Free SMS Services available in India | All covered!
I have already reviewed many SMS services on Tech Bangalore, this is the consolidated post on all available SMS services. Free SMS services are important as many of us don’t have free SMSs on our tariff & service providers doesn’t allow free SMS festival occasions. So, I am making a list of available services with small description about each of them.
Free SMS services:
Way2SMS:
Way2SMS is a free SMS service which enable you to send free SMSs to any mobile number in India from web. Just sign up & start sending SMSs. It also has group messaging service. Out of 140 characters of SMS, users are allowed to send 92 character messages. Remaining characters will be used for advertisements. Despite of web interface to send SMS, way2SMS also has wap interface. So, If you have GPRS active on your mobile phone, you can send SMSs via mobile phone also.
Link: www.way2sms.com
You Mint:
You Mint is yet another service similar to Way2SMS which allows you to send free SMSs to any mobile in India via web. It allows 80 characters of message & remaining used for advertisements. You Mint claims “We actually pay you for getting friends signed up to this service!“. You Mint pay users for referring friends to it’s network.
Link: www.youmint.com
Conclusion:
Way2SMS stands out in lot of areas listed below:
- Way2SMS allows 92 characters unlike 80 characters of You Mint
- Number of SMSs per day or to a number are limited in You Mint, unlimited in Way2SMS
- You Mint has time limitations to send SMS, free SMSs are allowed only between 8 AM to 10 PM
- Lack of wap site
Group Messaging Services:
SMS Gup Shup:
SMS Gup Shup is the best available service to send group SMSs. You can create your own group & start sending SMSs. You can use web interface to send SMSs to group of people free of cost. You can also send SMS to your group from you mobile, send SMS to 567673434 & that gets delivered all people in your group.
Link: www.smsgupshup.com
Tech Bangalore Review
Activ Mobs:
Activ Mobs is a Bangalore based group SMS service which enable you to send group messages from your mobile. The idea of Activ mobs is to send message bunch of people for the cost of one SMS. Activ Mobs don’t have any web interface to send group SMSs. This is the SMS only service with registeration & using services are via SMSs only. Activ Mobs uses karnataka local number rather than premium number which reduces the SMS sending cost.
Link: www.inactiv.com
Tagg.in:
Tagg.in is a recently entered into group SMS service. Tagg claims it’s not only group SMS system, but also a Micro Blogging platform. Tagg has pretty good interface & simple registeration process. For me, it looks like clone of SMSGupShup with no additional features.
Link: www.tagg.in
SMS Sharing Service:
Vakow:
We don’t have any competetors in this service, Vakow rules! Vakow is a greate web service for SMSs I have seen. Vakow is to share SMSs with your friends & world. You can use either web interface to post messages or via SMSs. Users can subscribe to other users, rate SMSs posted by others…etc. You can also store personal messages which carries memories (Ex: First proposal you got from a girl/boy ;)). Personal messages can be marked private which will not be visible to anyone else.
Link: www.vakow.com
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Tagg.in | SMS Group messaging | Micro Blogging | Sports & News updates on SMS
It made a very positive impact on my mind at the first look itself. What an interface, looks really great & simple. Coming to service, it apparently looks to me as combination of smsgupshup & twitter! Tagg.in claims itself as SMS group messaging system as well as micro blogging platform. But they are not simply telling like that.
Firstly registration is very easy, you have to fill only three feilds, email, password & verification code (are you human?). You can activate your mobile phone later, but updates via SMS is what looks great. Registration process can also be completed via SMSs. So you need not to have internet to use this service, just remember SMS short codes & their number. Tagg.in uses local number 99801 99801 so you will be less charged by service provider to update via SMS.
After simple registration process, you can create your own group termed as TAGGtivity. Updates to group can be sent using web interface or SMSs. Your followers can follow your updates in either medium. You can subscribe to other popular groups like CricScores, BrkgNews, SportsNews, JokesGuru…etc to get free updates.
Cons:
- You cannot add your friends mobile numbers to your group, they have to sign up or have to send a message from their mobile to follow your updates. SMSGupShup has a feature where you can add mobile numbers of your friends to your group & start sending messages straight away.
- Updates can be made via only two mediums, SMS & web. I still love twitter because it provides lot of ways to update. May be they are going to add these features in final release, this is still in alpha.
- Lack of badges to display your updates on your blogs or web pages.
I feel it still lacks in features when compared with it’s competitor. Let’s wait and see what features they are going to bring in final release.
