Difference between Ping.Fm and HelloTxt
Like most people, you probably make regular use of online services that weren't even in existence only a few years ago, but are almost absolutely essential nowadays. Social networking sites such as FaceBook and the like remain widely popular, and along with them is Twitter, which performs an essential service that no other site can. Regardless of your social networking site of choice, there are various other smaller services that can greatly enhance your social networking experience such as Ping.fm and Hello.txt, both of which we take a closer look at here.
Definition
Ping.fm claims itself to be a simple service that allows you to send updates to your various social networks easily. Among the services that Ping.fm allows you to use in the pursuit of this goal are AIM, GTalk, iGoogle, WAP, iPhone/iPod Touch, SMS and e-mail. Send your message with any of these services and Ping.fm will send it to the social networking sites that you specify. As for Hello.txt, it is billed as a combination of various microblogging services by which you can send messages on all main microblogging services at the same time, and it allows you to do this easily and simultaneously with an easy-to-use interface. It would appear then that Ping.fm and Hello.txt are quite similar.
Supported Services
Both Ping.fm and Hello.txt support a wide array of different social networking services, although it would be a good idea to check what particular services they support before you use them, as they tend to change from time to time. At the time of this writing, Hello.txt supports most of the major U.S. services along with a few services from other countries, while Ping.fm supports only U.S. services, and slightly fewer ones at that. Among the services that both Ping.fm and Hello.txt support are FaceBook, Brightkite, Plaxo, LinkedIn, Plurk, Tumblr, Twitter, and Identi.ca. In addition, both services will shorten URLs automatically for you with its own domain tools, so your posts don’t have to be taken up by long URLs.
Communication And Mobile Services
Both Ping.fm and Hello.txt also offer services other than merely allowing you to update your statuses on social networking sites. For instance, you will be able to specify which social networking sites will receive your messages. Ping.fm allows you to create custom groups of your different services, while Hello.txt allows you to specify which services will receive your messages with each post. Hello.txt also allows you to send images as an email attachment with your posts, while Ping.fm promises video and image capability in the near future. Both services allow integration with mobile applications to some degree, although Hello.txt has the edge over Ping.fm in this regard, with a mobile interface that is a lot closer to appearance and functionality with its main site. Hello.txt also offers a lot more features than Ping.fm, which simply sticks close to the “message only” paradigm.
Similarities and Differences
Ping.fm
- Allows you to send updates and messages to your social networking sites easily
- Supports only U.S.-based services
- Supports fewer U.S.-based services than Hello.txt
- Automatically shortens URLs in your posts
Hello.txt
- Supports most common U.S. services in addition, to a few non-U.S. services
- Offers an easy-to-use interface for both mobile and main applications
- Allows image attachments with email
- Mobile interface is a lot like the main site
