MANILA, Philippines - In 2000, Dennis Mendiola thought of creating "Chikka" in an effort to let SMS-loving Filipinos send text messages from their computers for free.

The text messenger service, named after the Filipino term for "small talk," became a hit with Filipinos across the globe, said Mendiola, who is also Chikka's "chief imagination officer."

To date, he said Chikka has served over 68 million people who had registered online and via their mobile phones.

"We enabled Filipinos to connect to an online IM (instant messenger) community via texting which was second nature to us," he said.

Chikka came at a time when the Internet is only used for surfing and downloading, and when one has to pay P1 for every text message, even more to make a phone call.

But with new technologies today such as social networking sites, smartphone services and unlimited call and text promos, is Chikka now a thing of the past?

Quite the opposite, according to Mendiola.

"We don't consider Facebook, Twitter or any of these as our competition. We believe these are complementary to our service," he explained.

The difference

Unlike Facebook wall posts or "tweets" from Twitter which are commonly used for casual messaging, Mendiola explained that text messages, like calls, are more personal since these are done "one-on-one or between 2 users only."

He said that people will continue to use Chikka as it "combines the cool convenience of sending an IM message when one is online with the personal warmth, even urgency of receiving a message as text, instantly read on one's phone."

Recognizing differences like these are important, Mendiola said, as such enables them to tap opportunities for growth.

Chikka was recently relaunched to offer a variety of new services to cater to the changing needs of people across the globe.

One pet project is a service that allows users to update their Facebook or Twitter accounts by sending a text message, even if they're using an old phone.

Mendiola revealed that they are also working on a smartphone application that will allow users abroad to send text messages to mobile phone users here in the country.

"The idea is for Chikka users to be able to access it on numerous communication platforms...Simply put, as long as you have a computer or mobile phone, you can use Chikka," he said.

He added, "Our common goal is to unite Filipinos worldwide."

Can the new and improved Chikka last for another 10 years, even with the emergence of other modes of communication? We'll soon find out.