and mailing it. SMS alerts can then be added to and deleted by the newspaper using a Web-based interface, while readers log on to the newspaper’s Web site to subscribe and unsubscribe.

OTAir either charges a flat monthly fee or takes a cut of its clients’ revenue depending on how heavily involved OTAir becomes in the marketing of the SMS product, Washok says. A newspaper’s print-edition circulation is one of the major components the company uses to derive its flat rate.

Newspapers that use Mobile Media Technologies’ TextCaster application, including the Pocono (Penn.) Record, are charged a flat monthly rate, between $7.50 and $300, depending on the weekday circulation of their print products, says Laura Lombardi, senior vice president of the media division of Mobile Media Technologies. The newspapers manage subscriber lists themselves via a Web interface and own the content in their databases, she says. “Be cautious about [SMS aggregators] out there who want to make sure they own the database.” OTAir clients also own the data they gather.

For a newspaper company that aggressively markets its SMS product, it should expect to achieve a positive return on investment through the use of in-text advertiser messages and other means in about three months, Washok adds.

Send messages – but not too many. Frequency of alerts should be one of a company’s primary concerns when experimenting in the mobile space, Lombardi  says. She suggests that companies send no more than three breaking news alerts per week, but adds that the time of day alerts are sent – excluding vital messages about local emergencies – is just as important. No sending alerts before 7 a.m. or after 10 p.m., she says. “You have to envision you’re ringing thousands of people’s phones.”

“The phone has a high threshold of consumers expecting privacy,” Jones says. “In a lot of instances you’re paying to receive these messages. SMS spam is really reviled by anyone who receives it.”

It is equally important to remember that the entire text-alert process – from the online sign-up sheet to each message – is filled with opportunities to reinforce your newspaper’s brand.

News alerts can be about exclusive content that’s coming up in the next day’s print edition or online, from bold enterprise pieces to coverage of a high profile trial, Lombardi says. “It’s like calling thousands of people and saying, ‘Hey, come look at me.’”

A former technology writer and associate editor for NAA’s Presstime magazine, A.S. Berman also served as technology writer for USA TODAY. More...