In the latest (and as far as I know, last) interview with the services to spring up since Twitter pulled its SMS service, I speak to Jeff Bonnes of TwitSMS.

What features can users expect?

http://www.twitsms.co.uk was live on Sunday last week – just 80 hours after Twitter cut its service. We offer Twitter fans in the UK, Europe and Australia the ability to receive Direct Messages, replies and other tweets. Our key feature is the ability for a user to select the types of messages they want to receive and from who. This means that Twitter fans can manage their tweets, with even more control than Twitter itself offered.

How are you different from the other SMS startups and what will you do if Twitter launches something?

http://www.twitsms.co.uk is live and fully functioning, which sets it apart from most of the other start ups yet to launch. Being first to market has been great. The feedback and early input from our customers is helping us ensure that http://www.twitsms.co.uk is the best alternative for the international Twitter community. We have had the opportunity to tailor the site and service during our week in business already!

http://www.twitsms.co.uk has a very simple, straight-forward billing approach and we are focused on keeping the costs down. Users buy packs of 100, 200 or 500 SMS credits (e.g. 100 SMS for 5 pounds in the UK, or $11 in Australia). 1 SMS is 1 credit. Some other sites have more complex billing, but we just want to keep it clear, simple and affordable. We just lowered prices for many countries today!

What’s your background?

We (founders Jeff Bonnes and Delia Timms) have built a few other successful internet businesses and have gained valuable experience over the past few years. So we were fortunate to start out with some knowledge and skills for http://www.twitsms.co.uk . One of our other businesses does messaging and SMS already, so we have valuable experience in this field.

Does the service differ by operator or country?

The service is the same in all 12 countries that we offer it.

How do you plan to develop the service?

We have been pleased with the strong start to http://www.twitsms.co.uk Our priority is to listen to our customers and develop according to their needs. We’ll be adding more features to give people even more control over their service. We are focused on remaining responsive and nimble, so we can create a great site for Twitter fans wanting to stay connected.

TwitSMS is on Twitter @twitsmsco. Also interviewed previously on OJB: Tweeteroo, Twittex, 3jam, ZygoTweet, twitMobile and TweetSMS.