Group texting is an activity that, in the past, seemed largely confined to teenagers at sleep overs. But the applications are limitless for adults concerned with life’s important moments.
Talking with buddies on game day? Meeting up with your friends and their kids? Group texting is a great tool for these situations, and free smartphone applications like Fast Society (iPhone), TextPlus 4 (Apple and Android devices), BrightKite (Apple, Android and BlackBerry) and GroupMe (for iPhone and, next month, for Android) have emerged in North America to make it easier and, well, smarter.
Download one of the applications, invite others to join your group, and fire away. Other members of the group do not need the application, as long as they have a phone and, presumably, an all-inclusive texting plan.
BrightKite and TextPlus offer the bonus of free texting, but a new competitor, Fast Society, is particularly valuable for what it does not do: require a lengthy registration or keep a group text active into perpetuity. It also costs nothing, and it lets you easily make free conference calls.
Fast Society’s ability to establish a group’s expiration date is a key advantage. Think about it. Groups are fluid things, with members coming and going according to the situation. You may want to connect with 12 people at a concert, or a bachelor party or convention, but after the event, who really wants to receive daily missives from the group member with sharing issues?
With most of the available group-texting applications, you can let a group lay fallow easily enough — and on GroupMe for iPhone, you can delete a group manually.
Fast Society is simple to use. After downloading, it asks your iPhone number and sends you a text, to which you respond, “Go.” You then start the application and type your name and U.S. zip code,…