What readers of the Sun will see

12 Responses to “What readers of the Sun will see”

1. Ben Wilson says:
   

   Dear Dave,

   The Love Life Live Lent SMS service begins on Monday 19 February, as made clear in the news story on our website to which you kindly link. The problem seems to be that The Sun accidentally printed the incorrect number. By texting ‘Lent’ to 64343, you will be registered to start receiving the messages from 19th February. All the information provided to the media was correct – it was clearly a simple typing error at The Sun’s end.

   As you say, it’s great that the media has picked up on this innovative campaign and we are handling a wide range of enquiries from across the country – and it’s a shame that this error has meant that you, and others, have been frustrated. http://www.livelent.net , and the news release to which you link, both prominently display the correct text number, and The Sun have agreed to run a correction.

   Thank for your interest in the campaign.

   All the best,

   Ben Wilson
   Church of England Communications Office

   January 23rd, 2007 at 4:24 pm
2. Dave says:
   

   Hi Ben,

   Thanks for getting in touch.

   Unfortunately I still can’t make it send – I have been using the correct number all along.

   I don’t know, perhaps it is just my phone. I would not rule out that possibility.

   Anyone else, is it working for you?

   Dave

   January 23rd, 2007 at 5:20 pm
3. wannabepriest / Oi, Williams…. NOOOO! says:
   

   [...] It turns out the service isn’t live yet – which is a real shame given the press coverage it has garnered. [...]

   January 23rd, 2007 at 5:35 pm
4. David says:
   

   It doesn’t work for me either. Ben has kindly commmented over on my blog too but the same is true of me as you, Dave. I have been trying to sign up on 64343 since Sunday without success.

   Again, it could be a phone issue so I’ve emailed Ben the details of my phone, service provider and payment system to see if that helps… but all appears not to be well.

   January 23rd, 2007 at 5:51 pm
5. Jude says:
   

   With such huge publicity in the Sun newspaper about it, shouldn’t the Church of England try and set up the number printed in the Sun as well? I’m not sure how many people will read the corrections part of the Sun, several days after the article was set up?

   At least a holding text message could be sent back, instead of having to wait till Mid feb for it to work at all?

   They both sound reasonable to me?!

   January 23rd, 2007 at 6:15 pm
6. Septuagent says:
   

   There is a mote in your beam. The link provided from Comment No.1 has a foreign body of some sort after “net”. If you remove the mote with your beam, Lo !

   I think.

   January 23rd, 2007 at 8:56 pm
7. Helen says:
   

   I didn’t have any problems signing up. I know it’s still a month to Lent but I also know that I’d've forgotten all about it by then! If it helps, I’ve got a Nokia 6xxx-something-or-another on a contract with T-mobile.

   January 23rd, 2007 at 9:54 pm
8. jody says:
   

   procrastination in full swing now, I decided to try and sign up to this lent thingy, but was unable to so far

   will try again later…

   January 24th, 2007 at 11:43 am
9. Ben Wilson says:
   

   Dear all,

   Following a day of investigations, we are now in a position to clarify the technical problems we have faced and the action we have taken to deal with them. Our own findings suggest that users of one particular mobile network and payment method are the only users experiencing problems with the service. Our SMS service provider is committed to investigating the situation thoroughly and at this stage has offered the following statement:

   “We are currently experiencing delays delivering messages to all mobile networks across all shortcodes. All inbound and outbound messages are being queued at the gateway and will be delivered as soon as the problems have been resolved.

   This is a temporary problem and all messages will spool until the connections are
   established again. No messages are being lost during this time. We are aiming to have normal gateway services to all networks resumed by 9:00am on the 25th January.”

   We would like to apologise for these unforeseen problems and for the frustration this has caused. To confirm, all these issues should be rectified by tomorrow morning. If you continue to experience problems after this time, please email webmaster (at) livelent.net including details of your handset and phone network, and we will look into the issue as soon as possible.

   Jude, just to say, we *are* sending out holding messaged immediately upon registration to confirm that the subscription has been activated. If you don’t receive such a message within a few minutes of sending ‘Lent’ to 64343, it hasn’t worked – and we’d be grateful to hear about it via the email address above!

   This is the first time that the Church of England has experimented with operating communications over a range of multi-new-media platforms, and we very much appreciate the feedback and suggestions that you and your readers have posted. Advancing these frontiers was always going to be eventful, but your combined comments have helped us iron out these issues rapidly – it is genuinely appreciated.

   All the best,

   Ben Wilson
   Church of England Communications Office, London

   January 24th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
10. Karin says:
    

    Apart from the text message idea I was told about this last year – as it says in the blurb the idea comes from the Diocese of Birmingham. It isn’t unlike Greenbelt’s Year of Living Generously, except it’s just for Lent.

    January 26th, 2007 at 11:46 am
11. wannabepriest / The CofE need your help says:
    

    [...] Both my wife and I have mobiles on the Orange network and neither are able to get signed up. Dave Walker over at the Cartoon Church blog can’t sign up either (also on Orange) and a further friend of mine (also on Orange) can’t sign up either. So it appears that this SMS service has a bit of an issue with Orange. [...]

    January 27th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
12. Ben Wilson says:
    

    Dear all,

    Over the course of the last week we worked with Orange and our service provider to resolve the technical issue thats ome users were experiencing with our SMS service.

    We are confident that the issue with Orange Pay As You Go handsets has now been resolved, and have successfully tested this with a number of users.

    Those who have attempted to sign-up to the service will need to text ‘Lent’ to 64343 again, as (contrary to earlier advice) the messages sent by Orange PAYG users did not enter a queue.

    Can I again apologise to everyone inconvenienced by these problems. We greatly appreciate your help in highlighting this problem – and rapidly detecting the common theme!

    Best Wishes,

    Ben Wilson
    Church of England Communications Office, London

    February 5th, 2007 at 12:25 pm