3jammin’ all over the weekend

I’ve been 3jamming all over the weekend and loving it. I have setup a 3jam between my two younger brothers and my dad — and me, of course. They were a little bemused but they got the concept immediatley. We were sat in the Outback Steakhouse looking like a family of total 100% geeks texting each other.

Oh dear 😉

3jam is group messaging. It’s effectively ‘reply-all’ for SMS. You simply sign-up in a click and get an account then add a few friends. So, for example, I added Hetty and Eddie, while I was testing. I then create a ‘3jam’ with them both by sending them a message.

They receive a text message from, let’s say, +14151001001. (Example number). The message reads —

Ewan: Hey guys, reply back to this and say hi? (3jam with Ewan, Hetty, Eddie)

Hetty then replies to +14151001001 with her message in free text. No commands or anything, just a normal message, e.g.

Hey Ewan, Hi Eddie, how are you both doing?

I receive a text on my handset FROM +14151001001 with that message, so does Eddie.

Eddie then replies. I get the text, so does Hetty. You’re only paying to send your outgoing message — which is then distributed at no charge to you (or to the recipients) to everyone in your ‘jam’. You can save that 3jam number in your phone’s addressbook as ‘3jamHettyEddie’ so if you want to send a text to those two, you can do so by addressing it to that entry.

It was absolutely brilliant. Immediately addictive. Hetty replied back to me right-away and I sent in another text. Eddie was in a meeting so then he replied, having followed our conversation, letting us know he would be out of the meeting shortly. Reaaaaally cool.

You can create other jams though! You might want to add your 5 close work colleagues. Or your poker buddies. Or your football team. Each new 3jam is assigned a unique mobile number — so, for example, your second 3jam would use the unique number +14151001002 for sending/receiving messages.

(These are made up numbers, just for clarity).

I’ve got an idea. I don’t know how this will work, but let’s try it, right? Email me your mobile phone number and I’ll add you into the SMS Text News 3jam. Let’s give it a test, shall we? Email me with the subject ‘3jam’ and stick in your mobile number in the body, and I’ll add you right away. Let’s see how usable it is. I think, actually, it’ll probably get unusable after … what… 9 people? I dunno. Let’s give it a go. Mail me on ewan@smstextnews.com and let’s give it a play.

Heh. But I’ve also been 3jamming with other groups of friends too. I haven’t yet introduced it to Jo and Natalie — but when I do, I reckon they’ll use it like wildfire. Joanne and Natalie are two good friends who are excellent examples of UK mobile consumers. They don’t get a stuff about the technology — they’re more interested in what works and how it can help them extend and develop their relationships and lifestyles. So I am thoroughly interested to see how they react to it.

The chief reason I haven’t introduced them to it is because at the moment, 3jam runs in the UK via a range of +1 American numbers which cost roughly double to send a message to — but, good news, the 3jam team are working hard to get UK numbers operational. When they do, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was extremely popular.

Of course, the main reason for the popularity will be, I’m sure, the fact that you’re saving a substantial amount of expense by sending ONE text which is then distributed at 3jam’s cost to 5, 6 or more friends and so on. I wonder how sustainable this is? Quite, if you’ve got a good amount of cash and you’re able to buy millions of text messages at super traffic rates. By which point, one would hope you’ve signed up hundreds of thousands or millions of users………………. who you can try and convert and upsell ……. well, actually, you’d be a good acquisition target for Bebo Mobile or MySpace Mobile. Or Friendster Mobile. Or anyone else that wants to own a few million mobile users and is happy to fund the cost.

However, if you’re regularly using 3jam — if you’re hammering it and sending TONS of traffic through it, one imagines you’ll have rather good vibes for 3jam. So if they ask you to view a few ads or receive a few marketing messages in order to sustain the service, that’s possibly a go-er. Let’s say you’re costing 3jam £1 a day in text delivery costs (which isn’t too unrealistic — once you’ve tried this, you’ll see how addictive it is), that’d mean they’d need to get £30 worth of marketing exposure or upsale revenue from you each month. Could be workable. Who knows? That’s just me speculating on one possible strategy.

What I do know is that 3jam rocks. It’s phenomenally good — chiefly because you’re saving to much cost AND energy. The system is very quick and ultra easy to use.

I wonder where it’ll go? When the UK number arrives, I’ll be using this like no tomorrow. Meantime I’m using it regularly… just, … my friends are a bit pained by the international text costs right now. If you’re in North America though, you’ve got no excuse. Get yourself a membership and stick your girlfriend and a few friends on a test 3jam and give it a go. Then knock me over an email and let me know how your non-geek friends reacted to it?

And if you want to join the SMS Text News 3jam, then mail me your mobile number/a> and we’ll try it out.