Jared Hecht, 24, co-founded the app GroupMe with Steve Martocci.
March 15th, 2011 05:00 AM ET
Who: Jared Hecht is co-founder of a buzzed-about smartphone app called GroupMe, which lets users create “private social networks” with their friends over text messages.
Why he’s at SXSW: To promote GroupMe, which he says works best at events like this where people are always scrambling to find each other and communicate.
Why you might know him: You wouldn’t. Unless you went to Columbia University and are approximately 24 years old – since he’s both of those things. (Right after school he took a job at Tumblr, so if you worked there, then maybe you know him).
What you need to know about group texting: It’s the rage of SXSWi this year, which is saying something considering this place helped launch Twitter and Foursquare. Here’s the gist: Phones can send a single text message to several people, but you can’t “reply all” to those messages as you could on e-mail, Hecht said. Hence, GroupMe – and competitors like Beluga, kik and Fast Society – lets users create “groups” of friends and co-workers who they can chat with over text. Send a message to the group and all of its members get the text, either in the app, where it uses a phone's data plan, or as a standard SMS.
How Hecht got this idea: Concerts. He goes to a lot of them (he also dabbles in the saxophone, piano, bass and guitar). It’s notoriously difficult to find your friends at a concert or big music festival, and Hecht thought group texts might help.
Where you’ll find him: He’s the guy wearing the sunglasses and a gray sweatshirt with a pound sign + smiley face on it. It’s the GroupMe logo and its name is “poundie.” You may have to tap him on the back to pull his attention away from his phone, though. He belongs to 100 GroupMe groups – and he sends anywhere from 25 to 50 texts per day.
What he thinks about using “GroupMe” in a sentence: Your trusty correspondent, who has dutifully downloaded GroupMe and its competitor apps, noticed it’s difficult to use “GroupMe” as a verb. On Twitter you “tweet.” On Foursquare you “check in.” What’s the analogous saying for GroupMe? (Saying “Hey, bro, I’ll GroupMe you when I get to the party” has earned your correspondent some strange looks, although that may be because of the word "bro" and not because "me-you" sounds so strange). Hecht does not agree with your correspondent on this issue. His more verbose alternatives – “hit me up on GroupMe,” “talk about it on GroupMe” and “invite me to a GroupMe” – may work for you, though.
Post by: John D. Sutter CNN Tech writer
Filed under: Scene • Tech
Credit: CNN (www.cnn.com)
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