We're all familiar with calling in anonymous crime tips to Metro Crime Stoppers of Maryland using the 1-866-7LOCKUP number.

Now, there are two more ways to help the cops catch a criminal: the nonprofit's web site now has a form you can fill out and submit electronically. You can also text your tip in on your cell phone.

That's right, text it in. Simply text MCS, your message and send it to CRIMES (274637).

The program started quietly two weeks ago as a test and was made public today, first by WJZ-TV. Earl Winterling, the immediate past chairman of the Maryland crime stoppers program and a regional director of Crime Stoppers USA, said already one text tip has come in. But even better, 20 tips have come in on the web form.

"And that's without any advertisements," said Winterling, whose paid job is security chief of 7-Eleven stores in Maryland and Delaware. He said the Crime Stoppers LOCKUP number typically generates only 28 tips a month, so 20 in two weeks, before anyone really knew about the program, is quite remarkable.

Now that it's public, Winterling said, "I can't believe what is going to happen to us."

Metro Crime Stoppers of Maryland has paid out about $500,000 over the past 27 years. It offers rewards up to $2,000 for tips that lead to arrests and convictions. He said calls have been slow recently, even with a steady pace of crime and the stop snitching video that has made people understandably apprehensive about "having a police car pull up in front of their house."

Crime Stoppers offers people an alternative, pays money for useful tips and allows them to remain annonymous.

The Boston Police Department was first agency to get tips by texting. They started back in 2007, and according to the Boston Globe, received 678 text tips in the first year (compared with 727 by phone). The newspaper reported that one text tip that came in 12 hours after the number was launched led to the arrest of a suspect in a New Hampshire homicide.

I asked Boston Police spokesman James Kenneally if people like to text in tips, and he said: "Heck yeah, it's been real successful."