New Virgin Mobile Service Enables Simultaneous SMS
by Russell Shaw
If you SMS, or know folks who do (maybe even your own teenagers) texting, you know that many more than just two conversants want in.
But the process is multi-message- #1 texter texts #2, and then texts#1 with a version of what texter #2 told her, and so on.
But now there’s a better way.
A new, SMS service just announced by Virgin Mobile enables customers to blast an SMS message to several friends at once, and then handle replies to everyone as well.
The service is entitled 3jamSMS 2.0, and is available from the eponymously named, venture-backed 3jam, Inc. The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company’s deal with Virgin Mobile marks the first time a U.S.-based mobile carrier can offer multi-party text conversations.
While the 3jamSMS 2.0 application is free to sign-up with, SMS’s messages it subsequently carries are assessed at customary Virgin Mobile SMS rates (5cents a text; 25c ents a video mail, or monthly plans of $9.99 (1,000); $4.99 (200) or $1.99 (50).
