If you’re either a power WordPress user, a security-conscious blogger or simply a control freak, then the new SMS features offered by WordPress are going to be right up your alley.
From alerting you to changes on your blog to allowing you to remotely approve post comments, the feature will help WordPress administrators keep things on their blogs on a short leash.
WordPress.com Text Messaging includes both free and paid features to users in the U.S. using the shortcode 77377, or “PRESS”. As with most SMS features, your standard text massage and data rates apply, so be careful if you only get 200 a month and you want to approve comments by SMS.
Free features will include receiving notifications when users are added or removed, your blog theme changes or privacy settings change. For $20 a year, WordPress is offering a few more advanced features.
First, you can protect your blog by having it send a text message containing a code whenever you want to log in to the administrative Dashboard. This code will then be required to log in.
More interesting, to us at least, are the more advanced notifications, which can tell you whenever a new post is published to your blog or notifications of new comments. With the new comments, you can reply by text to approve or deny them and even respond to them. And SMS is no longer just for Twitter, as you can shoot off a quick text message to post directly to your blog.
The addition sounds like a great one, especially for keeping control when you’re out of 3G range.
