Were you just thinking to yourself: “I wish there were an easier way to have conversations from my phone?” If so, Yahoo claims to have the solution with its mobile app Hub, which comes with the tagline: “conversations made easy”.
In this announcement for the app on the Yahoo Mail blog, there is only mention of an Android version, and no mention of an iPhone version, though an iPhone is shown in the image provided (above) – I guess to just show that iPhone users can still get text messages from it.
“For those heavy texters out there, we are excited to introduce Hub, a fast and easy-to-use mobile messaging app that allows you to send text messages and have group conversations for free,” says the Yahoo Mail team. “Hub allows you to easily add participants to any conversation thread so it’s easy to switch from private messaging to a group conversation. Whether it is just keeping up with a close group of friends or making spontaneous plans, you no longer have to deal with scattered messages.”
“What’s more, Hub allows you to send messages to anyone without incurring any text messaging fees,” the company adds. “Yes, you heard us right. There are no text messaging fees – messages are sent over WIFI or using your data connection – and Hub is device agnostic, which means you can communicate with anyone on any mobile device as long as you have their mobile phone numbers. Your friends are not required to download the app in order to reply to your messages although they are strongly encouraged to do so in order to enjoy the full feature set!”
This isn’t the first app to to offer free text messaging, but the Yahoo brand probably won’t hurt in it getting some downloads. It has group messaging, and support for local and international SMS messages.
You do have to have a Yahoo ID to use the app from the looks of it.
Earlier this week, Yahoo launched a new version of Yahoo Messenger (11.5). Yahoo lists the highlights as follows:
New Social Games – We’ve added some popular new games to Messenger 11.5 including Backyard Monsters, Township and ourWorld—and have made it easier to get your friends involved in sharing your game activities.