Group SMS communication is nothing new. UK mobile operators were experimenting with group sms services eight or more years ago, but customers didn’t seem to be interested. More recently, several independent companies have sprung up that offer group SMS services not hugely different from those that the operators put to bed years ago, but their uptake relative to the uptake of SMS itself has been tiny.

This seems odd, at first, because, according to research by Shelly Farnham and Pedram Keyani [1], group SMS services foster two human capabilities that appear to be very valuable: hyper awareness and micro co-ordination. Hyper awareness “refers to the social awareness that individuals share with one another by continually staying in touch across different locations.” Micro co-ordination “is the process by which people co-ordinate the time, place and details of an event from moment to moment”

Based on a ten month trial of a group messaging system called SWARM, Farnham and Keyani also found, amongst other things, that:

• Group text messaging provides a powerful tool for social co-ordination.
• Group text messaging provides a strong sense of connection to which users become very attached.
• People particularly liked the ability to co-ordinate with a group of people without leaving their social context.
• Group text messaging easily integrates into people’s social lives.

In their conclusion, the authors state that “lightweight, mobile group text communication can significantly affect the feeling of connection shared amongst a group of friends, and create new opportunities to share face-to-face social activities.”

If all this is true, why have more people not been using group sms services? The answer lies in the authors’ suggestions for future work: “one of the pitfalls of SMS-based command languages is the difficulty users have in remembering infrequently used commands.”

Zygo’s own research and trials have shown repeatedly that usability is absolutely critical with sms services. This was one of our primary motivations for allocating each group its own, unique, mobile number that becomes the identity for the group.

Many other group SMS services have put the onus of identifying the group onto the user when they are sending a message, and use a shared mobile number or shortcode across all of the groups. In this case, sending a message to the group typically requires the user to prefix their message with, at least, the name of the group. This involves both remembering the name of the group, how it is spelled, and typing in that name each and every time a group message is sent. Let’s put that into the context of one of Zygo’s most recent product trials, which generated 25,000 unique messages from 40 users over three months. If the triallists hadn’t been using Zygo, there would have been 25,000 separate occasions where the group name had to be remembered and typed into the phone before the user got started on the message. You start to see why what seem to be tiny details of service design make a big difference when a service is used in anger.

[1] Shelly Farnham, Pedram Keyani: Swarm: Hyper Awareness, Micro Coordination, and Smart Convergence through Mobile Group Text Messaging. HICSS 2006

Welcome to ZYGO and thanks for exploring our new site. By now you’ll no doubt know ‘it’s a group thing’ although you might be asking yourself what really makes Zygo different?

In the beginning it was just a question - well two actually.

In the old world of ‘telephony’ life wasn’t perfect but it was simple. If you wanted to speak to someone - you called their work or you called their home. If you couldn’t get hold of them you’d speak to them later. If it was urgent you’d have to locate them. It was about calling places.Enter the mobile and it’s about calling or more often than not - texting - people not places.

But life’s not always about speaking to one person at a time. Sometimes we need to get a message out to more people more quickly, or more easily. Sometimes we need instant feeback or input from a variety of people in order to move on. Sometimes we just want to banter or show off in front of a crowd. In the real world this is catered for - we gather in groups socially, we attend presentations, we have meetings. In the online world we have forums, group emails, and social networking sites (although many of these have arrived since those early thoughts!).

So naturally the question was - isn’t there some way for groups to do this on their mobiles? And the more important question - and easily - so that the whole group would understand how to do it? The simple answers were yes. And no. What followed was a lot of research, hard thinking, and developing the insight that was to become the core of the ZygoHubs service. It is so simple it is obvious. Places have their own telephone numbers. People have their own telephone numbers. Groups don’t have their own telephone numbers.

So ZYGO does just that. We give groups a telephone number. A unique number that all of its members can store in their mobile phone address books like any other number. If any member in that group wants to contact the whole group, instantaneously, they just use the group’s telephone number.

So now people can communicate as a group over mobile. And easily.

This is not a flash in the pan idea - it is a service that we have researched, prototyped, trialled, developed, patented and above all tried to keep as simple as possible. We know that everyone that has used it seems to love it. And soon we will be launching it commerically. We’ve had a huge amount of help along the way and to all those who have invested their blood, sweat, tears and hard currency - we are very grateful.

Jeremy

London: 14th November 2007 – ZYGO Communications, the UK-based mobile social networking service today announces the completion of a second round of business angel funding.

The Company’s ZygoHubs™ service is designed to allow groups of people in the real world to stay in touch. It uses a dedicated phone number to allow a group of people to communicate easily with each other by SMS and the web. Messages sent direct to a group’s ZYGOHub™ number are instantly and simultaneously received by every person in the group and everyone in the group can send messages back to their group in exactly the same way. It is extremely simple to set up and use. Within minutes messages can be sent between groups of friends and colleagues as easily as if they were in the same room together.

ZYGO provides brand owners with a mobile social advertising platform to reach clearly defined groups of consumers – whether they are 18-24 year old males with a shared interest in football or groups of music festival goers meeting up to see their favourite bands. For advertisers seeking a way to communicate with their consumers via the mobile, there are few simple channels. ZYGO has developed an advertising engine that inserts targeted communication, links, promotions, content, whatever into each message that the group sends. ZYGO therefore offers a different mobile marketing opportunity which is about engaging with consumers and not being intrusive, for example, through push SMS. ZYGO means that brands can really be a part of an interactive conversation.

The angel funding will enable ZYGO to launch its new consumer facing ZygoHubs™ BETA service and expand its current platform. The Company will be actively engaging with brands to deliver targeted group advertising and will continue to grow its customer base and gain traction and insight with its core target audiences.

Marc Mendoza, ZYGO Communications investor and managing partner at leading media buying agency, MPG commented: “At a time when advertisers and marketers are seeking new ways to engage with audiences through mobile marketing, ZYGO offers a way to extend the brand interaction to highly targeted groups. I am very excited to be one of a number of investors who see the potential offered by this service both for brands and consumers.”

“ZYGO has created a new social advertising platform in the mobile space, offering consumers what they want – free communication services for their real-world groups every month – supported by brands and sponsorship.” said ZYGO Chief Executive, Jeremy Krantz.

This round of angel funding comes from seven investors drawn from a range of backgrounds in advertising, telecommunications, new media and business. It includes a second round of investment from Richard Brennan, a former Executive Vice President of Global Brand Marketing & Products for the Orange Group, and current chairman of ZYGO.

ZygoHubs uses a standard telephone number to enable individuals to communicate with their entire team or a group of friends, with just one SMS. Once the message has been received, group members can reply to all the team with the same simplicity. The service which works on any GSM phone and requires no additional installed applications and can be set up from the mobile or via a web interface. ZYGO has developed a group text facility, group voicemail and conference calling.

ZygoHubs is easy to use and generates significant volumes of group traffic. It offers advertisers an opportunity to engage with highly defined groups of consumers through their real world social communities. Consumer trials conducted by a major internet service provider, a UK network operator and others have demonstrated the appeal of ZygoHubs with groups finding the service simple to set up and easy to use.

ENDS

For further information contact:
Lydia Oakes
Public Relations for ZYGO Communications
T: +44 (0)1799 543909
M: +44 (0)7710 244573
E : lydia@zygocommunications.com