You know what it’s like: the clock counts down and you feel compelled in your drunken state to text all and sundry a happy New Year. Not to mention tweeting. Then the lines jam and you realise that what you’re trying to send is a rambling slur anyway. Here’s how to avoid it this year…
Twitter and Facebook
You’ve got a couple of free options here, but our shout would have to be HootSuite. The Tweetdeck-style account manager lets you view every possible tweet stream you can think of in separate columns, but it also lets you write out messages to schedule later.
You’ll need an account (and they’ll try and make you sign up for a premium one), but it’s pretty straightforward stuff. Simply fill out your message, select your chosen Twitter and Facebook accounts to send from and then click the calendar.
From here, flick the time to midnight on New year’s day and hit ‘Schedule’. Sorted – sober social media without the effort.
Text messages
It’s harder to find ways to do this for free, but not impossible. Some Nokia phones have the option built in. To enable it, go to: Menu; Applications; SMS Timer; Options; Status; Enable. This’ll bring up an option to schedule the text upon sending.
On Android, the SMS Scheduler app (free) offers a simple solution, but if you try and write a message longer than the standard 160 characters the results will go all over the shop.
For a proper iPhone alternative, you’ll need to have jailbroken your handset. Do that, and you can download BiteSMS, which will let you schedule a message that’ll send by itself at the chosen time. Sorted.
Alternatively, Txtot for iPhone will let you write a message and delay it. The app will alert you at the chosen time, but – unlike BiteSMS – won’t send it automatically. Still, as long as you don’t drunkenly tamper with it before sending, it’ll still do the work for you.
