Twilio’s Telephony API Now Lets Applications Send And Receive SMS Messages

Back in November 2008, we covered the launch of Twilio, a startup that's akin to an Amazon Web Services for telephony apps. After signing up for a phone number, Twilio lets you integrate phone services into your application using intuitive tags like Dial when you want your app to place a call. Today, the company is expanding to include support for the world's most popular data channel: SMS messaging.

The basic idea remains the same. As with its telephony API, Twilio's SMS functionality is meant to make previously complex tasks as simple as possible. If you want to send a SMS message to a user from your web app, you can do that using a single line of code. CEO Jeff Lawson says that this new functionality removes many of the hurdles associated with running a service that uses SMS. He explains that it's often very expensive and time consuming to get your own SMS shortcode, and that the logistical hurdles are substantial. With Twilio, you can get SMS up and running on your web app in a few minutes.