The situation: Did you ever have a pen pal? They’re fun! It’s exciting to get letters from another part of the world, and pen pals can help you get better at foreign languages and make friends with people from different cultures. But snail mail is wicked slow, and few of us have the patience to deal with the old-fashioned ritual of waiting by the mailbox for a letter from Japan.
The solution: But what if you could text your pen-pal instead of buying stamps? Studies show that teenages exchange an average of over 80 texts a day (according to a 2009 survey) and that number is only growing in the developing world. Worldwide SMS usage has gone up from 58% in 2010 to 83% in 2011, indicating that text messaging is one of the primary ways people communicate all over the world. So why don’t we have SMS pals instead of pen pals? This would be a great way to continue the pen pal tradition while updating it for the modern world.
The tech: SMSpal would be relatively simple to build a website for pairing people around the world and routing messages to pairs (or even small groups of SMSpals), using Twillio and other open source technology, such as ClassTalk.org. With a single number for both phones to text, nobody would have to exchange phone numbers and the website could account for all communication to police improper communication. Unlike services like the lascivious Chatroullette, this safe service would be primarily for a K-12 audience looking to connect with someone in a foreign culture.
The competition: There are already a few websites that offer to set up penpals (like penpal.pl or penpalworld.com) but these are focused on the internet and email as a the medium, not the cell phone. SMSPal would take the internet out of the equation with all communication going directly to users’ phones.
SMSPal would create a very low barrier to communicating with someone you already know, and help kids learn about a foreign culture in the process. This is a great way to learn a foreign language outside the classroom, from a real-live peer who could teach far beyond any textbook.
