I have 10's of thousands of phone numbers - probably half of which are cell numbers.

I just realized that you can use yahoo messenger to sent a text message to any phone number you want.

Here's my Evil Plan

I have websites that capture ~100 of these phone number per day.
I'd like to be able to send a text message to these people (or a series of text messages) - and do it via the Yahoo messenger system.

Better yet, put it on a delay.
Since I email them immediately after they fill the form out anyway, I could set my system up to SMS text message their phone number if they don't open the email (and follow up every 24 hr, 48 hr, etc)

Obviously this wold require some sort of script that knows how to talk to the yahoo messenger, feed it the phone number, feed it the message, and then send it.

I'm not very technical (just very basic html/css/js/php) so I have no idea where to begin on an undertaking like this...

1.) Can this be done?
2.) (if #1) What should I expect to pay for something like this?

anyone? anything? I tried to do my own homework on this but unfortunately I don't think I know enough about what I'm trying to accomplish in order to find anything via SE

thats cool.
I assume Yahoo does NOT have a convenient API for this (for good reason too, I must confess - to keep a$$holes like me from using it to spam people ).

Originally Posted by dirtyc

I have 10's of thousands of phone numbers - probably half of which are cell numbers.

I just realized that you can use yahoo messenger to sent a text message to any phone number you want.

Here's my Evil Plan

I have websites that capture ~100 of these phone number per day.
I'd like to be able to send a text message to these people (or a series of text messages) - and do it via the Yahoo messenger system.

Better yet, put it on a delay.
Since I email them immediately after they fill the form out anyway, I could set my system up to SMS text message their phone number if they don't open the email (and follow up every 24 hr, 48 hr, etc)

Obviously this wold require some sort of script that knows how to talk to the yahoo messenger, feed it the phone number, feed it the message, and then send it.

I'm not very technical (just very basic html/css/js/php) so I have no idea where to begin on an undertaking like this...

1.) Can this be done?
2.) (if #1) What should I expect to pay for something like this?

Good luck to you, but you do realize you are seriously breaking the law?

http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/canspam.html

@GoGetta

I think what you're not understanding here is that I would be exempt from that - because I would be capitalizing on an "existing business relationship" (I'm 90% sure...anyway).

The person who comes to my website and ENTERS their email & phone number voluntarily does so on their own accord and therefore under my terms of use and privacy policy.

==PLUS===
It's all kind of a moot point, because Yahoo would ban my IP address long before I probably got into any legal trouble (-IF- its even illegal). I talked to a a guy who did what I'm describing, but he was a bot master and was connecting to yahoo accounts and sending the texts that way. I'm not that deep in the game so that pretty much killed the idea for me.

That's why you'll notice no one has posted to this thread for a long time...

Originally Posted by dirtyc

@GoGetta

I think what you're not understanding here is that I would be exempt from that - because I would be capitalizing on an "existing business relationship" (I'm 90% sure...anyway).

The person who comes to my website and ENTERS their email & phone number voluntarily does so on their own accord and therefore under my terms of use and privacy policy.

==PLUS===
It's all kind of a moot point, because Yahoo would ban my IP address long before I probably got into any legal trouble (-IF- its even illegal). I talked to a a guy who did what I'm describing, but he was a bot master and was connecting to yahoo accounts and sending the texts that way. I'm not that deep in the game so that pretty much killed the idea for me.

That's why you'll notice no one has posted to this thread for a long time...

I see what your saying and you make a really good point. I am not a lawyer and it seems like it would be fine as long as those people are subscribing under your terms.

It does sounds like a really good idea and I do hope it all works out.

ever heard of bluetooth cellphone spamming?

Correct me if I'm wrong, because the last time I even dabbled with the intricacies of messages on the computer to a cellphone's text inbox concerned a flooder to annoy one of my friends, but can't you still just use number@cellphone.providers.txt.email.provider? Like I know Cingular/ATT was 1234567890@txt.att.net.

Although, that did require you to know the cell provider.

As far as writing a this goes using YIM, you could and should probably write it in php using curl. Shouldn't be too much since there's no captchas to bypass as a non-chat bot. Makes me want to learn PHP5.

If you're interested in trying to write one for yourself, you can try searching phpbuilder for some example scripts.

Also, don't forget to put a disclaimer about standard text message rates applying.