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Tatango Offers Group SMS Text Messaging (invites)
Recently launched Tatango provides a one-to-many SMS text messaging service. Tatango reminds me of another startup, Chatterous. With the growing popularity of Twitter and its inability to target groups, services like Tatango and Chatterous could become acquisition targets. Tatango is perfect for getting help from your friends when you are out and about. It could also work well for work teams to make sure everyone is up-to-date on project and meeting status.
Here’s how it works. You setup your friends mobile phone numbers in Tatango, Then you create a message to send. Tatango then sends out the message via SMS to all members of your group.
Assuming they can handle the volume, Tatango could offer their service to companies wanting to provide SMS text alerts on product news and advertising. This method could be more effective than email marketing.
If you’d like an invite, we were able to grab some – just register here. Below is an overview of Tatango from founder Derek Johnson.
I have to disagree with the twitter looking for acquisitions to do groups. groups are fairly easy to create. Lets not forget crowdstatus did it with ease :p
However this just seems pointless as a business, in the uk most people on contracts have loads of sms so they can just do it on their phone.
@Darren – I disagree with your point that because people have contracts with unlimited text messaging, our business is pointless. Yes, some people use Tatango to send group text messages because they don’t have enough text messages on their personal mobile phone plan, but the majority of our users use Tatango because it’s easier then doing it from their mobile phone. I have an iPhone and unlimited text messaging and when I need to send out a text message to quickly update our investors & advisors, I use Tatango because it’s just easier then doing it from my mobile phone.
What is really cool about Tatango is that you can also easily send a message to everyone in your group directly from your mobile phone if you are away from your computer. To do this, simply send your group message to 68398 and start your message with the # symbol and it will be sent to everyone in your group.
Feel free to check out our blog here: http://tatango.com/blog/
I love how he’s reading something to his right.
Seems like a great tool… definitely could be a great alternative to email marketing provided people properly opt-in.
@ Anonymous – Yea, it definitely looks like that, but I wasn’t reading anything. It was me watching myself in the capture window on the screen. Rookie mistake I guess.
@ Nick Stamoulis – Yes, Tatango has spent a great deal of time to make sure that our system is completely opt-in and I would say that in terms of group text messaging websites, Tatango is leading the industry in the fight against sms spam. Feel free to check our blog post about how we fight spam at Tatango here: http://tatango.com/blog/?p=68
Good to see ideas that have potential for monetization. Even if Twitter does not buy them (which they probably will), they do have potential of offering the service for a fee to all types of marketers. I already receive a number of sms messages from various local shops where I have loyalty cards but I have no idea what technology they use for that, probably something very similar. But if they offered it as a group discussion for customers to be able to receive additional information or discuss the announcement with other customers, it could be actually helpful.
@Svetlana – Thanks for your comments! We actually already have a couple of monetization methods in place, which so far have been working extremely well for Tatango.
The first monetization method is placing 30 character advertisements at the end of each text message, which advertisers pay us for. These ads are actually pretty cool because they are interactive, so one will say “Save Gas, Reply CHEVY” and when a user replies to that ad, they will get the top 5 MPG cars that Chevy offers directly to their mobile phone.
The second monetization method is the Tatango Pro account which we offer users. The Tatango Pro account is $4.95/month and takes out the Tatango branding within the text messages. In addition, the Tatango Pro account allows users to add additional packages like add free messaging, keywords, additional groups and other features that are more commercial oriented.
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