mkodo provides Mobile for Match Alert
October 2009: Match Alert, the pan-European real-time goal alert service, has appointed mkodo to provide the SMS mobile connectivity to support its launch in the UK.
Match Alert is a sports-based SMS news alert service. Match Alert is aimed at dedicated football fans who want to keep up with their team when they’re out and about but have so far been frustrated by SMS services that are inflexible, unmanageable or simply too expensive.
Match Alert’s advantage is that it combines the convenience of SMS alerts with the flexibility and sophistication of web-based subscription management. In a ‘first’ for football SMS alert services, users can customise their alerts via the matchalert website, as well as stopping the service altogether via the usual ‘stop’ text message.
SMS alert services have, historically, been very blunt tools, says Hreinn Gústavsson, CEO of Stokkur Software, the Icelandic company responsible for matchalert.
“SMS alerts have been very ‘binary’, either ‘on’ or ‘off’ - so customers were either getting SMS news alerts or they weren’t. They weren’t able to customise the content or frequency, or they needed to keep very careful track of exactly which services they’d subscribed to …” Hreinn said. “Match Alert is different; our users can manage all their alerts from our website, making it user-friendly and flexible. Better still, more people using smartphones and flat-rate data tariffs can browse to our site from their mobile handset to adjust their service settings.”
“SMS is still a great way for everyone to receive alerts, but it’s never been a good mechanism for users to manage their alert service. Match Alert brings the two worlds together, and we think we’re the first service to do that,” Hreinn added.
Users of the matchalert service can choose from a range of options, including:
• to receive only the final score, resulting in a cheaper service (only one SMS per game)
• to subscribe to a whole league, meaning that with one click the user will receive notifications of all goals and/or final scores from that league
• to follow a wide range of leagues and teams, including the Barclays Premiership, the UEFA Champions League and the Europa League. Subscription to a particular team means the user receives alerts for that team across all competitions
Each SMS alert costs a user 25 pence, plus standard network charges. Users are limited to receiving a maximum of 18 text messages per week. SMS delivery is provided by mkodo.
Match Alert integrate with mkodo's Intelligent Mobile Platform (IMP) to deliver their real-time sports news content through grade 1 UK SMS routes to subscribers. Users can find Match Alert online at www.matchalert.co.uk
Venni Sigurdsson, MatchAlert, said “mkodo has provided proactive, speedy and precise integration and service delivery in this product launch and we are looking forward to growing the Match Alert brand and business substantially into one of the UK’s premier Goal Alerts services over coming months.”
