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Skype Purchasing GroupMe To Deliver Group Text Messaging to Mobile

Well now, Skype is looking to bring a little more action to their customers by acquiring GroupMe, a startup that offers its customers free conference calls and group text messaging via mobile phones and also offers mobile apps for Android, iOS, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 devices.

According to an article over on PC World, GroupMe pushed out a new version of their app earlier this month that offers the ability to message a single person in a group. Several people in a group or all people in a group, or all users and even send over Facebook and Twitter.

Skype has not commented on if GroupeMe will be eventually integrated with Skype services or whether it will operate under its own brand name, , but apparently part of the deal means GroupMe will retain its team and stay in New York and work on their standalone app.

The GroupMe blog says, “The major difference will be that we will now have access to Skype’s 175 million monthly connected users.”

Furthermore Skype has not disclosed just how much the acquisition of GroupMe is going to cost, but the acquisition will mean Skype can now offer its customers the ability to text message groups in future.

The blog post also says, “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.”

So there you go, if you are a Skype user at some point in the near future you should be able to text message your friends in a group for free from your smartphone.

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