The need to communicate is as important as the need to survive; in fact, we dare say that to live is to communicate. Over the millennia, our ability to communicate has gotten more efficient and effective that at the slight touch of a button, we’re communicating with others everywhere on the surface of the planet. We built Trombone along the lines of effective communication.

So what exactly is Trombone? Trombone is a group texting platform that enables large groups to communicate with each other using text messages in an efficient and cost-effective way. So whether you’re a religious organization, NGO, company or even a class of students, with Trombone, you can reach out to all of your members or friends without any other device besides your mobile phone.

How does it work?

Groups are organized into what we call channels on Trombone. So you can create channels, get your friends or members to subscribe to these channels and then you can start communicating. Each time a friend or member sends a text message to the channel, everyone on that channel gets an SMS with that message . Think about email discussion groups but using SMS.

For instance, a corporate organization that would like to send out important news on-the-go to their staff members can create a channel on Trombone and have their staff members subscribe to the channel. Staff members would then receive updates every time a message is sent to that channel.

Here’s our best kept secret – it works with any kind of mobile phone. As long as you’ve got service on your phone, you can use it.

Creating a channel

To create a channel, send: create #channelname (where channelname is the name of the channel you intend to create) to +447797880420.

For example, to create the channel, mychannel, simply send: create #mychannel to +447797880420. If a group with the same name exists, you will get a text message telling you so.

Creating a channel

Response after creating a channel

By default, your new channel will be set to open access (meaning anyone can subscribe) and in conversations mode (any subscriber of the channel can send messages to all the other subscribers of the channel).

Subscribing to a channel

Once you’ve created a channel, it’s of little use unless you have people subscribed to the channel. What you have to do is get your friends to subscribe. To do so, tell them to send: subscribe #channelname to +447797880420. To subscribe to the channel mychannel for instance, simply send subscribe #mychannel to +447797880420.

Subscribing to a channel

Response after subscribing to a channel

Sending messages

To send a message to a channel, send #channelname your_message to +447797880420. Say for instance assignments in a particular course are to be submitted tomorrow, the class rep. can send out this notice to her class by sending: #mth101 assignments are to be submitted tomorrow!!! to +447797880420 to spread the news (this is assuming that #mth101 is the channel that she created for her class).

Sending messages to a channel

What you’ll eventually see

You’ll notice all your communication comes and goes to +447797880420. You might as well just save the number:

+44 77 97 88 04 20

Please note: Standard text messaging rates apply.