Apparently WhatsApp, of cross platform messaging fame, has set a new PB for messages sent and received in a day. 27 billion messages handled, that's a big jump from the stats given for April. Boom. Well done WhatsApp.
I use WhatsApp, and I also use Line and WeChat and Facebook Messenger and Tango and Google Hangouts and Skype. Seems the only ones I haven't bothered with Viber and KakaoTalk, although I've been told they're not bad.
I use all these different apps depending on who I'm speaking to. For example, I use WhatsApp with a few friends but also some people that I know professionally, I use Line exclusively with my wife as she likes their 'stickers', I use WeChat to keep in touch with some Chinese friends, Facebook Messenger mainly for friends, Tango for video calling with my wife when she's away travelling and Hangouts for talking to my Mum back home as she's just got an Android phone and realised she can talk to me at any time with it.
You might think,'you know you can do everything you need with just one'. You'd be right, I could just pick one. But my friends, colleagues and family are spread out across all these services. This means that I've got to have a little folder of apps on my Galaxy Nexus just for all these chat apps. And I'm ok with that, it works for me, I don't need a one-size-fits-all.
I have a feeling though that once WhatsApp starts asking me to pay for the service, I might be reluctant. The reason being that I don't have to depend on the app because others do a good job too. Once my free time with them runs out I can just ask regulars on that one to switch to Line or Tango or Hangouts or whatever. Simple.
I do however, occasionally use SMS still. So it's not totally dead for me. I get some free with my mobile contract as well so I feel obliged to use them. But I still wonder what's next for these apps? Video calling and messaging never really took off, everyone has already jumped on the 'stickers' bandwagon, so what could come next? Perhaps more seamless sharing of media and news stories and other content? Bringing some more of the apps to the desktop like Hangouts? We'll see.
Question: Why can't one person (you or me) make an app where I simply sign in with my credentials into each of those apps, and then I can just use one to talk to anyone? Like Trillian used to be back in the days of online messengers...
ReplyDeleteI think that's a distinct possibility in the coming months. Once I get my new Mac, I'd like to put something together for sure.
ReplyDeleteThe next question would be which to support? Google? FB? Tango? WhatsApp? I think there'll continue to be variations on the theme.
I'd like to see the next step. How can we make messaging better. I think Apple took a good step with iMessage on the mobile AND desktop to make it truly ubiquitous.