Digital Trends

A promising service? Yes. Worthy of 2.0 tacked onto the name? Questionable.

Virgin Mobile announced Friday that it had partnered with messaging provider 3jam to offer SMS 2.0 text messaging… but they may have jumped the gun on the whole change-of-numeral thing. Despite the promising title, SMS 2.0 offers text cell users the ability to message multiple friends at once in a “reply-all” conversation. Yes, that’s all. “SMS 1.1” might have been more appropriate.

Misleading name aside, 3jam’s service does have its benefits. Subscribers send messages to a number at 3jam, which are relayed to as many friends as they want to open a session. When recipients reply, their messages also go to 3jam, and get the same free rebroadcasting to all parties, creating a large conversation without the expense of separate text fees for every recipient.

The real mystery seems to be how Virgin Mobile benefits. “From a business perspective, our goal at 3jam is to help carriers like Virgin Mobile increase revenue from text messaging, and we think that 3jam SMS 2.0 has that potential,” said 3jam founder and CEO Andy Jagoe, in a statement. How Virgin Mobile will increase revenue with a service that actually helps circumvent its existing fee structure is unclear.

SMS users from any network can sign up for 3jam at the company’s Web site, or Virgin Mobile users can use their own slick landing page. Only session starters need to sign up, recipients will be able to partake from any network with no special subscription.