Etisalat Nigeria has become the world’s first network to offer its customers Telsis Just Dot Me, a unique, SMS-based instant noticeboard service.
Etisalat’s 8m customers can now post information, by simply texting it to the shortcode 8900. A post can then be accessed by anyone, anywhere, with any handset, by just texting a dot (.) to the Etisalat customer’s mobile number.

Telsis says the key strengths of the service are simplicity and ubiquity – there are over 5bn mobile phones worldwide, and each one supports SMS. Both the text to post the notice on the SMS noticeboard, and texts in to retrieve the update, are charged at the standard network rate.
Etisalat has built a strong base in the Nigerian market through a combination of innovative marketing and aggressive positioning. CEO Steven Evans says the service, branded as Etisalat DotMe, will accelerate still further the network’s growth rate.
“DotMe is a brand new, exciting and innovative service. It will enrich the lives of our customers and their families, friends and contacts. It is a simple yet powerful SMS-based social bulletin board that serves the masses. DotMe opens up the concept of an instant noticeboard for people to publish from their mobile phones. It will reinforce the Etisalat brand as the market leader in service and new services.”
Evans adds that DotMe will allow people to publish all kinds of information from their mobile phones via SMS. Early adopters are religious organisations who are using it to update their congregation on daily scripture readings, inspirational messages and other church information. But he adds that DotMe is also positioned to help other businesses post short and quick updates that are easily available to any and every customer with a mobile phone, enabling all their contacts to stay updated on their products and services via SMS.
“For phone users, Just Dot Me couldn’t be simpler to use, and it’s ideal for those that want people to know what time the children’s coach will arrive, what time the match starts, or that the school trip is going well,” says Telsis founder, CEO and chairman Jeff Wilson, who invented the solution. However, users can post whatever they want, and we believe Just Dot Me is going to be one of those services that will grow virally, as people discover new uses for their personal noticeboard.”
In the next few months, Telsis will roll out an upgrade to Just Dot Me. Instead of texting a single dot to the poster’s number, if a user texts two dots, they will receive details of whatever is posted on the virtual noticeboard when it is updated, even if the noticeboard is currently empty. So when the coach departs for the school trip, a mother could double-dot the school’s number to get the next update on how the trip was going, as soon as it is posted.

David Murphy writes:
When I first got this story, after a somewhat taxing day, I initially thought it looked neat, then thought I’d found a school bus-sized hole in it. For if I was going to post something to my virtual SMS noticeboard to tell my friends I’d got a new job or passed my exams, how would anyone know there was anything to look at?

But speaking to Telsis founder Jeff Wilson, the benefits of the service become clear. If you’ve ever sat around in a car park waiting for your kids to be delivered back from somewhere, Just Dot Me’s appeal is obvious. For people running sports and other clubs, to be able to publicise one number that everyone can text into to get a status update at a given time, say 7pm every Friday for a football club that plays on Saturday mornings, is a massive improvement on having to send a text to 12 sets of parents and deal with each reply individually. The double-dot facility, which posts the latest notice to anyone who texts in with two dots the next time the noticeboard is updated, just makes it look even better.
To date, Just Dot Me just has the one deployment in Nigeria, but given Telsis’ vast experience in the telecoms arena, and the service’s obvious utility, I can see more operators adopting it in the future.