By Ewan MacLeod — Jul 25, 2006

Short-codes.com - comprehensive UK shortcode availability

You have got to add www.short-codes.com to your bookmarks. I came across it the other day and it’s an absolutely wicked method of checking shortcode availability. It’s owned jointly by the major UK networks.

Previously I used to get an Excel spreadsheet and send that over to clients to allow them to see what was available. I never knew about this service though.

I thought I’d give it a go looking up the rather imaginative 69269 shortcode. Yes, I was in a strange mood.

You just type in the shortcode you’re after and hit ‘search’. Woosh. Alas as you can see from my screenshot, 69269 is taken. However, 69270 is available.

What’s more, I can tell you that it’s available for SMS, Voice, MMS and video! Nifty.

I then thought it would be rather cool if I owned the shortcode 8EWAN. Looking at my mobile keypad, that works out as 83926. Let’s have a search.

It’s available! Heh! That’d be wicked.

I’d like to put this on my business card: