September 29, 2009 08:30 ET

Summer's Hot Texting App, textPlus, Goes Back to School Helping College Students Stay Better Connected

Free iPhone and iPod Touch Application Gives Students a New Tool to Keep in Touch With School Friends, Social Groups and Family in the Way They Like Best -- Texting

MARINA DEL REY, CA--(Marketwire - September 29, 2009) - The beginning of the school season is here and it's time for students to start hitting the books and getting back into the swing of their campus life. Whether in a fraternity/sorority, on an intramural sports team, in a study group or part of a campus club, a new application for iPhone and iPod touch, called textPlus, helps college kids stay better connected with their important groups of friends and family using a convenient way to keep in touch: group conversation text messaging.

With over 2 million downloads since its launch, textPlus is proving to be extremely popular with college students. Studies show this audience prefers texting instead of calling and textPlus by GOGII is a new way for them to interact with their friends in the style they like most. Free to download and use, textPlus offers unlimited text messaging and instant group conversations that can quickly keep college students up-to-date on important information from their social and academic networking circles. With textPlus, it's easy to organize plans with several friends at the same time, introduce people to each other or just carry on a group conversation -- all in text for free.

textPlus is easy for students to use and brings similar group messaging features to mobile devices previously found only on laptops and computers. Once a text is sent to the members of a group, the message becomes a full group conversation. All responses are "reply all" and viewable in a chat room-like format so the entire group sees every message sent as if it were a face-to-face live conversation. Because textPlus works with any mobile phone that has regular texting capabilities, students don't need to be textPlus users or download anything to join in their groups' conversations. To ensure important information and updates are never missed, textPlus also sends alert notifications so group members know when a new message has arrived. Messages sent via textPlus on the iPhone or iPod touch are unlimited & free for the owner of the app, with messaging costs sponsored by GOGII and advertisers.

"Campus life is all about students connecting with each other, sharing conversations and working together to learn new information," said Scott Lahman, CEO and co-founder, GOGII. "With the addition of group conversations, textPlus makes texting more beneficial as a communications tool for any campus group. No longer limited by one-to-one texting or tied to a computer for group chats, students can use their mobile devices to have text-based conversations that include everyone in their important social groups instantly."

Since its launch on June 1, 2009, textPlus has become one of the most popular text messaging applications for iPhone and iPod touch. Over 2 million people have downloaded textPlus and approximately 7.2 million users have experienced messages sent or received from the application. In the US, over 120 million messages have been sent using textPlus and currently, on average, over 1.8 million text messages are sent using the application each day. Since launch, the amount of total minutes used with textPlus is 470 million -- equivalent to over 890 years of use. While only the top 5% of applications in the Apple App Store reach 100,000 unique monthly visitors, textPlus exceeded that mark by over 7 times in its second month of release.

Availability

The textPlus application is available for free from Apple's App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore/. Standard text message rates apply only when using optional notifications.

About textPlus

textPlus leverages GOGII's innovative messaging platform to bring real text to the iPod touch and free group texting to the iPod touch and the iPhone. textPlus enables seamless interaction between textPlus users and their friends using regular text messaging (SMS). For more information, please visit www.GOGII.com, www.textPlus.GOGII.com or text GOGII to 60611.