Time to Mogo(TXT).
by Tzvi Twersky
Friendster, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter. I was late to the party on all of these social networking sites. My friends had to nudge me and I needed serious convincing that it was worthwhile to sign up. And, by the time I finally did get with it, the fad was over—people had moved onto the next, new device—and I was behind the times again. After Twitter blew up, and I was late to sign up again, I decided that I needed—both for professional and personal reasons—to be ahead of the public in signi
ng up for the next site. I thought the opportunity wouldn’t arise for a while, though. But, after seeing SLAM Magazine and a handful of NBA players—Eric Gordon, Shane Battier, LaMarcus Aldridge and Spencer Hawes, just to name a few—sign up for it, this time I think I’m ahead of the curve, and beat the mainstream to the next big thing: MogoTXT.
I am talking about it here on SLAMonline because it is a new, better way to follow SLAM, the NBA and individual players—things that everyone on this site are interested in. It provides you with the opportunity to follow Lang’s, Ben’s and other insiders’ thoughts on the sport. So, if you jones for even more basketball info then we give you here, then it’s time you check out MogoTXT.
True, MogoTXT is a good way to follow media pundits’ thoughts on the game, but it’s an even better way to follow NBA players on a close, less filtered, personal level then was previously possible. Andrew Won, founding father of the company, articulates MogoTXT’s objective as follows: “MogoTXT’s service was created to enable athletes and other celebrities to build fan followings and to easily interact with fans while being protected from harassment. MogoTXT focuses on athletes and celebrities to provide higher signal-to-noise ratio. What athletes and celebrities say is usually newsworthy and this helps minimize the phenomenon of useless information overload that is becoming all too common with other online and mobile services.”
Count Spencer Hawes, Sacramento’s talented young big man, as one of the athletes who have jumped on Mo
goTXT’s bandwagon. He has been using MogoTXT to update his fans for a while now. “I use MogoTXT generally a couple times a day, sometimes more, depending if I’m doing anything interesting or noteworthy on any given day.” Likewise, Houston’s Shane Battier utilizes the site daily to “keep my fans, friends, and family in the loop. Sometimes I say something deep, other times, I just talk about little random details of life. There are no agendas, no spins, it’s just what I’m feeling at the moment.”
Twitter had an amazing 2009, with players and reporters signing up for the service in droves. But the players on MogoTXT think it offers more than Twitter, lacks some of its drawbacks and will be the place to interact in 2010.
“I prefer MogoTXT because of the interaction aspect,” says a MogoTXTing Battier. “My fans can MogoTXT me questions and I can respond directly to their questions. That is not able to happen using Twitter.”
MogoTXT is also simpler to use than other services and more secure, too. As Won says: “MogoTXT’s services were designed to be more secure than other services. [Not to mention that] the messages on MogoTXT are displayed in plain English (and also in plain Mandarin) without the confusing ‘@johndoe’ symbols and syntax seen on competing services. Lastly, MogoTXT is building rich media sites for many of its athletes. These sites enable athletes to distribute content to their fans’ cell phones.”
LaM
arcus Aldridge, Portland’s quiet giant and MogoTXT supporter, put it the best. “I prefer MogoTXT because it’s simpler and easier to use than Twitter.”
Now you may visit MogoTXT’s site and think it’s hard to use. But, truth is, if we could figure it out, and NBA players with precious free moments can figure it out, then you can figure it out, too. Like Shane Battier told me, “Even my dad, who is not the most savvy tech guy, uses MogoTXT.”
In a few simple steps, here is a brief tutorial of how to sign up for and use MogoTXT both on the web and on your cell phone:
– Fans can join any or all of MogoTXT’s public texting groups for free by signing up here on the web or from their cell phone by just texting MOGO and their first and last names to 43526.
– Once there, you can join SLAM’s english page, Mandarin page or an NBA player’s page by just clicking on “Join Channel.” Once you have done that, consider yourself an active MogoTXTer.
– Sending messages from the website (to a player or anyone else) is a breeze: When you’re in your Inbox, click on “New Message”, select your recipients from your contacts and press Send. Once the other person receives the message, just wait and watch.
– You can also send and receive messages from your cell. There are two ways to do so: The easiest way is to reply to an existing conversation. If you’ve just received a message via MogoTXT, just reply to the text message and your reply will go to the same recipients as the message that you’re replying to. If you want to start a new conversation from your phone, you can send commands to the MogoTXT phone number.
Whether you’re at home surfing the internet or on the go with your cell, this as close as the average fan can get to being in the NBA.
Eric Gordon, one of the L’s bright young stars and the man behind SLAM’s Rookie Diary, also saw the merits of MogoTXT and joined the service. “I usually posts multiple times a week,” Gordon now says, “but as it’s been picking up some momentum lately, I’m trying to send out messages once a day.”
As the site gains momentum, people are going to get swept up into it like they were Facebook and Twitter. The only difference? This time, I’m gonna have beaten ’em to it!
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