Email your favorite cell phone

Sometimes you discover something that seems so innovative that you think it just has to be useful. At least that's the way I feel about Teleflip, a free service that allows you to email a cell phone with the result being a text message to that cell phone. I also learned that most cell phone service providers have their own translation service eliminating the need to use Teleflip if you know the provider for the cell phone number to which you want to send a message.

It goes like this. I want to send a text message to my wife but she is not close to her computer and won't be until late tonight. I could leave a voice message but I'm afraid it might be garbled. I know she has Sprint so I email to:"9165551212@messaging.sprintpcs.com" (except that I wouldn't use the quote marks and I would use her real number). Shortly thereafter her cell phone beeps signaling that she has just received a text message. Sure, I could send her the text message from my cell phone but a full-size keyboard is ever so much easier to use.

Another example, Carolyn can set her email to forward all her email or those from certain people to Teleflip or to the Sprint address. She gets the email message without checking her email.

From All things Marked "How To" here's a short list of direct addresses for the more common cell phone providers in California:

Verizon: 10digitphonenumber@vtext.com
AT&T: 10digitphonenumber@txt.att.net
Sprint: 10digitphonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
T-Mobile: 10digitphonenumber@tmomail.net
Nextel: 10digitphonenumber@messaging.nextel.com
Cingular: 10digitphonenumber@cingularme.com
Virgin Mobile: 10digitphonenumber@vmobl.com
Alltel: 10digitphonenumber@message.alltel.com
CellularOne: 10digitphonenumber@mobile.celloneusa.com
Omnipoint: 10digitphonenumber@omnipointpcs.com
Qwest: 10digitphonenumber@qwestmp.com

On the other hand, if you don’t know the recipient’s phone service provider, you can send the message to 10digitphonenumber@teleflip.com