Update: As of December 15, 2011 Beluga is shutting down.

Beluga is a new service for sending messages to private groups you create within your mobile device’s contacts. Beluga has free apps for Android and iOS devices. Beluga can also be used from the mobile-friendly Beluga website. You can use Beluga to send basic text messages to the groups you’ve created. Beluga also supports sending multimedia messages to your groups.

To get started using Beluga go to the site and choose the app you need. Then create your groups and start sending messages. If people in your contacts don’t have smart phones they can still receive and send SMS messages.

Applications for Education
If you’ve ever taken a large group of students on a field trip, you know the stress that can come with keeping track of all of them and getting them all back on the bus. Beluga could be used by field trip chaperones to quickly communicate with and keep track of their charges.