Get bird news text messages on your mobile

17 May 2013 | Marek Walford

Rare bird news is automatically posted to a Twitter account. Using features of Twitter it is possible to get bird news automatically sent to your mobile phone as a text message. Twitter has very comprehensive help pages but I've pulled out the key information you need to start receiving bird news on your mobile. In general this is free of charge but please read this disclaimer.

Create a Twitter account

  1. Go to twitter.com and find the sign up box, or go directly to twitter.com/signup.
  2. Enter your full name, email address, and a password.
  3. Click Sign up for Twitter.
  4. On the next page, you can select a username (usernames are unique identifiers on Twitter) � type your own or choose one we've suggested. We'll tell you if the username you want is available.
  5. Double-check your name, email address, password, and username.
  6. Click Create my account. You may be asked to complete a Captcha to let us know that you're human.
  7. Twitter will send a confirmation email to the address you entered on sign up, click the link in that email to confirm your email address and account.

Add your mobile number to your Twitter profile

  1. Log in to twitter.com and click on the gear icon.
  2. Select Settings from the drop-down menu.
  3. Click on the Mobile tab.
  4. Choose your country from the first drop-down menu.
  5. Enter your mobile number. No need to include your country code or leading zero; we handle these automatically. Users located outside of the US may need to follow separate instructions, listed below.
  6. Click Activate phone to begin verifying your phone.
  7. You will be directed to send the word 'GO' via text message to Twitter (using the appropriate country-specific short code - 86444 for United Kingdom).
  8. Text the verification code from your phone to that short code.
  9. After we receive the verification code from you, your mobile device will be added to your Twitter account!

Start following berksbirds

  1. Go to twitter.com/berksbirdnews.
  2. Click the Follow button.

Turn on text message notifications

  1. Visit your Settings page.
  2. Click the Mobile tab.
  3. Look for the area labeled Text notifications.
  4. Check the box for Tweets from people you've enabled for mobile notifications to receive text message notifications any time a specific person Tweets.
  5. Visit the profile page or click on the username of the user whose updates you want to receive via SMS (try typing twitter.com/berksbirdsnews in your browser's URL bar, or click through from your following page).
  6. Click the person icon on the user's profile and select Turn on mobile notifications from the drop-down menu.
  7. If you no longer wish to receive text message updates from this user, select Turn off mobile notifications, from the same drop-down menu.

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