On its company blog, GroupMe writes:

Over the last few months, we had been in talks with Skype that started with discussions about potential commercial partnerships. As we got to know the core Skype team better, though, and as our conversations evolved, it quickly became evident that our visions were perfectly aligned. Both companies are focused on changing the way the world communicates, and helping people stay in touch with the people they really know. With a shared vision—an ambitious one—we decided our efforts to own real-time communications and the real life network could be best executed as one company.

This has been a remarkable year for GroupMe, and we believe that this is a big win. And not just a big win for GroupMe and our amazing investors, but also for New York City. As part of the deal, GroupMe will remain in New York, team intact, working on our standalone application. The major difference will be that we will now have access to Skype’s 175 million monthly connected users. 175 million people. That’s a very big deal. 

“This acquisition is another step towards our vision to provide a global multi-modal and multi-platform communications experience,” says Skype CEO Tony Bates on Skype’s blog. “It complements our existing leadership in voice and video communications by providing best in class mobile text-based communications and innovative features around group messaging that enable users to connect, share locations and photos and make plans with their closest ties.”

“This latest acquisition, coupled with our acquisition of Qik earlier this year, augments our role as an innovator in driving unique mobile user experiences,” he adds.

Qik would be the company’s live streaming video offering.

“The GroupMe team has created an incredibly sticky group messaging experience that works across mobile devices and platforms, making it a perfect addition to our voice, video and text products,” says Bates. “We’re excited about introducing their disruptive product to our global user base.”

Skype itself of course recently agreed to be acquired by Microsoft for $8.5 billion.

According to Tricia Duryee, citing people familiar with the matter, Skype is paying about $85 million for GroupMe. This is unconfirmed. Terms were not discussed by Skype or GroupMe.

To me, a great case in point is the growing buzz around group texting apps. Group text apps such as GroupMe, Beluga and Disco allow users to form groups that can send and receive text messages in a sort of reply and read all manner. You can think of it like group chat or reply all emails, but on the go and on a mobile device. You can also launch group conference calls from the service. (Right now most are limited to US carriers as sorting out International texting is going to prove trickier.)

For our increasingly mobile world this application fills a couple interesting gaps. Texting with your friends lacks the obvious reply all function, so if you want to tell twelve people what you are doing you have to enter the list each time. Email can get this done, but it’s a little clunkier on the phone and requires folks on the list to sync up with their email. Anyone with text capability on a phone can now participate in the group. (I’m guessing that’s getting to near 100% these days.)

To some degree, Twitter was created with this kind of functionality in mind and I recall people using it like this when it caught fire at SXSW 2007, but then we got all these followers and actually reading a stream fully became impossible, not to mention public.

I think group text apps can add a layer to our increasing habit of social communication, but allow us to create small, private social networks that communicate through our mobile devices. The fact that Facebook recently purchased Beluga and Disco is a Google creation, should be signal enough that this is a growing communication option.

The obvious use, and one that first introduced me to group text apps, is a small tight knit group like a family. My four daughters are grown and spread around the country and through the use of a group text app we routinely strike up impromptu chats and send updates and everyday life kinds of photos that happen on the go and wouldn’t happen if we relied on Facebook.

The business uses of a small, private social network seem increasingly obvious as well.

A group that contained staff members would make it very easy to send alerts, quick updates and even throw out topics for debate while including all in an instant loop that could be captured for later reading. There are other tools that can make this happen as well, but there’s something very instantly participatory about SMS. Departments and far flung teams could create on the go alerts and discussions.

Now, some might bemoan the fact that their phone is now going to start buzzing away with insidious group chatter from the office clown that now has yet another way to show off pictures of his cat, but like all things, you’ll need to manage the tools and create process that works for this to be a viable new communication channel.

What about creating select groups of clients that agree to offer occasional opinions about new marketing initiatives. Or, allowing clients to opt in to your referral group and use the tool to educate them about your referral contest. Or, creating a small, private social network of strategic partners that could share information about potential opportunities and leads exclusively.

