MakeUseOf Directory » group messaging

BeGrouped: Free Group SMS Messaging

Dave LeClair — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 18:01:18 +0000

Have you ever wished for an easier way to have a group chat with your friends via text message? Some phones support it, and other don’t, but with BeGrouped everyone can take part. BeGrouped is an easy way to build a group and allow everyone to easily communicate with each other seamlessly and easily.

BeGrouped supports most major cell phone carriers, so the chances are great that you will be able to create an account and get texting. Each group has a founder, and they decide who can join a group if it is private. They can also promote other members of the group to leaders, giving them power to control some who can join.

Groups can work in one of two ways: all messages can be sent to the leader, and he chooses what to send to the group, or all messages can automatically go to the group.

There are also public groups, and they all are set to go to the leader. These are cool if you want to find people to chat with about a specific topic. It could be an interesting way to make some new friends, just make sure you have an unlimited texting plan on your account.

Features:

Easy to use group text messaging system.
Private, semi private and public groups available.
Reply to all members, or to leaders only.
Organized way to manage group messaging.
Similar tools: Beluga, FastSociety, Swaggle, SMSMatrix, and GizmoSMS.

Find BeGrouped @ www.begrouped.com

AndBang: A New User Friendly Collaboration Tool For Teams

Umar — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:01:51 +0000

There are numerous websites available online that let people collaborate in teams. While most of these tools offer effective solutions, they often come with distracting side-features that disturb a team member’s work; for instance someone may keep getting chat notifications for the group even if they are not being referred to. These problems are solved by the excellent collaboration web app AndBang.

AndBang is free to use for two-member teams and costs $10 per month for additional members with a 14 day trial. With AndBang you can quickly setup tasks and invite team members to your team’s online dashboard. Here you will find all the listed tasks. Team members can click on the lightning icon next to a task to indicate that they are working on it. By viewing the task a team member is working on, you will not need to ask them if they are available or busy. Group chatting is also supported by the site but it notifies you of messages only if conversations in the group are referring to you.

Altogether, these features work to provide you with a distraction-free workspace.

Features:

A user-friendly web service.
Lets you collaborate in teams.
Is free for 2-member teams.
Lets team members indicate which task they are working on.
Chat notifies you when group conversations refers to you.
Similar tools: Conceptboard, CoSketch, Twiddla, Squareleaf, Pindax, and Workhack.

Check out AndBang @ www.andbang.com (By Umar from AllThatIsApple)

QikPad: Collaborate Notepad Online

abhijeet — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 21:01:34 +0000

If you need to quickly collaborate with a bunch of people on something that could be done via text, for example discussion on a few lines of code or maybe general chit-chatting, then you might want to try QikPad. It’s a simple online tool which you can use to create a collaborative notepad and invite people to participate in a discussion.

Quickly create a “pad” as they call it, share the URL with friends, and see what everyone is typing at the same time through color coding. Text decoration options are there, as are other sharing options.

QikPad also allows you to create a read-only version of the pad and when you close the session, it can play a time slider that shows you who typed what and when. Overall, some nice features for a simple tool.

Features

Collaborate together in an online notepad.
Different text background colors show who’s typing what.
No registration required.
Similar tools: XY WriteIt, Co-ment and ShowDocument.

Check out QikPad @ www.qikpad.co.uk (By Abhijeet from GT Mobiles)

eMailDodo: A Simple Way To Send Emails To A Group Of People

Hammad — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 19:01:59 +0000

Do you want to send email to a group of people in a easier way? Well, you might be in luck with eMailDodo that allow users to send group emails.

Unlike other software, eMailDodo is made just for emailing groups. With eMailDodo, you can send a group email from your iPhone, Android, from the web or even from SMS/text! All you need is an eMailDodo account, while you mail from another emailing service.

Using the service is easy. The very first thing a user has to do is sign up for an account on eMailDodo, which primarily uses your existing email account (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc.). After creating an account, just log into your account, create a “New Group”, and add the people you want to the group.

Features

Free service.
Allows users to send out email to a group of people.
E-mails can be done through a variety of platforms – Android, iPhone, PC, Mobile.
Similar tool: ccLoop.

Check out eMailDodo @ http://www.emaildodo.com (via AddictiveTips) (By Hammad from TechnicallyDigital)

ClassParrot: Lets Teachers Send Group SMS Notifications To Students Without Having Their Numbers

Umar — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:01:01 +0000

Privacy is a huge concern while distributing your phone number, even if it is to your teacher. But SMS notifications remain the best way to receive reminders and important notices. Here to help teachers continue sending those notifications without having to take students phone numbers is a web service called ClassParrot.

If you are a teacher, you can sign up for a new account on the site and then name the course that you are teaching. Next you are given a phone number that you should share with students and parents along with a specific text they are required to SMS on that number – this action records their numbers into ClassParrot without revealing it to you. You can then use ClassParrot’s online interface to send SMS notifications to all people enrolled in your class. You can also schedule these SMS messages and hold SMS polls to gather opinions.

Although the site offers 500 free credits initially and then 200 free credits per month, teachers requiring more SMS credits can opt for the site’s premium packages.

Features:

A user-friendly web service.
Lets you send SMS notifications to people.
Targeted at teachers teaching school/college courses.
Lets you hold SMS polls.
Lets you schedule SMS messages.
Keeps recipients’ phone numbers private.

