The Mysterious 50500
Last Night I was working on a job site, and I had checked into it using Foursquare (twice, the first time a typo). I was wondering if there was a way to undo a check-in, or something similar. So, of course, I texted “help” to 50500 (the US Shortcode for Foursquare) and I got back the following message:
2 Vicinite alerts/wk, tones/video clips: $0.49-$9.99/mth+ msg&data rates may aply. Visit vicinite.com/index2.html or 8666443345. STOP 2quit.
Wait, what? That has nothing to do with Foursquare at all. What is going on here? So, I decided to google the shortcode for more information, and found out its ALSO used for Contxts, another service I used. Just to make sure, I texted “David” to 50500 and what do I know? His business card was texted right back to me, with the sender labeled as “Foursquare” due to me having set the number as Foursquare’s in my address book.
This is kind of fishy, in my opinion. How, and Why do these three services share the same shortcode number? They seem to have nothing to do with each other, either.
So then… how do they pull it off?
Another Blog?
Well, congratulations me. I think? I guess? Saa. Either way, I’m now going to be a contributor for MacDavid Pro (which will be renamed, just nobody knows to what yet.)
Which is all well and good, except I don’t write much of anything ever, and the few times I do I have trouble including media and pictures and formatting it the way I want to. Bleh.
Well, lets hope I do better as a contributor to that blog than I have been doing for this one, eh?