Yes. You can send and answer shouldis on your phone. We can also send you notices, like when a friend has added a new shouldi, or when your friend's shouldi is nearing its deadline and still needs your advice, or when you've received a shouldi in your areas of interest. You can choose to receive these notifications by selecting notify me via mobile in your communications settings under your user profile.

You start by adding your mobile telephone number to your communications settings under your profile. We'll send a confirmation message to your phone and when we get your response, you'll be ready to go.

We need you to include your mobile phone number in your user profile so that we know which shouldi user is sending or replying to a shouldi.

shouldi uses a shortcode. You send shouldis and advice to shouldi at 21691. You can only use this number once you have included your mobile number in your user profile and we have confirmed that the number belongs to you. These steps are necessary for shouldi to userstand which user is sending us messages. If you send messages to this number before confirming your mobile number with shouldi, these messages will be ignored. Remember:

All shouldi advice requests must begin with si

All shouldi answers/advice responses must begin with ans

Sending a shouldi from your mobile phone is simple using text(SMS) or picture(MMS) messaging. Every shouldi must start with the two letters si. This is just the name of our service and doesn't end up in your shouldi - it's a mobile phone thing. Next you just key in your question. In most cases that's it! Just send the message to the shouldi number 21691 and you're done.

If you want to put tags on your shouldi you can do that too. After you key in your shouldi, just add *t and then your tags. Each tag is separated by a space.

If you really want to get fancy you can also control certain options in your shouldi. To do that, just add *o and then the options. You can specify whether this shouldi is public or private and how long it will last.

Let's look at some examples:

si shouldi dump rob: A really simple shouldi with no tags and no options. This shouldi will be public or private depending on what's in your user settings under your profile.

si shouldi dump rob *o private: The private option ensures that this shouldi remains private regardless of what is in your user settings. Only your friends will see and be able to respond to your private shouldis. You could also say public to ensure that it is public.

si shouldi dump rob *o private 3d: The 3d tells the system how long the shouldi should run. In this case it is three days. You can use also use m for minutes and h for hours as in 25m (twenty five minutes) or 6h (six hours). Without this the shouldi will run for whatever duration you chose in your user settings.

si shouldi dump rob *o private *t dating: This shouldi adds the dating tag as well as specifying the private option.

An MMS is just the same except that you can also add pictures to go along with your shouldi. Any other content you add other than text and pictures will just be ignored.

Yes. Simply send the photo message (MMS) the way you always do on your phone, but instead of sending it to the shouldi phone number, send it to our email address: ask@shouldi.com. You don't need to have a special email service on your phone - it's just a normal photo message, but it gets delivered to our email address.

Remember to begin your shouldi with si (just like a plain old text message) and attach up to four images.

If you tell us to notify you via mobile under your communications settings of your user profile, we will send shouldis from your friends to your mobile. You can simply reply to these messages with your answer. It's as easy as typing your answer and sending it to the shouldi number 21691. Well, almost.

You must start your answer with the letters ans and a space. That won't be part of your answer - it's just a mobile phone thing.

Let's say you just received a shouldi that asked whether your friend should go to Ruby Lounge or Skye You can simply type ans skye. That's it. Want to add a comment? Just stick it on the end starting with *c; for example:

ans skye *c ruby lounge is a meat market

Sometimes you want to respond to a shouldi other than the last one you received. To answer the last shouldi from a particular user, just include their username after *u; for example:

ans skye *u joe *c ruby lounge is less friendly

If you want to answer a specific shouldi from a specific user (this is rare), just include the shouldi identifier after the username. You got the identifier when the system sent you the shouldi in the first place. For example:

ans skye *u joe 13 *c ruby lounge is less friendly This gives an answer to shouldi #13 from joe.

Most of the time you'll just type ans whatever_your_answer_is and that's it.

No. Images can only be included in shouldis. You can, however, include a link to an image (or anything else) in your advice response.

Your shouldi message including the si or ans strings can be up to 160 characters in length.

Yes. shouldi works with AOL instant messager (AIM), Jabber, Yahoo Messenger, and Windows Live Messenger (WLM or MSN).

Using instant messenger with shouldi is very similar to how you use shouldi with e-mail or mobile phone messaging. First, you need to add your preferred IM network and your IM username to your shouldi user profile under communications. When you sign onto your IM network, you will see a request from shouldi asking to be added to your list of contacts. Once you add us to your contacts, you'll be set to use IM with us.

