Is it time to subscribe to a printer service from HP?

Ever since my dad brought home an...

What’s the best way of buying a phone today?

How did you buy your latest phone?...

MWC: What device highlights did you miss?

So, early last week I predicted that...

The “I Love You” text roulette game

Picture 9Have you been listening to BBC Radio 1’s Scott Mills in the afternoon recently? I can’t, but I get the ‘best bits’ sent to my via the BBC podcast service every evening. I find it good on-demand entertainment.

The show uses text quite a lot. Radio 1 has it’s own dedicated and very well used 81199 shortcode that the DJs have real-time access to. For example, they’re able to come up with quizzes, competitions or games by just asking the audience to text in a particular set of keywords. The DJs or their support staff are then able to monitor the performance from, I imagine, a screen on their desk.

Some make more use than others and Scott Mills in particular uses the text medium heavily as a way of interacting with his audience.

They recently came up with a game, “I Love You Roulette”. Here’s how it works.

– You open up your text message screen on your handset, and you type ‘I Love You’ into the window.

– You then progress to the ‘send to who?’ stage generally common to all handsets.

– Now, you should be at your address book, ready to pick a recipient from it?

– Close your eyes. Now scroll. If you’re doing this real-time with the show, Scott Mills will guide you through the process and will tell you to ‘keep scrolling, keep scrolling’ … then he’ll yell ‘STOOOOOOOOOOOOP’. With your eyes closed, you must press ‘enter’ on the currently selected recipient. Then press enter again to send the message.

Heh.

So, you don’t know who you’re sending the ‘I Love You’ text to. It yielded all kinds of potentially embarrassing and exciting results 😉 e.g. Pupils texting teachers, people texting takeaway restaurants, taxis and so on.

If you’re feeling adventurous, give it a go yourself.

They were doing this a lot of last week, however you can download this relevant mp3 file here as it contains the first iteration.

2 COMMENTS

  1. […] If you’re curious as to how the whole thing works, I recommend that you check out the post. But Ewan MacLeod of SMS Text News describes how this particular form of interaction that’s initiated by the radio station works, “Scott Mills will guide you through the process and will tell you to ‘keep scrolling, keep scrolling’ … then he’ll yell ‘STOOOOOOOOOOOOP’. With your eyes closed, you must press ‘enter’ on the currently selected recipient. Then press enter again to send the message.” […]

  2. I've played Texting Roulette a few times, but find it hard to come up with good texts to send. Then I found this application for the iphone which holds around 200 txts (or so it says). It's freaking hilarious! It's called Texting Roulette and you can find it on Appstore for like a dollar! There's a little tip from me to you!

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Recently Published

Is it time to subscribe to a printer service from HP?

Ever since my dad brought home an HP LaserJet printer (version 3, if memory serves), I have been printing with an HP. Over the...

What’s the best way of buying a phone today?

How did you buy your latest phone? I'm asking because I'm thinking about what I should be doing. When I was living in Oman, I...

MWC: What device highlights did you miss?

So, early last week I predicted that next to nothing from Mobile World Congress would break through into the mainstream media. I was right,...

How Wireless Will Pave the Path to Neobank Profitability

I'm delighted to bring you an opinion piece from Rafa Plantier at Gigs.com. I think it's particularly relevant given the recent eSIM news from...

An end of an era: Vodafone UK turns off 3G services

I thought it was worthwhile highlighting this one from the Vodafone UK team. For so long - for what feels like years, seeing the...

Mobile World Congress: Did the mainstream media notice?

I resolved this year to make sure I wrote something - anything - about Mobile World Congress, the huge mobile industry trade show taking...