Have you ever tried to contact a group of people hoping to get them to meet at a certain time and place, and only half of the people showed up?

Derek Johnson, 23, said when he was an entrepreneur major and fraternity member at the University of Washington and University of Houston he tried e-mails, phone calls, Facebook messages and text messages to reach his fellow fraternity members. Johnson realized text messaging is the best way to reach people quickly and effectively, but there was no way to do mass text messaging, he said.

So Johnson decided to do something about it.

Johnson cleared everything out of his parents’ basement, started setting up desks and computers and created networkText.com, a Bellingham-based business that offers bulk text-messaging service via the Internet and cellular phones, he said. Johnson works full-time as the chief executive officer for Network Text.

Currently, the company has more than 140,000 users and sends more than 1.5 million text messages per day, Johnson said. The company has clients in all 50 states, including fraternities  sororities, collegiate sports, church groups, club promoters, businesses and the average family.

“Text messaging is the new way of communicating for our generation,” said Western sophomore Andrew Dumont, a finance and marketing major.

Johnson said he met Dumont through a mutual friend, liked his attitude and asked him to come on board. Dumont works part-time as vice president of marketing at Network Text.

The mass text messaging process is simple, Dumont said.

Users go to the Web site and create a group contact list with as many members as they want, Dumont said. The group administrator users can send free, unlimited 120-character text messages to their group members through the Web site or by replying to one of the company’s phone numbers, he said.

The largest group has 20,000 contacts, Dumont said. Due to customer privacy agreement, names of groups cannot be disclosed, he said.

The service is free to send messages because of advertisers, but the normal text messaging fees based on the recipients’ cell phone plans still apply, Dumont said.

Each message has a 30-character advertisement at the bottom and a reply code that usually redirects users to a promotion or service, Dumont said. The advertisement is not part of the 120-character message limit.

Johnson said he tried to appeal to local businesses but was not getting much response. With the attention from the national press, national advertisers started to take notice and contacted Network Text, he said. So the company focused more on larger, national companies, Johnson said.

National advertisers include NBC Universal, Chevrolet, Citibank, Borders and Dr. Pepper, Dumont said. Pricing for advertisements varies for each customer and cannot be disclosed due to privacy reasons, Dumont said.

Johnson said he is extremely cautious about people abusing the program for spamming. Therefore, group administrators request a confirmation from recipients to receive text messages, and it is only after the recipients grant access that the group administrators can send messages, Johnson said.

“If you received a message that you did not request, you can reply ‘STOP’ to discontinue receiving such messages,” Johnson said.

Network Text started beta testing Sept. 17, 2007 and it had more than 5,000 users categorized in 500 groups within the company’s first week, Dumont said. Although Dumont said the company did not publicly launch with all the major cell phone carriers until Dec. 17, 2007.

Johnson said he plans to expand Network Text by adding voice, e-mail and calendar features. Johnson then plans to spread into Canada and Europe, he said.

“We want to become the largest group messaging service in the nation, and hopefully, in Canada and Europe,” Dumont said.

Network Text aims to revolutionize group communication while providing a different way for businesses to advertise, Dumont said.

Johnson said he is planning to move the company's office from his parents’ basement into a building downtown in Fairhaven, or somewhere close to Western's campus. Johnson wants his student employees to be able to commute by bus, bike or walking to the office, he said.

The company currently has seven employees being paid more than competitive wages, but Johnson said he is expecting to hire five more students within the next month.

“We are looking for kids our age who go to Western, because kids connect with kids.” Dumont said. “It’s a fun atmosphere to work in because everybody wants everyone to succeed."

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