Do you remember SMS marketing providers – Mobile Messenger, Payvia, MoGreet, or even Outspoken? While most SMS marketers remember these brands, it’s almost impossible to find someone that knows exactly what happened to these SMS marketing providers. Instead of just shrugging it off, and letting bygones be bygones, we decided to figure out exactly what happened to these once large players in the SMS marketing industry.
Unfortunately, similar to the HipCricket saga, which eventually led to Upland Software purchasing their assets, it’s not very easy to follow the chain of events that lead to the disappearance of Mobile Messenger, Payvia, MoGreet, and Outspoken. Fortunately for our readers, the editorial staff at Tatango loves to research these types of things, and they don’t stop until they’re able to get the full picture for our readers. This allows Tatango to detangle some of the most confusing parts of the SMS marketing industry, which are the many movements of SMS marketing platforms themselves.
So what happened to Mobile Messenger, Payvia, MoGreet, and Outspoken? Below is a timeline of events.
January 13, 2010 – Velti Launches mGage
Founded in 2000, with operations in 35 countries Velti was a leading global provider of mobile marketing and advertising technology solutions. Velti had run mobile advertising and marketing campaigns globally for more than 450 brands, advertising agencies, and mobile operators that had reached over two billion consumers.
In 2010, Velti launched mGage, which was heralded as one of the most extensive mobile marketing and campaign management software platforms in the industry, enabling the use of both mobile and traditional media to reach and engage consumers. Essentially it was software for brands, agencies, publishers, and wireless carriers to use, similar to what we have here at Tatango, where they could manage their mobile marketing campaigns.
You can read more about the launch of mGage in Velti’s press release here.
Velti mGage Website (February 2, 2011)
As a side note, if you remember Air2Web, another major player in the SMS marketing industry, they were acquired by Velti for $19 million in September of 2011. Air2Web’s SMS customers include AT&T, Comcast, American Express, HSBC, Barclays Bank, and Citigroup.
August 15, 2008 – Mobile Messenger Settles Lawsuit for $12 Million
A lawsuit filed in December of 2007, claimed that Mobile Messenger’s practices resulted in unauthorized charges on consumers’ wireless bills, and demanded recovery of the charges. On August 15, 2008, Mobile Messenger decided to settle the lawsuit out of court, by paying $12 million in restitution to consumers.
July 2012 – Mobile Messenger Rebrands as Payvia
This is where it gets a little harder to follow, as, from our research, we couldn’t find any announcement of the Mobile Messenger rebrand to Payvia. That in addition to the fact that www.mobilemessenger.com doesn’t redirect to any website (it’s currently a broken link), makes us believe that after the lawsuit settlement, the people behind Mobile Messenger wanted to leave that brand in the past, and start fresh with Payvia.
Mobile Messenger Website (July 24, 2012)
Payvia Website (August 23, 2012)
May 20, 2013 – Payvia Acquires MoGreet
Founder in 2006 by James Citron, MoGreet championed MMS marketing, which enables brands to send images and videos to customers via text message. The company was so instrumental at bringing MMS marketing to the forefront of the industry, that at the time of the acquisition by Payvia, MoGreet claimed to be powering two-thirds of all the MMS traffic in the United States.
What’s interesting to note is that after the acquisition, MoGreet continued to market itself as a separate entity from Payvia, keeping both websites online, until Feb 20, 2014, when it was announced that Payvia was being rebranded as Outspoken. It’s at this time that both the Payvia website at www.usepayvia.com, and the MoGreet website at www.mogreet.com, redirected visitors to www.outspoken.com.
Even more interesting, and we’re not sure why, but on April 30, 2015, www.mogreet.com stopped redirecting website visitors to www.outspoken.com, and started redirecting visitors to out starts redirecting www.developer.mogreet.com, which is active as of this writing on June 4, 2016.
MoGreet Website (May 30, 2013)
January 3, 2014 – Velti Sells mGage to GSO Capital Partners
Due to bankruptcy, Velti sells its mobile marketing assets, primarily mGage, to GSO Capital Partners, which is a credit division of The Blackstone Group L.P. GSO Capital Partners, and Blackstone, then places mGage into one of their holding companies called TBC Holdings, which is later rebranded as Vivial. The focus of Vivial is AdTech, SaaS Automation, and Mobile, with early-stage investments through their venture capital arm, Talus Holdings. Vivial currently owns the following companies.
- mGage
- LocalVox Media
- The Berry Company
- Colony Logic
Feb 20, 2014 – Payvia Rebrands as Outspoken
Payvia announces that they’re rebranding their company to now be called Outspoken, signifying a shift away from mobile payments, to more brand based SMS & MMS marketing. At the time of the rebrand, they also announce the launch of a new video transcoding service, which is reported to deliver the highest possible visual and audio quality to the widest number of mobile devices for MMS messaging. I think it’s safe to assume this MMS technology came from the Payvia acquisition of MoGreet back in May of 2013.
You can read more about the rebrand from Payvia to Outspoken in their press release here.
Payvia Website (February 8, 2014)
After the rebranding announcement, the Payvia website, www.usepayvia.com, redirected visitors to www.outspoken.com. This is at the same time that the MoGreet website at www.mogreet.com, started redirected visitors to www.outspoken.com as well.
Outspoken Website (February 26, 2014)
January 2015 – mGage Acquires Outspoken
Then in January 2015, mGage acquired Outspoken, and what’s interesting to note about this acquisition, is like the rebranding of Mobile Messenger to Payvia, this deal wasn’t publicly announced either. It’s also interesting to note that the Outspoken website at www.outspoken.com, didn’t start redirecting website visitors to www.mgage.com until August 13, 2015.
mGage Website (August 13, 2015)
So that’s what happened to Mobile Messenger, Payvia, MoGreet, and Outspoken. Essentially at the end of the day, they were all rolled up into what is now mGage, which is now considered a tier 1 SMS aggregator by the Common Short Code Administration (CSCA).
Still have questions about what happened to Mobile Messenger, Payvia, MoGreet, or Outspoken? Let us know in the comments below and we’ll do our best to try and answer them. Have questions about SMS marketing, feel free to contact us here.