Because groups can be created and deleted almost on the fly, group text apps are becoming a huge hit at conferences and events as a way for people to get up to the minute updates on what’s happening now. I’m already seeing people splintering off social networks by location and creating on the fly groups when they travel to a city with friends.

Group text apps are easy to set up and allow the group creator or administrator and participants a great deal of flexibility in managing the group. There are opportunities to create public groups, but it’s the private function that offers the most promise. You can be certain that things like advertising and recommended brand led groups based on your interests are likely monetization options for these free tools, but for now, I think it’s a category worthy of consideration.

Shares some ways that you see using this technology in your business?

Originally published at Duct Tape Marketing.

GroupMe is one of the leading apps of this type.  Today they announced via their blog:

Today, we’re thrilled to announce another awesome feature of the GroupMe platform-Featured Groups. Starting today, we’re partnering with five amazing brands to help them connect with fans and bring some exciting, exclusive benefits to GroupMe users. They’re like private fan clubs for the things you love.

Since people often times forms groups based on events, bands and TV shows, GroupMe decided to specifically target those tendencies.  Users can create their own messaging groups or join larger groups centered around these featured topics.

The first five featured groups are: Bad Girls Club, America’s Best Dance Crew, Bon Jovi, Bonnaroo and Coachella.  There are incentives for joining a featured group instead of simply creating a normal group and talking about these featured things.  Group members will have access to insider information and promotions.  For example, America’s Best Dance Crew groups will be provided with insider blog posts, behind the scenes videos as well as the chance to chat with some of the actual crew members as they will join specific fans’ groups.  Coachella fans will be the first to know about any lineup changes and Bon Jovi group members will be automatically entered in prize giveaways.

This begs the question, GroupMe users are regularly chatting it up about Bon Jovi?  Is GroupMe trying to target the aging 80′s fanatic demographic?

Although the jury is out on the buzz that can be created by Bon Jovi, there is great potential for GroupMe users to have some fun interactions with other bands, shows, films and events in the future.  There is obviously great potential for money to be made as well.  It would be interesting to know what GroupMe will charge to put something on its featured group list.  And how much marketing will be allowed to members of the featured groups?  Brands will have to strike some sort of delicate balance between no marketing and inundating users with T-shirt discount offers.

On the heels of the announcement of Yahoo CEO Terry Semel’s 2006 bonus – 800,000 shares of stock worth $25.7 million in a year where shares of Yahoo dropped by some 35 percent – a smaller piece of news emerged. Yahoo has shuttered its youth mobile product, Mixd:

Mixd is going away, for now. The Mixd pilot study ended on February 25th, and the service will no longer be available. We’ve learned a lot from here, and you can expect to see more great mobile products from Yahoo! in the future. Thanks for your participation in Mixd. For more mobile, check out Yahoo! Mobile.

So long and thanks for all the user data, perhaps? Richard MacManus received some feedback from Yahoo about the end of Mixd:

Yahoo told Read/WriteWeb that from Mixd they "gained valuable insight about how youth communities socialize via mobile phones." Yahoo says they will incorporate group text messaging and multimedia sharing features into future Yahoo! mobile products.

The concept of group messaging seems to have some legs. Twitter has found a userbase, to the extent that its founder, Evan Williams, put his Odeo site up for sale to focus on Twitter instead. Yahoo has a much larger userbase, numbering in the millions. That advantage could be negated by Twitter’s simpler model when compared to Yahoo Mobile. Which in turn could make it an acquisition target in the way that the Delicious model found an audience and became purchase-bait. Delicious could be in the middle of another consolidation discussion, when compared to Yahoo My Web. Flickr versus Yahoo Photos has already been the subject of such speculation. Yahoo has a few duplicate services. If they’re going to keep the CEO, maybe it makes sense to do some trimming among the product lines. —