Handmark, a mobile app developer in Kansas City, Mo., last week released its full-version of POWOW for Android, a text messaging app it believes is a cut above the rest.

"While a number of text messaging products exist for Android, we saw the need for a single solution that easily combines the capabilities for one-to-one and group texting," Augie Grasis, chairman of the board for Handmark, said in press release.

After launching POWOW on April 3 as a peer-to-peer text messaging app, Handmark has seen more than 130,000 downloads. Since the release of a group messaging version of POWOW on April 13, there have been more than 40,000 group message instances, Mike Whaley, Handmark's director of marketing, said in an email today.

The core feature of POWOW – a peer-to-peer and group messaging app that uses a device's native messaging capabilities – is also the reason Handmark launched it in the Android market, which permits such functionality. The company has plans to launch an iOS and Windows Phone version in the future. But, due to restrictions, those apps will be group messaging only, going up against a gaggle of group messaging apps that were all the rage at South by Southwest Interactive one year ago, such as GroupMe, Fast Society (shut down) and Beluga (acquired by Facebook and shut down).

POWOW offers users the option of blacklisting contacts, as well (above, right).

The closest offering to POWOW on Android, Whaley said, is T-Mobile's BobSled. But Whaley said POWOW aims to offer consistency and execution of functionality superior to what BobSled offers. The two apps' ratings are nearly the same: POWOW is a 4, and BobSled is a 3.8.

POWOW is free in Google Play and currently offers an in-app purchase of $4.99 for the removal of ads.

Credits: POWOW screenshots courtesy of Handmark.