Vodafone offers up re-tweeting and free texts

Vodafone - turning you into a text pest
Vodafone - turning you into a text pest

Vodafone has offered up a double whammy of new SMS initiatives this week to get the world texting that little bit more.

First is the ability to RT (re-tweet) Twitter messages via the wonders of text. While Vodafone UK customers are already able to send and receive SMS Twitter updates, they can now use the same number to RT to their heart's delight.

To use the service, customers should send "RT twitter username" to 86444.

Twitter texts

Although this does cost the same as a normal text message, you will receive a free SMS notification confirming the message has been re-tweeted to their followers, and the company want to point out that you can still receive SMS updates from Twitter free of charge (probably because Orange has just started offering this service too).

Free SMS

In other Voda-related news, you can send texts around the world for free for today only (today being 20 November 2010 if you are reading this story sometime in the hazy future).

So, if you are in the UK and have been waiting for the day to text your pen-pal in Oz then today is the day to do it. Just remember that there is a limit of 100 texts, so make sure you don't get over-excited about the proposition that you are finally getting something for free from your telco.

Go to www.vodafone.co.uk for more details on the free texts, and visit the Twitter section of the site to learn about the new Twitter functionality

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.