What: Texting, as we know it, was due for an adrenaline jolt in a world now dominated by the social media conversation. Into the picture comes GroupMe, a group text messaging and location service that launched last September.

The company, cofounded by Steve Martocci and Jared Hecht, provides a service that makes it possible for a specific group of people to communicate by text messages simultaneously with just one phone number. For instance, when one person in a created group ...