SMS news alert service matchalert launched today, aimed at those 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.

matchalert’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.  And, on the occasions when people made mistakes with SMS services, or forgot they were signing up to continuous messages and ended up with a large bill, the whole concept took a lot of flak, as it did with the Crazy Frog ringtone mess,” he said.

“matchalert 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.  matchalert brings the two worlds together, and we think we’re the first service to do that,” he 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.