Mike Seidle ...notes from the road

Last year, we pulled the plug on MySchoolAlert.com, a system that was to be a text message alert system for schools.  The reason we pulled the plug on the project was:

• Lack of guarantee of price stability from SMS text messaging services.  We couldn't set a price without risk of a vendor changing it as our volume increased.
• The current SMS system is not designed for broadcast messaging.  It just can't get out enough alerts fast enough. In some cases, it would take up to six hours to deliver 10,000 text messages.

So, we killed it. This brings us to VA Tech, the university that really caused the clamor for text message alert systems.  Yesterday, they had an emergency.  Turns out that their system couldn't get the message out fast enough:

Va. Tech alert system fails in first use - USATODAY.com

As police searched the dorm, the university posted a message to the university Web page, e-mailed it campuswide, sent it to electronic message boards in classrooms and relayed it to the VT Alerts system, the school said. The VT Alerts system is designed to send a text or voice message to mobile devices such as cellphones.

The VT Alerts system failed to deliver some of the messages, the university said. Two other messages sent later Thursday afternoon to the VT Alerts system also failed, the school said. "The VT Alerts system did not perform as expected," the university said.