Feature rich group messaging service (SMS) | SMSGupShup.com
SMS Gup Shup is a free group messaging service by webaroo. SMS Gup Shup is a feature rich service when compared to local player Activ Mobs. You can create a free account on SMS Gup Shup and add up to 100 friends (mobile numbers) into a group. If you send a message to group, it will be delivered to all members present in that group!
Group Creation:
Everything is easy with SMS Gup Shup. To create a group you can either create an account online at www.smsgupshup.com or just send CREATE GROUPNAME to 567673434
Adding Friends:
To add friends you can invite your friends by inviting them through web interface by giving their mobile numbers or email IDs. Your friends will be instantly added & start receiving your messages. You can also add friends through SMS. Send INVITE MobileNumber1, MobileNumber2….to 567673434.
Sending Messages:
Again you can use web interface after sign up to send messages to your group which is absolutely free :-). You can also send your messages to 56767343, which will automatically delivered to your group members. Messages to 56767343 may cost you up to Rs.3/msg depending on your operator.
Despite of you adding your friends to your group, anyone else also can join your group through online or sending sms JOIN GroupName to 567673434. For example: I have created a group TECHB for Tech Bangalore to update users about new posts. Anyone can join group by sending sms JOIN TECHB.
Group creator will have rights to remove a user from the group. You may not want your father inside your group ;-). Currently you can create only one group with one login (one mobile number).
Share your SMS forwards on web | Vakow!
Recently wrote an article about Activ Mobs group messaging which is handled by a group of individuals. Again two geeks Rahul Gupta and Amit Upadhyay from Mumbai launched an SMS sharing web site www.vakow.com which is entirely different from Activ mobs. At Vakow user can create his SMS collection. User can post his/her SMS forwards through SMS as well as through web interface. Similar to Activ Mobs, Vakow also uses Mumbai local number which make less SMS cost compare to premium numbers. Users can read & rate SMSs posted by other users. If user likes an SMS posted by other user, he can even forward that to his mobile or his friends mobiles or email addresses. If you like SMSs from a particular user, you can subscribe to that user. Overall its a pretty good service, youth will love this service.
I am wondering why not big companies entering into provide SMS services which is most effective compare to other services. Both Activ Mobs & Vakow are maintained by group of individuals.
Link: www.vakow.com
Vakow! implements TB’s Suggestion of Address Book (4th Nov)
As I suggested on Vakow! Orkut Community Vakaow! now implemented address book feature. Now when you click “Forward this SMS” link, it will show previously used numbers. You can click on “Edit” beside that number & give a name for that. This saves time of entering numbers manually by looking into your phone’s address book.
Group messaging made easy | Create your SMS adda now!
I am very glad to share this with you all on my blog. These days SMSs trend getting bit lowered because of many service provider stopped free sms service. But this service brings back all that fun SMSing with your friends. Bangalore techies Akshat, Sidu & Vidit made a brilliant group SMS system Activ Mobs. Anyone in karnataka can easily register for Activ Mobs by sending an SMS short code. After registering, you can create your own MOB (i call it as adda!!) & add all your friends to that MOB. Creating a MOB & adding friends to that can be done by just sending SMSs. Now best part comes here: If you send an SMS to that MOB, it will be delivered to all your friends present in that MOB! Activ Mobs uses karnataka local mobile number, so you will be charged as one local SMS. If local SMSs are free for you, then this will also be free for you. Even though if they charge you for local SMS, one SMS can reach upto 15 friends! Means you are using one SMS instead of 15! Since a group of individuals are maintaining this, Mobs are limited to 15 members & messages are limited to 100 characters.
Links:
Sending Free SMS
To send sms to any Airtel number in karnataka just send an e-mail to phonenumber@airtelkk.com, ex: 919945454545@airtelkk.com. Its so easy right.
Formats for other states are listed below:
Andhra
919849xxxxxx@airtelap.com
9848xxxxxx@ideacellular.net
9885xxxxxx@south.hutch.co.in
Chennai
9884xxxxxx@south.hutch.co.in
919840xxxxxx@airtelchennai.com
9841xxxxxx@rpgmail.net
TN
919894xxxxxx@airteltn.com
9843xxxxxx@bplmobile.com
9842xxxxxx@airsms.com
Karnataka
919845xxxxxx@airtelkk.com
Kerala
919895012345@airtelmail.com
I don’t how many are working properly….for Karnataka only Airtel is working.
