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44 recovered comments · 4/4 cited comment IDs recovered.
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Dear Reddit, I made something for you. I present TxtBack. Based off ideas from Omegle, TxtBack allows users with mobile phones and text message capabilities to carry out one-on-one conversations with other random users. Everyone everyday has times when they are bored and have their phone with them, so why not talk? Chats are completely anonymous, all text messages are sent and received by TxtBack so absolutely no names or numbers are given out, unless the user choses so. The basic usage is as follows; you text TxtBack and are connected with another random user anywhere in the US. You can chat for as little or long as you want, about anything you wish. Talk to someone, play text games, use your imagination! Either user can quit at any point in time by texting ‘stop’ to TxtBack; the conversation will be ended. This service is completely free beyond any carrier text messaging charges. It is not recommended to use this application if you don’t have unlimited texting. I really think this will be fun if people use it. I know I am planning on using it while in class and stuff. :) It is free, so why not give it a try!
To start: send any message to (559)Txt-Back or (559) 898-2225
And visit TxtBack.mobi for more info, questions, and feedback!
EDIT: This is a relaunch from last week. Last week i lost the service, but in a time of 3 hours over 120 people tried to use TxtBack. It now should be able to handle anything you can throw at it.
EDIT: Check the forum for details on the status of TxtBack
c0jbw70 · c0jc404 · c0jc4hf · c0jcd8b
Sounds like a great idea. I'll be trying it in the near future.
It really is, the entire idea is much different. I had a 2 to 3 hour conversation with a guy last night while testing, it is laid back sorta fun. Much more than a 30 second conversation that is simply stupid :)
Do you send a message to (559) 898-2225 every time you wish to start texting with someone?
What if I am unavailable to text when I get texted via TxtBack?
When you send a message to the number, you sent back instructions. Not until you send 'start' to the number do you get added in line / connected. At anytime while in line or in a conversation, if you wish to stop just simply text 'stop'. and you will be disconnected :)
Love it.
So it's US-only?
For now, there are possibilities for others. Go to the forums for more info, also post you phone company and I will see what i can do.
ITS BACK! had a nice chat with you btw.
Brilliant
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no, and never.
Neat idea. Why do the incoming numbers keep increasing? Does it matter which one to reply to?
lol, that is all AT&T. there is a little about it in the forum post. But you can reply to any. :)
It's a little slow huh?
Sometimes. It is really odd sometimes it is instant and others can can take sometime. It works well as a nice medium to have a midterm conversation through. The speed it completely due to the speed of the phone companies, and due to this being free. If people or I paid money, we could do it differently and it would be faster, but who wants to do that? Unfortunately this is all we have, but through my testing it really does not seem to be too bad. If it is slow for you, maybe try back a little later. Thanks :)
That's cool. The service seems like a really awesome idea. I texted the number when I posted the above message, and still no response. I'll try again soon.
Thanks for the hard work :)
can I send mms?
Yes and no. You can send one so you can have a longer message(Verizon users), but no pictures or video will be sent to the other person.
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Just a tip, you can text 'status' at any time to view stats, or 'help' to find other commands :)
This looks really fucking dodgey. Care to explain how it works?
what do you mean by dodgey? lol
Well, what handles the phone numbers? How is it able to be handled without cost? Who handles the numbers? Where does the data that's transfered go and how is it contained? Is it encrypted, or free of encryption? There are too many "what, where, how"s for me to use this confidently.
I understand, the first text is sent to a phone number. From there it is handled with a different system. I think it is encrypted but i am not sure. I really don't know why it matters, just don't send you SSN or anything and you should be fine. :)
Lol um. I didn't think it was dodgey before. But you "answer" definitely sows the seeds of doubt.
Not really. Let me tell you a story.
I don't answer my phone often. If I don't know you, I don't want to know you. 2 years ago, a man named troy started calling me. He thinks I'm a pastor. He always leaves a voicemail after I don't pick up. It goes "Hello pastor, it is troy from Faith-something or another ministries". I stopped listening to them a while ago. If you really want, I'll listen to the one currently in my inbox(the latest one was like a week ago). Anyways, I'm pretty sure he sells or is trying to give me bibles for the deaf or blind.
You would have thought after 2 years of me never, not even once, picking up, he would drop it. I'm not even sure how he got my number. My voicemail even says my name. "Hey this is RCA. BEEP." I'm beginning to think there is another RCA out there that is actually a pastor. Hell, I haven't stepped foot in a church for maybe 3-4 years, haven't attended a service in probably 10 years. I don't even consider myself religious anymore.
So what's your point? Also, blocking his number might be a good first step.
I'm confused as to the relevance, but I enjoyed the story so much I forgot what the original post was about. So, yeah. Where was I?
Oh, you could always go to Universal Life Church and get ordained if you wanted to be a Pastor. In case you were interested after all those messages :)
How are you not sure if its encrypted or not? :P
"Dear US-reddit..."
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How does it match people? I i send a text, my text is going to sit out there until someone else sends a text, then they will be a pair and we'll get matched? So their first text will never be a response to my first text, since they will have to write a text before receiving my text.
If there already a text out there, i should expect an immediate reply, if not then it could take any amount of time?
You text it 'start' and it puts you into a queue, and when someone else joins, it sends both people a message saying "You've been connected to another person" and then you start talking to each other. All messages are routed through txtBack.
That explains why i never got texted back. But the OP says:
"To start: send any message to (559)Txt-Back or (559) 898-2225"
I got no reply with instructions.
So how are you paying for the SMS gateway? It seems like whenever I've looked into that it was pretty expensive - at least relative to having one for a random free project. Or have you hacked together some DIY workaround?
It's pretty much a DIY workaround. I'm not sure if he'll make it open source, so I don't know what all can be disclosed.
Sent a test message. Edit: Didn't work. :(
Are you from AT&T's R&D lab? :-o
lol no. if i were, this would not fail so bad. lol
Hope this works out for you, it's a great idea.
cool now i can talk to dudes via cellphone
The edits on this are delightful.
how often will this service go down and be out of use? I want to try it!