This week we launched some important improvements that you have been asking lately. Check them out and we hope you will like what you see.

New short code in Latvia - 1897

To make end-users’ life easier we have opened new short code in Latvia - 1897. From now on, you can create services in Latvia with this new short code. We have also activated all the current services with the new code. It means that you can replace previous three short codes with one in your promotional materials. The old short codes will remain working until 18th of May. After that, only the new one is used. Replace the information and you will see your users getting happier

New keyword WIN in use

We have added new primary keyword WIN for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Mainly it was demanded for campaign services, but it can be used for other ones as well. Spring is the time for some cool text-to-win campaigns - try it out!

New end-user price added in Latvia

Many users have asked for higher end-user price in Latvia. Now it is possible to create services that cost 2,50 LVL (approximately 3,64 EUR), so you can monetize more expensive content and earn bigger revenue.

Additional security measure for Premium SMS-connectivity service

The HTTP GET requests that Fortumo is making towards your script are now signed with a shared secret. You can check the added signature parameter to be sure that the request is made by Fortumo and not someone else. The shared secret can be found from the service settings page. Full explanation and an example PHP script that checks the signature is included here. However, you don’t have to add the signature check, if you don’t want to, it’s fully optional.

Pay for video enables you to charge for your videos. You are able to monetize videos on your website and earn revenue from every spectator and you don’t have to worry about video hosting. You just have to have videos uploaded to Youtube or some other video sharing community. Create pay for video service, choose videos you want to monetize and embed them to your blog or website. Users send a keyword via SMS to a short code and get a password in a reply message that allows them to see the video You make profit from every SMS sent.

Why to use pay for video?
* it is really easy way to monetize your videos
* people who do not have a credit card or Paypal can see the videos
* people can stay anonymous while using your service
* service is flexible - you can always upload more videos
* you will have great database to whom you can advertise your other services directly via SMS
* you will make profit for every sms sent

Who should use pay for video?
Mainly website owners or bloggers who have interesting video-material uploaded to Youtube or other video sharing community that others might want to see and are willing to pay for it. Small movie producers or artists are able to share movie trailers or music videos with others in their website and at the same time earn revenue from that.

Few weeks ago we revealed our plans to provide SMS-services for Facebook. This week the services are available. But why are we making services for social networks?

Social networks are developing into open web portals, where in addition to personal profiles we can find presence of bands, companies and other organizations.
In these portals people can make their pages more original and interactive with different widgets. We find that this could be beneficial to the profile owner as well.  So from now on you can add SMS services to your Facebook profile or page. Since we see a huge potential in mobile services in social networks, these services won’t be the only ones.

Check out our new service and make money in Facebook.

Nowadays people are using actively different social networks to communicate with other people - meet new friends, old classmates, future husbands and wives. Fortumo thinks that people should have a chance to make their profiles more original and interactive to increase their social capital. At the same time this could also be useful to the profile or page owner, why won’t you add SMS services to your Facebook profile or page and make money with that.

Could anybody point out different Facebook applications that are enabling to monetize profiles and pages?

At least Fortumo will launch new services for Facebook really soon, but stay tuned because Facebook isn’t the only lucky one.

Now all the people in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania can create sms based services without any subscription or monthly fee. At the moment it is possible to create four types of services SMS-info, SMS-campaign, SMS-chatbox, Premium SMS-connectivity. Month ago we reviled some information about new services that are coming really soon. But this is just a beginning.

Check it out www.fortumo.com

Last week we had some complaints that some of the people from outside Scandinavia and Baltic States couldn’t get the password. Mainly the problems have occurred in restricted or limited markets, since it is not possible to send sms-s from short number to foreign country.

At this phase when we are not providing our service over the globe it is still important that everyone from anywhere can get access to Fortumo and provide sms services in countries that are available in that moment. To enable registration 24/7 to everyone despite the location we decided to change sms based registration with e-mail based registration. It is widely used, people are used to it and it isn’t more time consuming nor unsafe.

Now the problems has been solved and everyone who wanted to create an account in Fortumo got their passwords.

We have had some reports that there are some people in US who haven’t got the password while registering.
We are apologizing for this problem and dealing with it.

When we launched public beta few days ago we were ready for users in different countries but we weren’t expecting so big attention from US at this phase and it caused some problems.

Thank you for being patient, we are dealing with the problem and let you know when it is fixed.

Last weeks we had a lot of constructive feedback,thanks again to everybody for helping us to improve the product.
Now we have decided to make Fortumo as “public beta”, i can promise that Fortumo won’t stay in beta stage for a long ;).

Now everyone can get an access to Fortumo right after asking an invitation. This phase is important to get wider feedback from different people before public lauch.

Please if you have any problems or suggestions, let us know via e-mail support@fotumo.com.

Last week i promised to tell you a little about our new services and development plans. Today is the time to give a little overview about our ideas.

Well since we believe that creating mobile services should be easy, we are starting to provide constantly new fixed services after the launch. Technical skills shouldn’t be obstacles for making your own mobile business. Everyone should have a chance to execute great ideas. That is what Fortumo stands for- we are providing simple mobile based entrepreneurial platform that gives everyone a chance to create mobile services despite their technical knowledge .

Next few monts we are focusing on fixed services. We want to provide a wide choice of different services. First priorities are subscription services, content providing services and so called password services.

We are also planning to provide some cool advanced services, some of them are even voice based. I’ll promise soon we will give more information about advanced services as well.