Kwiry, Hooja offering new texting features

(updated with funding details for Hooja) Texting is commonplace, but new companies are building new features around it now that more people comfortable with it and sending more texts (SMS) than ever.

Kwiry, a San Francisco company, now lets you text reminders to you computer for later. If you see something or think of something while outside away from your computer, you can text to 59479 (K-W-I-R-Y) and it will waiting for you at Kwiry.com and in your email.

Hooja, a secretive company, has just launched a similar texting service, though it is in testing mode, and apparently does not offer the same social components featured by Kwiry. Hooja is more focused on letting you publish the text messages on the Web. Hooja received funding from investor and former PayPal chief executive Peter Thiel. It was founded by Na’ama Moran, formerly at Greylock. Moran said he wants to wait a bit before talking more about the service.

While these text-reminder services are not earth-shatteringly new, Kwiry says its service is different from existing offerings such as OTAir or Primiro because it brings a social element to the process, and is focused on regular people, not on serving businesses. It works within services such as Facebook, MyYahoo, NetVibes, Twitter and Jot, letting your friends also track your reminders. It works like the mini-feed of Facebook, broadcasting your reminders to them if you want your friends to see them.

Kwiry has partnered with companies like GamePro Magazine and HGTV to test marketing with Kwiry. Those media groups can advertise products with a short code. Then users can text the code to Kwiry’s 59479, and Kwiry sends the users an email with a link providing more information about the products. This is similar to what a competitor Mozes already does for bands (see our coverage ). HGTV is testing Kwiry for the show “Don’t Sweat It”.

We covered Kwiry earlier this year when it raised $1 million from Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.

update: We now hear Hooja has closed a $1.3 million seed round led by Peter Thiel. Angel investors Mike Maples, Yuval Shahar and Pascal Levensohn also participated.

In other announcements, Internet telephone company Jangl yesterday announded a service for Bebo users that lets them send and receive SMS messages from your mobile phone or PC without having to share their numbers.