mGive Delivers “Pope Alarm” for FOCUS Moments After ‘White Smoke’

DENVER, CO, March 15, 2013 /3BL Media/ – FOCUS, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (www.focus.org), became the first organization in the world to deliver text messages to people who signed up on their website www.popealarm.com alerting them the moment a new Pope had been elected. With the sudden and unexpected resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, FOCUS had to respond quickly in order to be the first to the market. FOCUS turned to the most trusted provider of text messaging -- mGive. Once the famous white smoke appeared on top of the chimney of the Sistene Chapel, mGive successfully delivered nearly 87,000 text messages with the news in under 10 minutes.

FOCUS Director of Web Kevin Cotter said, “We promised to deliver text messages to our ‘Pope Alarm’ subscribers as soon as there was white smoke. But that promise would have gone up in smoke without mGive’s know-how and infrastructure, enabling us to deliver text messages to thousands almost simultaneously as the news was coming out of Rome.”

“mGive delivered text messaging capability reliably when minutes mattered to thousands,” said Jenifer Snyder of The mGive Foundation. “The only way these mobile users could have received the ‘habemus papem’ any faster or any more reliably would have been if they were standing in St. Peter’s Square themselves.”

mGive sent nearly 87,000 text messages, with a delivery rate of up to 5,000 messages per second. By 5 p.m. on Tuesday, mGive began the opt-in process. mGive tiered the opt-in process so the confirmation welcome text messages were sent by time zones to not disturb people late at night. mGive was fully integrated with the FOCUS website, www.popealarm.com by 11 a.m. Wednesday morning when the Cardinals were again voting in Rome, and mGive’s verification process guaranteed delivery on every message sent.  

Cotter said, “We promised people they would be notified when the smoke turned white. But our initial provider couldn’t handle the demand. We knew we had to find a different solution. The Cardinals were meeting and the announcement was imminent. But mGive came through so FOCUS could deliver on the promise we had made.”

Said Snyder, “The use of text to announce the new pope shows the power of mobile to deliver news and information. And the response achieved by FOCUS shows that people really want to be informed by text. mGive has the experience to dependably deliver text messages to subscribers– especially when seconds count and you only have one chance to deliver news like that right.”

mGive Contact:
Andrea Schafer – 303.981.9000

FOCUS Contact
Jeremy Rivera – 303.910.4518