In a perfect world, there would be only one standard messaging platform that everyone uses to communicate with each other. Instead, we have an multitude of apps that vie for messaging dominance. iPhone users are spoiled with the best messaging platform of all, iMessage. Messaging on different Apple products is seamless and group messages with other iPhone users is incredibly quick and snappy. Android owners choose from an assortment of different messaging platforms such as Google Hangouts to send SMS text messages to each other. The big headache comes from group messaging when both iPhone and Android users are thrown into the mix.
Group messaging used to be seamless in my friend group because everyone had iPhones. Two of my friends decided to go to the dark side by getting Google Pixels and group messaging has become a disaster ever since. There have been many issues with texts not going through to my friends with Google Pixels. Group messaging is incredibly important, especially around this time because fantasy football is about to start. How else are you supposed to trash talk your buddies and make them feel inferior for having a terrible fantasy football team. The solution to our group messaging problem is GroupMe.
Why GroupMe?
GroupMe solves the problem of cross-platform messaging. GroupMe is available to download in the Google Play Store and App Store. The biggest sell for GroupMe is how simple the user interface is. A couple of my friends are illiterate when it comes to smartphones, so a simple interface is absolutely necessary. You can communicate with people who don’t have a smartphone or the GroupMe app. Just choose from your contacts or directly type in the phone number of the person that you want to message. Otherwise, you’ll be using in-app messaging that does not count towards your SMS limit.
Getting Started
GroupMe will ask to sign up for an account using your email and phone number. You have the ability to connect to your Facebook and Twitter account. You’ll finish completing your profile by adding a custom photo that you can take right then or one that is stored in your photos.
The next thing you’ll do is either start a group message or direct message. Like I mentioned before, the direct message option can send an in-app message to anyone with the GroupMeapp or an SMS to friends who don’t have the app. You’ll also be able to scan through your contacts list to see who already has GroupMe.
Group Messaging
The group message option is where GroupMe really shines. Every group message has a unique name to differentiate between different group chats. There is also the option to add a group photo to personalize each group chat as well. In my case, I have three different group chats for fantasy baseball, fantasy basketball, and fantasy football. You can tell my friends really love fantasy sports. It’s a great forum to talk trash, upload embarrassing pictures of friends, or propose one-sided trades that will never pass.
There are many useful features within each group chat. The poll feature is a great way to get a consensus of what the group wants. The poll is so clutch when it comes to figuring out where to eat. The calendar option allows you to set events so that everyone in the group knows if something is planned for a certain date. The gallery feature compiles all the photos that have been shared in the thread. It’s always fun to look back and see all the ridiculous photos compiled through the years. My fantasy football league has been going on for half a decade and it brings back many fond memories of all the terrible things we’ve made the last place finisher do.
How can GroupMe be improved?
I really hate the fact that it is impossible to delete any messages or photos on GroupMe. The only option is to archive these messages or photos, but it doesn’t actually delete the files. This could be an issue if sensitive messages or photos are accidentally shared. The only way to hide the picture from your group is to ask each member to archive the photo, which is extremely inconvenient. I think it would be for everyone’s best interest if there was a way to delete messages or photos like any other messaging platform.
Overall
GroupMe is the solution for cross-platform group messaging. Anyone who has friends who have a mixture of iPhones and Android phones know how frustrating group messaging can be. GroupMe offers many useful features such as polls and galleries to make group messaging extremely easy. The user interface is extremely clean and simple, which allows literally anyone to be able to easily use the app. Unless your friend group only has iPhones, I think you’ll find GroupMe to be incredibly useful for your group needs.