Vodafone UK starts Twittering via SMS

Microblogging and social networking tool Twitter has made a made a return to the UK mobile market, after signing a deal with Vodafone that will allow users to send “tweets” by SMS.

Twitter pulled the plug on part of its UK mobile service in the summer of 2008, citing the high prices charges by UK operators for SMS notifications.

The SMS feature was available to users who wanted to receive update straight to their mobile devices, but Twitter’s UK number was actually servicing all of Europe, leaving the firm with a hefty bill.

So this week, Twitter struck a deal with Voda allowing UK users to send updates to and receive SMS notifications from the messaging network. Vodafone is the only operator which allows SMS updates to and from Twitter in the UK.

But there’s a catch, while the SMS updates posted on Twitter will be free of charge for the first few weeks from launch, they will eventually become part of customers’ bundles. Regular charges will apply to customers without bundles but all text message updates sent from Twitter will remain free of charge.

When receiving a text message from Twitter with a URL, customers will be able to click on the link and access the publicised webpage directly from their handset.

The company has already achieved similar deals in Canada, India, and the United States.

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