Last time we talked about SMS GupShup we mentioned they have a plan to expand to the Philippines. That started happening as the company announced a partnership deal with the country’s Globe Telecom to launch the SMS Reply-All Chat service.
The new service is designed as poor-man’s social network, enabling users to simultaneously communicate with multiple people using SMS. In that sense, SMS Reply-All is simple and easy to use, requiring only a basic feature phone to work. Here’s the official pitch:
The SMS Reply-All Chat service extends the capabilities of SMS from basic person-to-person (P2P) messaging to many-to-many (M-to-M) messaging. Similar to the commonly used “CC” and “Reply-All” features on e-mail, Globe’s SMS Reply-All Chat service service works on every handset, is easy to use, requires no training, no software downloads, no data connectivity nor a change in handset. Globe subscribers will find it easier to be more social — whether they are organizing parties, meetings or any other activity that requires coordination among multiple individuals. Instead of relaying and forwarding messages from one person in the group to the other, everyone in a group can update everyone else at the same time with the SMS Reply-All Chat service from Globe.
Now I wonder whether there are plans to expand such a service to Western markets. I know many folks who still don’t use social networking services on their phones but do text a lot. That sounds like a great demographics for SMS GupShup’s service…