Method and apparatus for group messaging

A method comprising:

• receiving, by a group messaging system via Hypertext Transfer Protocol (“HTTP”), a broadcast message from an originating endpoint device associated with an originating user, the broadcast message including video;
• imposing, by the group messaging system, a limit on a time of video included in the broadcast message;
• saving the video at the group messaging system;
• identifying, by the group messaging system, a group of recipients for the broadcast message;
• determining, by the group messaging system, contact information for a recipient included in the group of recipients, the determining of the contact information for the recipient included in the group of recipients comprising:
• determining an endpoint terminal address of a first destination endpoint device associated with the recipient, the endpoint terminal address comprising one of a cell phone number and a Short Message Service (“SMS”) address for the recipient;
• sending, by the group messaging system, the broadcast message to a second endpoint device associated with the recipient using HTTP;
• and
• sending, by the group messaging system to the endpoint terminal address of the first destination endpoint device associated with the recipient, an indication of the broadcast message by short text messaging to the one of the cell phone number and the SMS address for the recipient, wherein the indication of the broadcast message includes text indicating how to retrieve the broadcast message,
• wherein the first destination endpoint device and second endpoint destination device are different devices.

A system comprising:

• at least one server computer implementing a group messaging facility that:
• receives, via Hypertext Transfer Protocol (“HTTP”), a broadcast message from an originating endpoint device associated with an originating user, the broadcast message including text;
• imposes a limit on a number of text characters included in the broadcast message;
• identifies a group of recipients of the broadcast message;
• determines contact information for a recipient included in the group of recipients by identifying and extracting the contact information from a contacts database and determining, from the contact information, an endpoint terminal address of a first destination endpoint device associated with the recipient, the endpoint terminal address comprising one of a cell phone number and a Short Message Service (“SMS”) address for the recipient;
• sends the broadcast message to a second endpoint device associated with the recipient using HTTP;
• and
• sends, to the endpoint terminal address of the first destination endpoint device associated with the recipient, the broadcast message by short text messaging the broadcast message to the one of the cell phone number and the SMS address for the recipient,
• wherein the first destination endpoint device and the second endpoint device are different devices.