Mobile value added services provider, Webaroo on Tuesday announced the launch of a group messaging service through SMS on mobile phones, which helps the users in social networking.

"SMS 'Gupshup' is a new service for users of mobile phones for connecting with friends, building new relationships and forming mobile communities," Webaroo Co-founder Beerud Sheth told reporters. He said the 'Gupshup' service offers a simple way to create groups of any size and communicate with them.

Messages sent by the group creator are forwarded by Webaroo free of cost to all members of the group. The creator has to pay for a couple of messages initially for creating a group or those interested in joining the existing groups depending on the choice and interest.

The service is free to users and will be supported by advertisements, which would be tagged along with the messages the group members exchange, he said.

The company has chosen SMS as a medium to leverage from the wide usage of the basic mobile handsets, which broadly offer data and voice services only. Currently, around 10,000 members are on the user list of the service, which was launched 4-5 weeks ago.

"We are looking at 50,000 users of the Gupshup service in a very short period of time," Webaroo Vice President Chirag Jain said. Using a single SMS message, users can join any chosen group and would automatically receive messages posted to the group as an SMS on their phone.

Similarly, users can use SMS messages to create their own groups, invite friends, and post messages to the group, he said.