02 Offering Customers Free Twitter Updates

If you are a fan of social network site Twitter and are also a customer of the second largest mobile phone operator in the UK 02, then you will be pleased to hear that the mobile phone operator has just signed an agreement with Twitter to offer free text message alerts from the website.

The service which is due to start at the beginning of next month (August) alerts users with a text message whenever a direct message is received or when a reply with an email address responds to your Tweets. The free text messages are displayed as an SMS and 02 users can send a reply direct from their mobile without having to log in to their Twitter page. The service can be activated by turning on the text notification option from within Twitter.

While it is free to receive alerts any replies by text to the Tweets or messages received will count as one message from your allocated monthly rate, or at a normal rate charge of 10p per text message.

There will be no extra charge for the new service, but there will be a fair usage limit imposed by 02. This initial cap on the number of texts you can receive will be 600 per month although it’s believed this could increase in the future. There’s no need to worry about the limit being reached too quickly either as it can be switched on and off by the user whenever they like. If you’re at home and near a computer then you could turn it off and then turn it back on when you are out and about.

It’s possible that Tweet text messages could be offered as part of contracts in the future alongside normal texts and allocated minutes.

In a statement 02 said that social networking by mobile is currently experiencing phenomenal growth. 02 claim that that over a million customers per month are now accessing social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook via O2 Active.

Head of Content at 02 Antony Douglas said, “We believe that mobile will soon become the most popular way of accessing social networking sites, giving real time access to tweets and status updates wherever you are.”

This new service could be extremely beneficial to any 02 customer who has an iPhone or another type of smartphone and also has an unlimited data plan. By using the Twitter application to send messages- which are free that way- it won’t eat into their monthly text allowance.

For Twitter fans that are on the move a lot this new service will be very welcome.