LOVER.EE is a real time socializing portal. It is a place for dialogue and acquaintances, watching photos, participation in photo competitions and many other things.

“Recently we started organizing club parties and we keep on developing game servers. We also co-operate with other serious internet projects like Fortumo and find interesting things what to do together. We constantly develop and become more attractive for our users. In the future you will see new sections and realizations of interesting ideas. It is interesting for us to work for people and it forces us to move forward.”

How have you applied SMS-services?

The basic SMS-services are presented in the form of ordering monetary unit of a portal – LOVERS. Units can be spent for getting additional slots for uploading photos, uploading user’s own gifts, buying styles (skins), buying points, changing nicknames, rating photos with maximum score and many other things. In the future you can expect some new stuff coming.

Where did the idea of using SMS-services come from?

The idea of our web-service has come into life about 3 years ago in the city of Tartu. Behind the LOVER.EE brand stands the team work of 3 people. In the beginning it was just an interesting hobby.

We (Pavel, Juri and Evgeny) wanted to create a service which first of all will be aimed to people, their interests, creativity and we did not want it to be the selfish tool of commercial profits.

Why did you decide to use SMS- services in your web business?

The idea of realization of SMS-services came in on a right time. In this period of time the usage of mobile phones and various SMS-services was growing. The basic advantage – availability and convenience in use. We used this possibility to pay money for the server. The increased loading and the traffic demanded some investments. Maintaining such a large portal is an expensive thing.

One of the pluses of using such SMS-services as Fortumo is not to focus on all technical and legal aspects (supporting and adjustments of SMS servers, contracts with mobile operators), but to concentrate on the aims.

What has SMS-service additionally given you?

SMS-services has given the chance to use additional functions and privileges on the portal. It increases interest and the importance of paid services.

I got quite impressive reviews from AQA, a SMS service that aims to answer any possible question and that is available right now in UK and Ireland.

And as I have a UK simcard in my card collection in Estonia, then I decided to give it a try It wasn’t so difficult to choose my question.

“What is the cheapest way to travel quickly from the centre of Belfast to Piccadilly Circus in London?”

And I sent it exactly at 17.30.

Eight minutes later I get this reply.

“AQA: Catch a train to Antrim and then a taxi to Belfast Airport, from where you can fly with a range of budget airlines including Flybe: 00441392268500.”

Quite impressed for how fast and detailed the answer came to my mobile phone. A bit less impressed as they ask me to take a taxi which i believe is not the cheaper way to go there. Still.. it is definitely a service that can be really exported in other countries, as long as you have the opportune wide knowledge and a good sense for replying.

Few days ago, the Department of Islamic Affairs in Sharjah  (United Arab Emirates) has launched an SMS service to improve people’s awareness about the Haj pilgrimage, which is the largest annual pilgrimage to Mecca (Makkah), and that will be taking place this year from December 7–11.

The new service would help all Muslims, particularly pilgrims, to be well aware of all details they wanted to know about Haj. Those who want to know about the rituals, conditions, types and principles of Haj, have to send an SMS saying MANASEK (rituals) to the local number 6993. A fee is charged once per subscription to the service and available during the Haj season.

If you are an indipendent artists, and you sell from time to time your original works, then this SMS service created in the States last July can be inspriing.

The US based company mixtART developed an SMS service that allows independent artists to sell their original works of art as wallpapers to mobile subscribers. With their service, they provided mobile users access to an art application, offering a variety of wallpapers created by an array of artists.

Many artists featured on mixtART were attending an international art exposition in San Diego from July 24 to the 27th. Over there, the artists were unveiling works of art, which customers would have been able to purchase immediately for their mobile phones.

The exposition included many local artists who took fully advantage of the new service. To have a review of those wallpapers, some of them are available on http://www.mymixt.com/mixtart.