Archive for April, 2010

One of the things that Advanced Telecom Services’ president Bob Bentz does in his personal time is coach baseball.  Bentz is also a regular user of the 84444.com mobile messaging product to reach his youth baseball players.  In this blog post, Bentz wonders why every baseball coach doesn’t use text messages to reach their players when a rainout occurs.

The best way to notify baseball players of a rainout is by text message.

I have been coaching baseball for 16 years.  It has been a big part of my life.  Sure, it takes a lot of time, but perhaps I’ve made a small impact on young men in our area so that makes it all worthwhile.

My first opportunity to coach was in Little League.  One of the most fun evenings of the year was when the coaches got together for the preseason draft of talent.  In the early rounds, it was all business, with coaches monitoring spread sheets of ratings of pre-teens generated by their previous season coach.  The strategies used by the local coaches were not much different than the ones utilized by the general managers at the Major League Baseball winter meetings.

The later rounds were met with a much different rating system.  In the later rounds, the players were all inept so coaches were more apt to rate their selection based on GLM’s — good looking Moms.  But, no matter how good looking their Mom was, there was one kid that would never get picked until the final selections.  These were the ones that didn’t have email!  There’s no way a coach wanted to add to his work by having to make a phone call to notify the player’s family that practice or a game was cancelled due to rain.  Email was just so much…easier.

This weekend, my Junior Legion baseball team had a home and home series against another local opponent.  My club was home on Saturday and we were to play away on Sunday.  After the conclusion of the Saturday game (we won 5-1 by the way), the other coach and I talked about the impending rain storm predicted to hit the Philadelphia area on Saturday night.  We agreed that the outlook for playing the Sunday game was not promising.  The opposing coach lamented about how he dreaded having to call 18 players if the game was rained out!

“What year was this guy living in,” I thought.  I hadn’t been calling players for over a decade, or at least since every player on the team had email.  And, a few years ago, I even gave up email, preferring to send a broadcast text message instead.

Email is so yesterday with today’s teens.  If I were still sending email to my baseball players, they’d find out a week from now about the cancellation, because that’s about as often as teenage boys check their emails today.  That’s why I communicate with my players on the medium of their choice–text messages.  Moreover, a text message reaches the player immediately no matter where they are.  94% of all text messages are read immediately upon receipt.  Email certainly can’t make that claim!

If Little Leagues, Cal Ripken leagues, American Legion baseball teams, or travel baseball teams are looking for the best way to reach their players, then the only way to do that in today’s fast moving society is with text message broadcasts.  

I can’t imagine coaching a baseball team and having to make 18 phone calls when a game or practice was rained out.  

Perhaps, that other coach is still having his team use wood bats too.

Planned Maintenance – US Cellular

US Cellular have informed us of planned maintenance on their billing platform.

Premium rate SMS messages to US Cellular subscribers will be delayed during the maintenance period. These delays will last for approximately 20 minutes. Standard-rate MT messages and MO messages will not be affected.

The maintenance work will be carried out within the following times:

Pacific: 01:00 to 04:00 on 04/21/10

Eastern: 04:00 to 07:00 on 04/21/10

MT messages will be queued by the 84444 gateway and will be passed on after maintenance is complete.

Planned Maintenance – Verizon USA Binary

Impacted Services: Verizon USA Binary MTs.

Description: Partners may experience binary MT delays.

We have been informed of maintenance on Verizon’s binary SMS platform.

The maintenance will be carried out at the following time:

2010-04-13 05:00 EDT to 05:30 EDT.

Binary MTs sent to Verizon USA customers will be queued on the 84444.com gateway for delivery once maintenance has completed.

Planned Maintenance – Alltel USA

We have been informed of maintenance that will affect our connection to Alltel USA.

Premium and Standard Rate traffic to and from Alltel USA subscribers will be delayed during the maintenance period. Clients will experience MT and MO SMS delays.

The maintenance work will be carried out at the following time:

2010-04-08 00:01 PDT to 00:50 PDT

MOs will be queued by Alltel USA. MTs will be queued by the 84444.com gateway and will be passed on after maintenance is complete.