Check out ClassParrot @ http://classparrot.com (By Umar from AllThatIsApple)

ccLoop: Create A Loop & Communicate With Workers & Friends Through Emails

Umar — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 23:01:01 +0000

Sending mass emails to coworkers is rarely a convenient option. Managing all the messages in your inbox from various sources and making sense of them is never easy. Here to simplify matters is a web service called ccLoop.

ccLoop is a free to use web service that lets you create an online group or, in other words, a loop. You can invite your friends and coworkers to your loop. The loop has a unique email address that every participant mails to. Emails received on this address are displayed on the loop’s page. Conversations are neatly organized into different panels. Documents emailed to one another show up under the Documents tab; media files appear under the Media tab; URLs appear under the Links tab.

The intuitive interface of ccLoop makes communicating with friends and coworkers a breeze. Whether it is tracking the latest document version or view a URL that was shared by a coworker long ago, ccLoop serves excellently.

Features:

A user-friendly web service.
Lets you create a loop for coworkers and friends.
Emails can be sent directly to the loop for other loop members to read.
Documents, media files, and URLs are neatly organized.
Makes communication between coworkers easier.

Check out ccLoop @ www.ccloop.com (By Umar from AllthatIsApple)

PlusRoulette: Create & Join Public Google Hangouts

TehseenBaweja — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 01:01:07 +0000

As the name suggests, PlusRoulette is a combination of ChatRoulette, the P2P random video chat website, and Google Hangouts, the video chat feature from the newest social network Google Plus. PlusRoulette lets you create Hangouts that you can make public and list on the PlusRoulette directory. Similarly, you can also join any existing public hangouts and start video chatting with random people.

The good thing about PlusRoulette is that since everybody needs to sign in with their Google Plus account that displays your actual name, a lot of issues that ChatRoulette faces won’t be present here. It is also a great tool if you want to use a hangout with a large group of people that are not added to your Google Plus network since you can just email them the URL of your PlusRoulette session.

Features:

Create a random video chat session or join existing ones.
Use Google Plus’ HangOut feature as the base technology.
Displays existing public Hangouts that you can join.
No registration required.

Visit PlusRoulette @ http://www.plusroulette.com/hangouts [Via TechCrunch]

MiniGroup: Create Private Virtual Groups For Different Sets Of Contacts

Umar — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 19:01:30 +0000

Your Facebook contacts include your friends, teachers, coworkers, and bosses. Due to this you cannot have candid conversations on your wall with one group of people without having the others find out, and hiding your wall from a group of contacts makes it obvious that you are keeping them on a limited profile. Here to help solve this problem is a web service called MiniGroup.

MiniGroup is a free to use website that acts as a social network for you and any of your contact groups. You can create mini virtual groups for each group of contacts; these groups act as individual social networks. Each group features a wall, shared files, and group events. Groups are independent of one another and you can have a unique profile for each group. The groups are hidden from search engines and access is provided only upon invitation and membership. By offering a private social network that you are in control of, MiniGroup effectively provides you with a way to share the right stuff with the right people without worrying about privacy.

Watch video:

Features:

A user-friendly web service.
Lets you create multiple virtual groups for different contact groups.
Each group features a wall of member posts, shared files, and event details.
Groups are independent from one another.
You can have unique profiles for each group.
Groups are hidden from search engines and accessible to members only.
Similar tools: Posterbee, TheDeadline, TaskBin, SkiTrackApp, MugnaTasks, GQueues, Flowdock, Planyp.us, Taskado and TaskList.
Also read: 5 Extensions to Add Calendars & Task Manager to Thunderbird3.

Check out MiniGroup @ www.minigroup.com (By Umar from TechCityInc)

Tricider: Group Brainstorming Made Easy

abhijeet — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 19:01:32 +0000

Tricider is a cool web based service that makes group brainstorming on any topic really easy. Quick too because it doesn’t ask you to register. Just enter the topic where it says “What do you want to decide?” and hit go. On the next page, you can propose a solution and add your name as well as your argument in favor of the proposed solution.

All of these appear in columns. Then friends can be invited via email or Facebook to participate in the discussion. Comments can be added too. All in a simple and easy to understand interface.

As you can see in the screenshot above, the way it shows the proposed solutions, arguments and who voted for what makes it easy to arrive at a decision. Definitely worth trying out if you looking for a quick virtual brainstorming session with a group of friends.

Features

Online group brainstorming tool.
No need to register.
Invite by email or share on Facebook.
Similar tools: ProConLists, Thinkmeter, Hunch, and Zapproved.

Check out Tricider @ www.tricider.com (By Abhijeet from GT Mobiles)

Sidaza: Group Text And Picture Messaging Service For Mobile

abhijeet — Wed, 11 May 2011 19:01:59 +0000

Sidaza is a group mobile messaging service that helps you send a group text as well as a photo message to a bunch of people simultaneously. You get a free group phone number that enables you to message everyone in the group. Members in the group can respond to that number to have their messages reach others in the group. You can also send photos, and if you don’t have a phone handy, log into your account on the site and send messages from the computer to your group. The responses will appear in real-time.

What differentiates the service from other such tools is the non-requirement of a smartphone (yes, you can use just about any cellphone) and photo messaging. The service is currently available only in the US.

Features

Group text and photo messaging.
Use a free group phone number to send messages.
Use any phone. Also, use your computer to send messages.
Similar tool: HighNote, Beluga, FastSociety, Swaggle, SMSMatrix, and GizmoSMS.

Check out Sidaza @ www.sidaza.com (By Abhijeet from GT Mobiles)