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The Indefinite Article.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

3jam: reply-to-all for sms

I acquired my latest phone specifically so that I could text-message. Why? Because I like the asynchronous, reply-if-you-want-to, i’m-just-putting-this-out-there, type of communication. Plus, I detest leaving voice-mail.

SMS is great for this kind of stuff- but it only works well for person-to-person communication. SMS becomes a hassle when trying to handle people-to-people communication. If I send a message to Todd, Adolph and Killy, they will all get the message, but each of them will not know that the others were included on the message. And their replies will only go to me. Basically, there is no “reply-to-all” function with SMS.

Enter 3jam

3jam is a free service that enables multi-person SMS conversations.

Its simple to use:

- You sms the 3jam number with a signup message:

signup pablo mercado

- 3jam responds with a “you are signed up!” message. You can now enter contacts with a message like:

add adolph trudeau 8324441122

- Add a bunch more addresses:

add todd slurpa 7342232222

- Once you got a bunch of contacts added you can start up a group chat:

chat todd adolph

- 3jam will respond with a “your chat has started” message. Replies to this message will be broadcast to both todd and adolph. They will see that the participants of the chat are pablo,todd and adolph. When one of them responds to the message, all of the participants will see it!

Pretty slick eh?

Check out the 3jam blog for more details on the how and the why…

3 Comments:

  • so what phone did you get?

    By Blogger Killy, at 11:17 AM  

  • oh. i got the free phone. it's this big, heavy, thing. I don't like it much. But I am too cheap to fork over cash for better? prettier? lighter? phone.

    I would like to keep using the free phone they gave me two years ago when I signed up. it is small,light and simple. but it can only receive not send sms...

    By Blogger pablo, at 11:35 AM  

  • I think 3jam was good a while back ago, but I found two things wrong with the service, one was the lag time in messaging, and the other was the need to put it all my friend's names or phone number in a message that is limited to 160 characters. Doesn't leave much room for the message.

    I started using Peekamo.com recently and find it to be much better group messaging solution. I also like the archiving feature so I don't have to save all the messages on my phone.

    It's worth a try for anyone looking for a 3jam alternative.

    http://peekamo.com

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:29 AM  

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