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"As of today, 110 million new people can tweet via SMS, all from the second-most populous nation in the world.\nTwitter, in an extensive announcement detailing its vision for making a global impact, announced that it had secured an SMS deal with India's largest mobile operator, Bharti Airtel.  Its customers can now send their 140 character updates via texting.  While texting an update will still cost Indian customers, receiving SMS updates from Twitter will be completely free.\nThe move places Twitter in the hands of millions of potential customers.  All they have to do is text \"START\" to 53000.  The company is making it easy to access Twitter and just as easy to get started.  The SMS deal is even more important because many mobile phone users in India don't have wireless Internet or data plans, meaning they can't access Twitter through third party apps.  Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone explains it best:\n\"There are over one billion people with internet access on the planet but there are more than four billion people with mobile phones and Twitter can work on all of them because even the the simplest of these devices feature SMS.\"\nBiz also decided to go more in-depth into Twitter's international ambitions.  Perhaps the key phrases of the announcement were \"we seek to partner with organizations that share our vision for positive global impact\" and \"Twitter is not about technology, it's about people.\"  As we've outlined before, Twitter's plan is to become the world's water cooler, the epicenter of world society.  To do that, they must make inroads in every nation where potential users have either a computer or a phone.\nCan Twitter become an international phenomenon?  If Twitter use in Japan and the UK are any indication, Twitter has a shot. SMS deals, while not sexy, are key to Twitter's global growth.\nImage Credit: Betta Design via Flickr"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2009/10/14/twitter-india-sms/>