RainedOut Launches Next Generation of Group Communications

Innovative features include fundraising, mobile opt-in, custom keywords, and remote messaging

News provided by

Sep 20, 2010, 09:03 ET

LEESBURG, Va., Sept. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Omnilert®, LLC, maker of RainedOut™, the leading group communication service for sports organizations and events, today announced the launch of the next-generation RainedOut service. Major innovations include a new fundraising function, mobile opt-in for subscribers, no requirement for usernames or passwords for subscribers, remote messaging for administrators, and custom keywords that make mobile opt-in more relevant to users. These innovations and others make it easy for organizations to "go mobile" and communicate timely information to their community via text messages, email, web, and social networking websites.

"The new RainedOut service makes my life a lot easier," said Wade Wishall, director of information technology at Heartland Park Topeka Raceway. "The new remote messaging and mobile opt-in process are amazing features. The fact that we can actually sell our own sponsor ads is a great feature as well. We will use it more so than we were because people can sign up from their phones in the stands."

RainedOut's revolutionary new fundraising program allows organizations to attract their own local businesses to sponsor their alerts. Each message sent includes a footer message that acknowledges who sponsored the free alert for the subscriber. The organization receives 10% of whatever their sponsor paid to be listed.

RainedOut subscribers are no longer required to visit the RainedOut website, nor the organization's website, to sign up to receive alerts. With mobile opt-in, members of the community can now use a standard cell phone to sign up for alerts from anywhere, such as on the field or in the stands. Additionally, RainedOut subscribers are no longer required to enter a username and password for online access. A subscriber account now corresponds to an individual cell phone number or email address.

The remote messaging feature enables account administrators to use a standard cell phone to issue alerts from anywhere, such as a rainy parking lot, without the need to login to a website. A built-in security feature prevents unauthorized users from sending remote messages.

Other new features for administrators of RainedOut accounts include the ability to create custom personalized keywords that make mobile opt-in more relevant to users, cut-and-paste web widgets that automatically post alerts or make member signup easy on the organization's own website, and a completely redesigned administrative interface that makes sending messages quick and effortless.

Ara Bagdasarian, chief executive officer at RainedOut, explains, "After coaching youth sports for years, I know firsthand the challenges of reaching players and parents at the last minute. We have engineered an incredibly easy-to-use product that we feel benefits all members of the community – the sports organization, the players and fans, and the local businesses."

About RainedOut

Established in 2004 and used by 1,000s of organizations, award-winning RainedOut is the leading group communication service for sports organizations and events. This free sponsor-supported service enables non-technical people to administer and send instant alerts to the entire community for improved communication. It is used to cancel events, give directions, recruit volunteers, and much more. As a Web-based service, messages can initiate from a net-connected PC or from the field using a standard cell phone. Through one simple interface, RainedOut instantly and simultaneously broadcasts alerts to subscribers' mobile phones (via SMS text message) and e-mail accounts, and to the organizations' own Web pages, RainedOut Page, Facebook Page, and Twitter Account. To learn more, visit http://www.RainedOut.com.

About Omnilert

Omnilert, LLC is the leading provider of unified mass notification systems for better business continuity, emergency management, and routine communication. The easy-to-use, self-service, Web-based system enables a single person to communicate timely information to thousands of people anywhere, anytime, on any device or service. The award-winning company's 3,000 clients include the U.S. Army, Boeing, Mazda, sanofi-aventis, Arizona State University, Penn State, YMCA, American Red Cross, and UNICEF. Omnilert solutions are sold under the brand names e2Campus, Amerilert, and RainedOut. The privately held company is headquartered in Leesburg, Va., and at http://www.omnilert.com online.

SOURCE Omnilert, LLC