We seem to be experiencing some issues either internally or with our service provider. We’re working to resolve the issue and hope to get messages flowing again shortly.

Update: Tue Dec  2 23:39:46 PST 2008

Messages are flowing, and things are again operational. You might notice some problems with long messages that also contain characters that require two bytes to encode using 7-bit GSM.

http://www.developershome.com/sms/gsmAlphabet.asp

Don’t know what this means? Basically any of these characters might cause unwanted behavior.

^ { } \ [ ~ ] | €

We’ll try to have this fixed tomorrow.

We’ll be doing some maintenance work on our servers and will have to shut down message delivery for about three hours starting at 9PM on Sunday, November 20, 2008. During this update, we’ll be:

• Performing some back-end improvements
• Switching to new servers
• Implementing Ad Teaser delivery

The only difference once we’re back up again is that you might start seeing some Ad Teasers being placed in SMS messages sent by your apps.

Let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

shizzow is a brand new location-based social web service that is using our Zeep Mobile API to power their SMS features. Shizzow lets you Shout from any location to let your friends know where you are, making it easier to meet up in person.

I took it for a spin to check out the service, see how they implemented the Zeep Mobile API and to write up this little case study for developers who are curious what other websites are up to with Zeep. Shizzow futher ado…

shizzow’s SMS features

With shizzow, you can send and receive Shouts with any mobile device via SMS. To do this, you first need to subscribe your mobile device via the Zeep Mobile panel that they’ve embedded in the Preferences / Contact Information section. Once you’ve subscribed, you can start shouting from anywhere! You can also have shizzow send your friends’ shouts to your device.

Shout, shout, shout it out loud

All Shouts originate from a location, so before you can Shout via SMS you need to add at least one location to your favourite location list and give it a (preferrably) short nickname. I’m at the ActiveState office in Vancouver right now and added that as a location with the nickname AS. Your Shouts show up on your profile page on Shizzow and are also sent to friends who have subscribed to your Shouts.

To Shout, I sent this message:

shzow #s AS to 88147

• 88147 is the Zeep Mobile shortcode.
• shzow is the Shizzow SMS prefix (required because multiple websites use Zeep Mobile for their SMS features).
• #s is how you tell Shizzow you’re Shouting.
• AS is the nickname I assigned to the ActiveState office.

You can also add a message to your shout with the #m command following a shout like so…

shzow #s AS #m Working for the man! to 88147

As you can see, it’s pretty damn easy. Here’s a complete list of Shizzow’s SMS commands. It would have been nice to receive a confirmation message after a successful Shout, as I had to check the website to make sure it made it on there (It did, and really quickly, because Zeep and shizzow rule).

Go give it a try!

I really like Shizzow’s concept and execution. Being a social service, it will thrive as the user base grows so… GO TRY IT! You can request an invite from their site, or if you leave a comment here I have three to give away.

shizzow.com

It took many months and finally T-Mobile approved our shortcode. You’ll be able to send and receive SMS from T-Mobile handsets now. Some of you have said that this was possible already, but at least now it’s “official”.

We just posted a couple of PHP examples in our Google Group. Both examples were provided by Zeep Mobile developers, we haven’t verified that they’re working, but we hope some intrepid PHP slingers can pitch in.

First - Generating the authentication string with PHP
This one was provided by Sam Keen from http://Shizzow.com

Second - Generating an authenticated header with PHP
This was provided by Brian Hendrickson from http://openmicroblogger.com

Give these a try if you’re looking for help with PHP and let us know how it turns out.

PS - If I’ve mislabeled what these samples actually do, let me know ASAP (I push pixels around here, not 1s and 0s)

We set up a Zeep Mobile Google Group. Check it out here:

http://groups.google.com/group/zeep-mobile

You’re all encouraged to use it for support requests, feedback and discussions. We’ll be keeping a close eye on it so it may be your fastest way to get an answer.

We’ve removed the Test Number restriction, so you’ll be able send and receive messages to and from any US mobile phone now. Well almost any…

…we’re still waiting for our shortcode approval from T-Mobile, so unfortunately messages trying to reach T-Mobile phones won’t make it. We’re expecting to hear back from T-Mobile any day now and will stay in Beta until they’re on board.

Let us know how it goes, we want to hear from you!

We’re having some trouble sending out Beta account activation emails. It seems our mail servers (gmail) won’t let us send them out - we’re working to figure out why.

If you’ve signed up for an account but haven’t received an email, we’ll make sure you get it as soon as everything is working again.

Thanks for your patience.

UPDATE: It appears due to Zeep’s popularity, we’ve reached gmail’s daily  limt for sending messages. We’re actively working on  a solution to this. In the mean time feel free to sign up if you haven’t done so already. You will receive your activations… eventually. Once again thanks for your patience.

UPDATE2: We’re pretty sure account activation emails are being sent successfully now. If you don’t get yours, please leave a comment or contact us. Thanks!

UPDATE 3: Looks like we’re still having problems. Stay tuned!

UPDATE 4: We’ve fixed the activation email problem, and will be sending them to anyone who hasn’t received one yet. If you’re still waiting, it should come within the next couple of hours.

Just got word that our API now works with AT&T. The last major carrier we’re waiting on is T-Mobile, which should be ready to go within a week. There’s a complete list of supported carriers on the Beta Page.

Now you can send SMS texts from Python as well.

Grab the code from source at: http://code.google.com/p/zeep-messaging/

Or if you have setuptools installed run $ easy_install zeep.sms