Sms Group chat services in India

Written by Pavan Kumar on September 8, 2008

Group sms chat is a most needed feature which youth demands very badly. Currently we lack in such a service which is up to the satisfaction of all users. But here are few such ones discussed along with the negative points associated so that you can choose the right one to suit your requirement. These support almost all Indian carriers unless specified. Most of them follow sms marketing and hence you may expect advertisements at the sms footer.
 
MyToday:
The most popular and well know sms service in India. Most of you might probably have not used the MOB feature which we discussed in the last post. MOB feature provides a group chat feature. Currently, the service has been poor but you can use it well during night time. 5 text messages per day per number is the limit. For using this service, you don’t need to go with their premium number, just use their 10 digit number 09845298452. Read more about this text message service.

Commands associated with this MOB feature:

1. ACCEPT – To accept TOS of MyToday – everyone should send this to use MOB feature.
2. SIGN YOURSIGN – To create your signature – create a good one which identifies you, it cannot be changed.
3. CREATE MOBNAME – To create a MOB through sms, I recommend you to use web interface for that as you can set different privacy options there. Only one admin can be there for a MOB and others can join his MOB.
4. START MOBNAME – To subscribe to a MOB which already exist. You may be publisher based on your MOB settings.
5. PUB MOBNAME YOUR-MSG – To publish YOUR-MSG to the MOB which will be delivered to all members of MOB including you.
6. STOP MOBNAME – To come out of your MOB if you don’t want to be in the group anymore.

More help !

MyTodayChat:
This is a quite better feature compared with MyToday MOB, this is instant messaging service serving all the time. The same 10 digit number above can be used. The limit is 25 members per chat room. There will be 3 admins who can kick the members who are misbehaving. Other than the limit of 25, it is a very nice feature as it does not have any limit on number of messages to be sent.

Access number: 09845298452

Commands associated with this feature:

1. LIST – To view the popular chat rooms on MyToday.
2. JOIN ROOMNAME – To join any chat room – if the room does not exist, it will be created and first 3 members will be admins of that.
3. LEAVE ROOMNAME – To leave chat room for which you are a member.
4. CHATSIGN SIGNATURE – To setup your signature for chatrooms. You can change it everyday.
5. CHAT ROOMNAME MSG – To send message MSG to chat room.
6. MESG SIGNATURE MSG – To send secret message to a particular chat member. The signature in the format specifies the signature of the addressee.
7. REPORT ROOMNAME SIGNATURE – To report a person with SIGNATURE in chat room ROOMNAME abuse.
8. KICK ROOMNAME SIGNATURE – Admins can kick an abusive person out of chat room using this command.

SmsGupShup:
Instantaneous serving of sms. It does not have any limit on members of a group. It is basically group sms service which also supports picture messages. This sms gateway is mostly used for bulk sms purpose to large number of people. Coming to negative facts of this service, everyone need to sign up on the web interface to be able to send sms to the group. Now, they have disabled their 10 digit number and hence you have to use premium numbers. Again NO DONUT FOR YOU! I don’t discuss the commands involved in this as I don’t expect any of you using that service through sms.

Activ MOBs:

This is an awesome group sms chat service working only for carriers of Karnataka state. This does not have any web interface and hence every task to be carried out using sms commands. This uses a 10 digit number and hence works economically for users. The maximum number of members in a group is limited to 15. You have added features like Do Not Disturb. Admins can kick members out of group.

Access number: 9844622848.
Associated commands:

1. REGISTER NAME – To register your mobile to their service.
2. MOB MOBNAME – To create a mob, choose a 2-3 character name.
3. ADD MOBNAME NAME NUMBER – For admins to add friends into MOB.
4. MOBNAME MSG – To send message to MOBs.
5. BUSY – To inform not to disturb you for 3 hours from now. After 3 hours, the normal status is automatically restored.
6. IN – If you want to restore to normal from BUSY mode before the completion of 3 hours.
7. LIST MOBS – To get a list of MOBs for which you are member.
8. KICK MOBNAME NAME – Admin feature – to kick any member from MOB.

More help with commands.

Vakow! [http://vakow.com/]:

This is one of the top sms providers in India, but never a chat service. But I am sharing a cool trick to use it as a group chat service. This trick was given by Vakow founder Rahul Gupta [http://www.vakow.com/user/rahulg/]. If all your friends are members of Vakow, then each of you following everyone else will create a virtual group chat type environment. It is again having a 10 digit number and a good uptime sms gateway. Read more about Vakow! sms service.

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