Sharing emails and interests  with your friends has never  been this easy and fun,  writes Nizar Diamond Ali

The usefulness of email has been realised and extended with mailing lists and groups, and through other similar concepts which are now adopted in telecom industry. One such   service is Chopaal (http//chopaal.pk/). This innovative idea of creating groups of people sharing similar interests, and enabling them to exchange SMS free of charge is implemented locally through a Pakistani university, and the service is available for free.

Getting started with Chopaal is easy with an online sign-up or even through SMS by sending desired user name to 033-CHOPAAL-5 (03324672255). The rest is taken care of by automated replies working on equivalent lines of online registration. Once the registration is complete, username and password is sent to the handset.

And now the fun begins. Once logged-in, you can create tags — equivalent of groups — by either clicking the Create tag link or by issuing a SMS-based command. Other Chopaal users can then subscribe to these tags and receive SMS whenever it is sent containing that particular tag. A tag name could be generic such as 'cricket'; or specific, like your own name. Essentially, same rules apply on username in an email address — the earlier you register, the more are the chances that you will get your desired name of the group. And unlike email-based groups where user gets one group address per account, Chopaal allows a number of tag creations once the user is registered.

This allows frequent users of SMS, like class representatives, members of social and community groups, local sports team, friend circles, etc., to create and manage tags not only for their respective purposes, but for different audiences and groups as well.

Tag creation comes with its own range of options that gives proper control to the tag owner. These options include ability to define if anyone can join, post messages and the visibility of members and messages. However, this feature must be used wisely since any random person can join the group, and given the visibility of members to other group members, this is a privacy/security issue. Also, since members cannot choose their visibility, it becomes even more important for the tag owner to keep the rules strict.

After creating the group, it is the time to invite friends to join. You can do this by sending invitations right from Chopaal. Alternatively, existing Chopaal members can do it by logging in over the web and searching for an existing tag, or simply by sending an SMS with text 'join tagname'. Tag owner can him/herself invite members to join. If the tag is private, a notification SMS is sent to the owner asking either to reply with an 'accept' or a 'reject' code.

If it is accepted, the user who requested receives a confirmation SMS. At this time, the tag creator can verify the member addition over the web, where tags are managed in a simple interface. Here, all the members of a tag are listed, along with the latest tag activity, that is, when was the last SMS sent and what its text was. Memberships can be edited as tag owner can assign any member the rights to 'admin.' To start communication after registration and member addition, one simply needs to send a SMS to a tag — which is then forwarded to all the subscribers of that tag. You can do this in one of the two ways. First, by including the tag name in the message itself, for instance if the tag name is football

'Go watch the Olympic football live now!'

Or second, by starting the message with a dot followed by tag name like .football Go watch the Olympics final.

One of the strong features of Chopaal is its SMS-based commands handling. This takes care of everything like registration, joining a tag, sending message to a tag, disabling a tag (a single tag or all tags at once), contacting tag owner, reporting an offensive message, warning, blocking and kicking users out, etc. All such commands are to be sent to the same 033-CHOPAAL-5 number. This makes it easy to handle and manage a mobile phone group even while you are away from the comfort of a PC.

Chopaal is a good example of entrepreneurship drive that has now become hallmark of foreign educational institutions. Such projects not only bring out creative ideas from students, but also make such ideas beneficial for others in a great way.