America's Got Talent : SMS voting gets a "buzzer"

At the end of "America's Got Talent" last night, voting was opened up to allow the audience to pick their favorite act to move onto the final round. Voting could be done by phone, web, and SMS. Being this is a mobile blog, of course we are interested in the SMS option.

So I tried to place my SMS vote using my iPhone. You are supposed to send the keyword "VOTE" to the short code that matches the act of your choice. I never do that at first, I always try to see if the SMS service supporting the program adheres to some of the industry standards on how SMS promotions are supposed to work. Here is a screen shot of what I tried to do, and the response that I received:

So it looks like when you send the keyword "HELP", that actually registers as your vote instead of giving you help on what options are available. Same for "STOP".

The world won't come to an end because the service doesn't adhere to the guidelines, but this is a 4 digit short code normally reserved for the "big leagues". You would presume that the owners / operators of the code would try to follow the guidelines.

I've seen this before on other TV shows that have SMS voting programs. In the past I documented that other shows like "Dancing With The Stars" has the exact same problem.

I guess it means we still have a ways to go before SMS programs are consistent across the board, and "guidelines" are just that, "suggested guidelines".

Next time you have the urge to vote by SMS, try what I do and see what you get. If you are the owner of a SMS service, or if you are building a new service. Just remember one thing: "Help" means "Help".