LOS ANGELES and TORONTO – A company that produces the ad-supported application textPlus – which provides free text messaging – has announced users in Canada can now obtain their own free phone number to support free and unlimited texting with anyone, whether they are using textPlus or not.
The mobile social messaging app is available from GOGII and is for Android and iOS devices. It reaches over 50 million users in 193 countries/territories, says the company. To date, GOGII claims there have been 60 million messages sent per day and over 14 billion overall messages sent in the textPlus network.
"With a dedicated phone number, Canadians are now able to text anyone for free in both Canada and the U.S. And the best part is that friends not using the app can text back at standard message rates, even if they’re across the border in the U.S.,” says Scott Lahman, CEO of GOGII.
The company was launched in 2007 by the founders of entertainment publisher JAMDAT Mobile, which was acquired by Electronic Arts in 2006. GOGII is headquartered in Los Angeles and backed by venture capital firms Matrix Partners, GRP Partners, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’ iFund.
TextPlus has partnered with Toronto’s Iristel, a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) operator licensed by the CRTC, to acquire the phone numbers that will be provided to Canadian textPlus users. Iristel’s coverage areas in Canada include cities in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Quebec.
"Iristel is committed to bring the most advanced and affordable communications solutions to Canadians across the country, so we are thrilled to partner with textPlus and help them deliver on the needs of their Canadian customers," said Samer Bishay, Iristel CEO and founder, in the press release.
Additional benefits of the app are that users with an iPhone, iPad and/or iPod touch device can use textPlus for free international messaging and the ability to text to multiple people simultaneously, similar to a chat. Android users can sign up for a free account directly from within the application to create a textPlus address.
iPhone users can use their textPlus phone number as a free, dedicated texting line. Users on iPod touch and iPad connected devices just need a WiFi connection to use textPlus to reach any other SMS-enabled phone
In addition to free texting, users can also participate in textPlus communities — public and private chatrooms where users can talk about any topic.
Phone numbers are available today in the latest version of textPlus, which can be downloaded for free in the Canadian iTunes App Store.