You can send and answer shouldis using IM. We can also send you notices, like when a friend has added a new shouldi, or when your friend's shouldi is nearing its deadline and still needs your advice. You can choose to receive these notifications by selecting notify me via IM in your communications settings under your user profile.

The name of the shouldi contact in instant messenger varies depending upon which service you are using:

Windows Live Messenger: wlm@shouldi.com

Yahoo Messenger: yim_shouldi

AIM: aimshouldi

Jabber: gshouldi@gmail.com

Look for shouldi in your contact list and send an IM to us the same was as you would from your phone. To send a shouldi advice request, you must start your shouldi with the letters si. For example:

si shouldi go to Milan or Barcelona this summer?

To answer a shouldi from instant messenger, you must start your answer with the letters ans. For example:

ans Barcelona.

When you send us a shouldi or respond to other user's shouldi through IM, we'll send an IM back to you confirming that we got your message and telling you what we did with it.

Please see the section on sending and responding to shouldis from your mobile phone for more details.

shouldi assumes that you are responding to the last advice request. If you are responding to earlier IM advice requests from shouldi, you must include the user name and shouldi number in your response so shouldi knows which one you are answering. You can cut and paste the user name and shouldi number from the original request and include it in your response. For example:

ans skye *u joe 13 *c ruby lounge is not as friendly

This gives an answer to shouldi #13 from joe. Most of the time you'll just type ans whatever_your_answer_is and that's it.

shouldi's screen name is different for each IM service.

Windows Live Messenger: wlm@shouldi.com

Yahoo Messenger: yim_shouldi

AIM: aimshouldi

Jabber: gshouldi@gmail.com

You cannot use IM to communicate to shouldi until you have added your IM screen name information to your user profile in shouldi and that information has been confirmed by shouldi. These steps are necessary for shouldi to userstand which user is sending instant messages to us. If you send messages to these shouldi IM accounts before authenticating your IM account with shouldi, these messages will be ignored.

All shouldi advice requests must begin with si

All shouldi answers/advice responses must begin with ans

No. Instant messaging applications do not support sending a message and a file or photo as part of the message. Because of these limitations with instant messaging applications, we are unable to offer this option.

Yes. Getting and giving advice through email is almost the same as getting or giving advice from your mobile phone. You gave us your email address when you registered, so we've already got that in your user profile.

Just send an email with your shouldi to ask@shouldi.com. Remember to start your shouldi with si just as you do from IM or your phone. For example:

si shouldi go to Milan or Barcelona this summer?

You can put your question in the subject of your message or in the body - whatever is easiest for you. The same mobile phone options are available for customizing a shouldi through email. Please see the section on how to send a shouldi from your mobile phone for more details. You can attach up to four images with your advice request.

You can also answer shouldis through email. If you've selected notify me via email in your communications settings of your user profile, we will send you an email when your friends have posted a new shouldi. You can give your advice by replying to this email. Just remember to include ans at the beginning of the body of your response.

Please see the section on how to respond to a shouldi and offer advice through your mobile phone for more details on the options you have when sending advice through email.

There may be times that you want to temporarily turn off notifications from shouldi. It's easy.

You turn notifications on or off for any communications channel at any time by sending a message to shouldi from that channel.

To turn off: Send the message siaux off

To turn on: Send the message siaux on

If you want to stop text messages from shouldi to your phone, for example, send siaux off to 21691.

You can also turn on or off communications to another channel by including its name in the siaux message. For example, you can send an email to shouldi with the message siaux phone off to turn off notification messages to your phone. The general format is:

siaux (all | phone | mobile | cell | email | mail | im) [on | off]

You can also exclude the on | off in these messages and we will toggle.

For example, if notifications are currently on for your phone, and you send the message siaux phone to shouldi using instant messaging, we will turn off phone notifications.

If you want to stop text messages from shouldi to your phone, for example, send siaux phone off to 21691.

No. You can only use a phone number, instant messenger account or e-mail address for a single shouldi user profile. We use these numbers, accounts and addresses to identify which shouldi user is communicating with us. If you attempt to set up a new user profile using a phone number, IM account or e-mail address that is in use by another shouldi user, you will receive an error message.

Not yet, but there are cool things to come. Keep watching...