
The Canadian who wants to dethrone Facebook - vskarine
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-magazine/the-canadian-who-wants-to-dethrone-facebook/article27455324/
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hamhamed
It's the only western app that has basic chat capabilities while remaining
somewhat not intrusive. In Messenger you need a FB account, for Whatsapp you
need a #, for Snapchat ppl can see your Story...but for Kik, all you have to
do is add a username to chat, and that's what made it successful

~~~
tnecniv
Messenger no longer requires FB.

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mikeryan
_“You see somebody in a suit, a flashy office, a flashy car—they’re trying to
create an image. Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool to wear a suit. But it’s a
little bit manufactured.”_

Honestly in the Bay Area a startup hoodie, t-shirt and jeans is almost a
little bit manufactured.

~~~
idibidiart
Everything is manufactured. The idea that raw authenticity can exist in the
construct amd context of 'doing business' is not fathomable to me.

~~~
mmatants
For that matter, most social contexts involve signalling adherence/allegiance
to a specific set of values and beliefs: clothing is almost always a uniform
of sorts. It helps establish an initial foundation for further communication.

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dikdik
New messaging apps will not change the world. Finding new ways to sell wares
to people is not solving big problems. Why do so many entrepreneurs act like
they are working on the cure to cancer?

~~~
unavoidable
Most entrepreneurs have a reality distortion field that they sometimes fall
victim to, otherwise they wouldn't be doing something as risky (and
irrational) as starting a business.

~~~
NhanH
I don't think that's necessary true. The whole thing is a pretty new
mentality, previous generations of companies/ founders doesn't seem to have
too much of that attitudes (Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon etc.?). And those
companies did actually change the world. Instagram and Whatsapp? The verdict
is still out there.

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vezzy-fnord

       “Microsoft built an operating system for all the desks in the world,” he
       tells me as we walk together on a windy day in October. The always-on nature
       of mobile computing, he argues, offers a chance to rebuild our relationship
       with software. And as he sees it, only Facebook and Kik are competing to do
       that in North America. “This is a race to build an operating system for the
       world, period.”
    

This is the kind of computing pop culture emanating with glurge that we're
dealing with, I suppose. He just might succeed.

~~~
troymc
I guess this was an attempt to sound like a visionary with a "Big Hairy
Audacious Goal"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Hairy_Audacious_Goal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Hairy_Audacious_Goal)

Instead, it reads like a parody. The world isn't a computer and it doesn't
need an operating system.

~~~
tnecniv
I chuckled at the part with the bath tub.

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shpx
From reading the wikipedia for his company [0] and "Chinese Mobile App UI
Trends" [1] a while back, after getting to the part that their app has a web
browser, I got the impression that they are replicating chinese apps for a
western audience, where every thing you do (chat, browse, buy) happens through
one app. I was not surprised to learn that they got 50M from Tencent.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kik_Messenger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kik_Messenger)
[1] [http://dangrover.com/blog/2014/12/01/chinese-mobile-app-
ui-t...](http://dangrover.com/blog/2014/12/01/chinese-mobile-app-ui-
trends.html)

------
harryf
Kik's user space app approach is novel -
[https://github.com/kikinteractive/starter-
kit](https://github.com/kikinteractive/starter-kit) \- basically allows
developers to extend Kik with simple apps written in html / js. That said the
most popular apps seem to be about sexting - guess that's a popular use case
with Kik's teen audience

~~~
dionidium
A large percentage of _all_ personal communication between humans is about the
pursuit of sex

~~~
EC1
If magically the urge to get laid left me, I'd be in bed laying all day
everyday looking up at the ceiling.

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incompatible
It sounds like yet another version of IRC that doesn't work on desktop
computers and still claims to be "cross platform".

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chocostout
I've been a student at the University of Waterloo for 8 years now, and I can
honestly say that I don't know a single person that actually uses Kik. Maybe
it's big somewhere else, but certainly not here, where the product was created
and holds its offices.

~~~
vskarine
same can be said about Whatsapp which was founded and has offices in Mountain
View, CA and I lived there for a while and never saw a single person using it.
It's way more popular in other parts of the world:
[http://www.statista.com/statistics/321460/whatsapp-
penetrati...](http://www.statista.com/statistics/321460/whatsapp-penetration-
regions/)

~~~
DrScump
I read somewhere that Whatsapp gained a lot of traction in countries where
per-text fees were still rampant, and the texting within Whatsapp just flowed
as normal data with no per-message charges.

~~~
collyw
When I reluctantly got a smartphone (I wanted interent for new flat, and it
was the same price with or with a phone and data bundle as interent alone), I
never expected to pay for any apps, especially not whatsapp. I had 500 free
texts, and didn't see what the whole fuss over whatsapp was about. A few
months later I had a conversation with my mum (who is in a diffrent country)
and ten texts had cost me 8 euros (a few of which were yes / no replies).
After that I was happy to pay for whatsapp.

~~~
aianus
Why not just use Facebook? I fail to see what problem Whatsapp solves that
Facebook doesn't solve better.

~~~
morganvachon
> _Why not just use Facebook?_

I know it's a difficult concept to grasp, but not everyone wants to be a cog
in the Facebook machine. Besides, Facebook is banned in certain parts of the
world, so niche alternatives are a good thing.

> _I fail to see what problem Whatsapp solves that Facebook doesn 't solve
> better._

Define "better". Installing Facebook just to use its messenger feature is akin
to installing Photoshop just to resize pictures. Also, Facebook is a mobile
data hog compared to most chat apps, and that matters to some folks.

If you want a full fledged social network with all the trimmings, sure,
Facebook is hard to beat; but if all you want is chat, use a chat app.

~~~
tnecniv
> not everyone wants to be a cog in the Facebook machine

From Wikipedia: "WhatsApp Inc., based in Mountain View, California, was
acquired by Facebook Inc. on February 19, 2014, for approximately US$16
billion"

> Installing Facebook just to use its messenger feature is akin to installing
> Photoshop just to resize pictures

Facebook Messenger is a standalone app that doesn't even require a FB account
anymore.

~~~
morganvachon
> _From Wikipedia: "WhatsApp Inc., based in Mountain View, California, was
> acquired by Facebook Inc. on February 19, 2014, for approximately US$16
> billion"_

Fair enough, but it was the parent who specifically mentioned WhatsApp.
Personally I'd rather just use SMS or XMPP; the first is built into the phone
and "just works", the second is open and extensible, with a plethora of
clients, and you can run your own server.

And if you believe for a second that Facebook didn't create a full FB shadow
account tied to your "messenger only" account, I have a bridge to sell you.

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mrmch
I would really recommend reading the whole article, but especially the middle
half discussing how Kik is bringing in brands.

It sounds like a texting interface for an AI for major sites; really cool.

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gamesbrainiac
Here we go again. Wasn't it "ello" last time?

~~~
mikeryan
This is not Ello, this is in the whatsapp/snapchat vein.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Facebook acquihire in 3, 2, 1...

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oska
This was very bad writing.

