If you're a fan of websites like Bit.ly or Furly and the many other URL shorteners, then you will know the value of intermediate message services. Whether you're sending a friend a cool article or posting a blog update to Twitter, URL shorteners serve up that link to your friends for you.

What if, instead of forwarding a website to a friend, you just wanted to forward a message in a creative way? Sending a free animated text message is a really cool way to draw attention to what you're trying to say. You can send a motivational quote to a friend, a birthday or holiday greeting to your family, or you can send your blog or website readers an eye-catching message.

We've covered a few alternatives like this at MUO before, like 3D Text Maker or Text Anim, but these all let you create animated GIFs that you can host on your own site. What if you don't have a website, or just don't want to deal with the hassle? Well then head on over to Wondersay and get ready to start creating your Wondersayings.

Creating A Wondersaying

Wondersay is a brand new service where you can create an entire webpage that's designed for the sole purpose of delivering your animated message. You don't need to sign up for an account, and you don't even need to offer your email. Like URL shorteners, all you have to do is use the service by typing your message into the "make a new wondersaying" box, and your animated message gets created instantly.

free animated text messages

One trick you can use to format your animated message right off the bat is by placing a "double space" between each pause in the message. This makes each segment appear and disappear onto the screen separately, timed according to whatever your current settings are. Once you create your message, you'll be at the customized link that's created just for your message.

animated text messages

Bookmark this URL so that you can return here later to further customize the message or get the link or embed code. Sharing the message is as easy as just highlighting the entire link in the link box, copying it and sending it to friends via email. This is the fastest way to create and send fun, animated holiday messages to all of your friends.

animated text messages

When you click on the settings tab, you can go through each element of the animated message and change everything about it - how each section appears and disappears, the speed of the message animation, and the general theme of the web page like the background, text colors and font.

animated text messages

Each element has its own quick pop-up box where you can set the colors that you want in just a few simple clicks.

fun animated messages

The easiest way to change your message significantly is by playing around with the different built-in effects. If you do this right, you could basically put together a short presentation that delivers a message to any group of people that you send the link to. It's a great way to deliver some surprise or an inspirational message to a large group of people.

fun animated messages

In my case, I'm running a promotion on my website, so I wanted to create a high-impact message that I could deliver via Twitter and also place on my blog. When anyone clicks on the link in an email or in Twitter, all they see is the entire webpage filled with your animated text.

fun animated messages

The coolest part of this service, in my opinion, is the embed feature. By embedding the message, you can basically create a really cool animated ad on your website. This is exactly what I wanted to do on my site to advertise the upcoming promotion. Clicking on the embed tab, you just highlight the iframe code in the text box.

Posting that code in your sidebar, you get a high-impact instant advertisement. The only drawback is that it only scrolls through the ad once and then ends on a static page - but at least your message still appears on that last page, and people can click on the "replay" button to see it again or the "fullscreen" button to see the message in fullscreen. It'll definitely catch the eye of your visitors.

Another nice little feature of the service is that if you want to deliver your animated message in a Twitter update, it utilizes bit.ly to shorten the URL.

free animated text messages

This means that you can use the bit.ly monitoring feature to see how many people have clicked through your Twitter update to view your animated message. It's a nice feature and a good way to see how much traffic your Wondersaying page is generating from Twitter.

Have you ever used Wondersay? Do you know of any other similar services? Share your insight in the comments section below.