Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com has added SMS text messaging support for the blog platform (note: this service is only available to U.S. WordPress.com users as of right now). There are free WordPress.com SMS features and there are paid features.

The free features are:
- Receive SMS when users are added or removed
- Receive SMS when theme changes
- Receive SMS when privacy settings are changed

The upgraded ($20 per year features) are:
- Protect your blog using two-step login process. A text message will be sent to your phone upon login with a passcode that must be entered to access the Dashboard
- SMS notifications of new comments and the ability to moderate them using a text message reply
- SMS notification when a new post is published to the blog
- Text message can be a new post

To get started, go to the “Text Messaging” section on the blog Dashboard and register your phone with the service. Activate the feature and select the text messaging features that you want to use for your blog.

[WordPress.com Blog]

One of the newest Motorolas out is the Motorola Grasp, and while you may find its styling a little on the familiar side, you’ll likely also find the whole thing just a bit on the disappointing side. What makes me so certain of that? Read on.

The Motorola Grasp offers Bluetooth connectivity, a GPS, USB port, mobile web, mobile email (oddly, you’ll have to download a web browser and email client from US Cellular’s Easyedge store, which is terribly strange, but livable), both text and multimedia messaging, alarm clock, music player, 1.3 megapixel camera that will also handle video, downloadable games and applications (in addition to the web browser and email client listed above), a phone book with capacity sufficient for a thousand entries, speakerphone, calculator, Google SMS (which is something of a shocker here), notepad, and a battery that yields five hours and eighteen minutes on a single charge.

See what I mean?  Downright disappointing–you should never have to download an email client and a web browser to a mobile phone that purports to offer both of these features. They should come included and ready to go, right out of the box. Why on earth would you ever need to download what should be a basic feature?  Worse yet, the keys are small and more than a little difficult to work with. Plus, if you’re not into the Blackberry aesthetic, then you’re sadly out of luck on this score as well because this sucker looks like Blackberry’s long-lost cousin from Motorola Junction.

There are good things here, though–downloadable apps are always welcome for added versatility, the battery life is fair, the phone is actually recyclable so when you get sick of it it doesn’t need to wind up landfill bait. But will all of these manage to overcome the troubles the Motorola Grasp offers up?

My answer?  No.

The Good

Decent battery life

Downloadable apps

Environmentally sensitive

The Bad

Low end camera

Difficult key layout

Simplest apps must be downloaded

Score 3 / 10

While I was at CTIA Fall 2010, I got a chance to meet with some people from HeyWire, which allows you to “Text and Chat like crazy”. We have reported on them before, but I really understand what they do now.

Heywire gives the user a real phone number and allows him or her to send and receive free text messages for free to 193 countries. It also creates a centralized message list so the user can “send text and chat messages out to Facebook Friends and contacts in your mobile address book at the same time”.

All in all, it looks like a terrific App for those who are text-addicts. It can be used with an iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, PC, or Mac.

Source

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