Abstract: Apparatus and methods are provided for providing SMS notification, SMS advertisement, web advertisement and e-commerce systems for university communities. A messaging platform includes a web server and a database. The web server provides student, university, merchant and web advertiser interfaces for communications with students, university users, merchants and web advertisers, respectively, and back-end interfaces for communications with SMS aggregators and wireless carriers used to communicate SMS messages to the students' Mobile Devices and web advertisements to student clients. The database stores information regarding the students' demographic information and interest categories. The messaging platform may be used by university users and merchants to send SMS notification and advertisement messages, respectively, to the mobile devices of students based on interest category information extracted from the database.