Desktop SMS was the flavor of the month for a brief period in 2002. it’s back! Or is it?

Marshal Kirkpatrick of TechCrunch writes about the new feature from txtDrop - a web based, Myspace plugin, which offers sending SMS to a MySpace user free of charge. Oliver Starr adds more depth in MobileCrunch. There seems to be an inflation of Web based SMS services flying around. Unfortunately I find most of these services very mediocre. Some of these services may score well within a niche, but I personally think Web<-->SMS services must have the following “traits” in order to hit the minimum benchmark required for massive breakthrough:

1. Complete, 2 way, Web to Mobile and back conversations.

2. International, Operator Agnostic delivery (enough with the “limited to US and Canada” disclaimer).

3. Intelligent Routing between Web and Mobile - messages that need to reach the web should reach the web. Messages that need to reach the mobile should reach the mobile. Smart companies will figure out when and how to route each message.

4. Spam and Privacy Protection - At any cost, user data should not be exposed (definitely not “sold”).

5. Reliability - currently, most web based SMS services do not guarantee delivery. In many case, the messages are indeed not delivered. When the service is free most providers tend to excuse themselves. the users don’t.

6. Price - Messages need to be free to the extent possible. When not free, billing should be through an existing billing relationship (phone bill, Paypal, definitely not pulling out the credit card again).

7. Media - web content is rich. Text messages are textual. Routing Media from the web to the mobile could turn out to be a key differentiator. Available technology is still a little raw, but it’s getting there.

(The last one may not be mandatory, but the rest definitely are).