Available in 15 cities, 80108 provides local news alerts to subscribers’ mobiles on everything from music to sports.

Matt Cutler, co-founder of 80108, says relevance and location were key in setting up this pioneering service, and illustrates this by talking about one of the channels that will be offered in the company’s home town of Boston. “We are not going to cover music in general because this is way too big, and we are not going to cover the entire Boston music scene either. But we will report, for example, on Boston Indie rock,” he says.

To provide what Cutler calls “100 percent original mobile content” his company is getting help from “mobile correspondents,” who have been recruited through web postings and personal contacts. They include everyone from accomplished authors, educators and artists to mums “who happen to be well connected and want to share their knowledge with others.”

“Our correspondents are passionate about their subject, more than anything else,” Cutler says.

“Some have a news background, but local knowledge and a genuine enthusiasm for the topic are our biggest requirements.”

Cutler says that, from the writer's perspective, the immediacy and intimacy of SMS news alerts represents an interesting new content frontier, while only having to write a few short news messages per week happens to be a real plus.

People who want to subscribe to the service only need to sign up on the company’s website or send a text message to 80108 specifying which channels they would like to receive. Once signed up, the user will generally receive three or four messages a week. Each message that arrives on their phone includes labelled reply options, allowing access to additional information in order to learn more about a particular event or review. 

Cutler explains: “Let’s say we publish to a local style channel on a Thursday afternoon saying ‘Tomorrow night, a hot new boutique is holding a fashion show from 8-10pm. See the latest underground styles, plus enjoy an open bar and passed munchies.’ You then can reply to the message to find out about the best place to park or when to arrive to secure a good seat. You could also get more detailed information, such as the boutique’s phone number, address, RSVP specifics, the event cost, and more.”

Cutler says the content is checked before it gets published and that the messages are conversational in style. “We didn’t want our content to sound like it was written by a robot or corporation, so we have asked our correspondents to write their articles in first person,” he says.

“As we move forward with this concept, we want to establish a community for each channel and encourage feedback from our readers. So if you happen to be passionate about books in Washington DC, you can connect to the person who writes for the channel or to other people who are in to the same thing,” Cutler adds.

The service targets 18 to 34-year-olds who live in and around major metropolitan areas. Cutler and his team have modest growth goals for the first six months, mainly because it is a trial period. As Cutler points out: “The key to our service is that we can now develop, produce and distribute new content very quickly. As our service rolls out, we’re focused on delivering features that help our subscribers to better engage in their passions on a local level.”

Aside from standard text messaging fees, the service is free for at least the next several months. Beyond that, 80108 is exploring different revenue models, from premium subscription to cost-per-message charges. Cutler stresses, however, that the idea is to keep the service as affordable as possible.

“This free trial period is about listening to what people think about our service,” he says. “Once we have some end-user validation, we’ll really start pushing the service in the US, and we are open to expanding it into other countries as well.”

Torunn Hansen-Tangen