Wednesday, April 22, 2015

The Future of Instant Messaging

In the past weeks several instant messaging applications such as WhatsApp, WeChat,  have started to offer voice calls, the trend of messaging applications offering voice calling capabilities is nothing new. Tango, Viber, Line all have offered voice calls before WhatsApp even thought of it. Is voice call the future of instant messaging? We as consumers use instant messaging applications for one simple reason, messages are delivered instantly, then comes the addons such as emoticons… With voice calling being introduced is it still right to call it an instant messaging application?





In a world where instant messaging are provided in various ways including messages that disappears, messages that are secure what do we as consumers actually like? We have seen very fast adoption of WhatsApp because it was a simple messenger, we have seen Line generates the highest revenue per user since it tickles our fancy. Having said that messaging applications are converging into the same set of offering . Will there still be a need for differentiators for one application to be the adopted globally?




What about going back to basics, messages that are delivered instantly even if you are not online? Now, how about adding the beauty of instant messaging by delivering those messages free? While we are at it why not do the same for voice calls? How about voice calls that are free even if you are not online? The question is going back to basics enough to be the dominant instant messaging application of the future?


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