

The Kik SDK: Build Real-Time Sharing into Your App in 10 Minutes - erohead
http://www.kik.com/blog/2011/07/the-kik-sdk/

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wccrawford
"…and then press a button that invokes Kik Messenger, which lets me send the
drawing to you."

... So... Not "real-time"?

If Sketchee were real-time, you would both be drawing at the same time and
each person would see the changes immediately.

This is a messaging system, not a real-time sharing system.

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corry
You could think about it as 'real-time' in the sense that you can see the
_status_ of the sharing in 'real-time' - i.e. within Kik I can see if the
content has been sent/delivered/read (vs sharing via something like email
where it's not clear if it's been looked at). But ya, it's not a real-time
unbroken pipe between your app users.

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wccrawford
You mean "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less." ?

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maxklein
The real problem is what happens if Kik is not installed on either end. The
hassle that the user would go through to get it working is something that
probably 95% of users will not bother with, unless what they were sharing were
extremely critical.

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masnick
This will set Kik apart feature-wise from iMessage and other push-IM-on-a-
phone apps.

I'd imagine this is part of their strategy for surviving iMessage. June 6 was
probably not a fun day at Kik HQ.

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reso
Agreed. I looked around, and there doesn't seem to be any other chat
applications with platform functionality. This is a great move.

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namank
Well, technically speaking, the BBM SDK is also open to external developers.

That said, BBM is BB only and I'm not sure how well do they do real time
_content_ sharing

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jwn
As soon as I read the title I thought of exactly what application I wanted to
build with it. Upon reading the article, I promptly found out that my idea
already had a name: "Sketchee". Oh well....

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yblokhin
Well, Sketchee is probably the simplest app imaginable. You can build out on
top if it. For instance, a canv.as derivative app, where you could prepopulate
most popular meme images and let people create and share photobombs with their
friends.

Also, basic things like location & media sharing were intentionally left out
for third party app developers to get creative with.

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jwn
No, you are definitely correct. I've got some other added-value ideas that
would be cool. I was just a little surprised to see my first instinct was the
sample code =)

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pkaler
I don't get it. Kik could give me direct API access to their servers. Or I
could run my own Jabber/XMPP servers. What's the benefit of piping through
another App on the client?

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yblokhin
In a similar fashion, Amazon could give you the physical keys from their AWS
datacentres or otherwise you could just buy some hardware, install linux on
all of them and run your own cloud infrastructure.

It's exaggerated, of course, but i hope rationale behind the api is more clear
this way :)

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pkaler
I'm saying that [Client A -> Server -> Client B] is better than [Client A ->
Kik Client A -> Kik Server -> Kik Client B -> Client B].

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jammur
I think the benefit is that in the first scenario, you have to maintain the
server yourself. In the second, you only have to worry about the clients. It's
definitely a trade off, but for some developers, the benefit of not having to
maintain server infrastructure might outweigh the cost of the added complexity
of going through Kik.

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andrewcross
This is such a cool idea. Make the instant messenger of kik more of a platform
and less of an app. I love it.

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ajcronk
Do I understand correctly that both parties need to have Kik installed on
their phones as well?

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smallcaps
Yes, you are correct. The 'pipe' needs to be connected at both ends :)

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namank
Very cool!

Maybe this is obvious to everyone else but just to confirm with the OP: does
the SDK allow me to add chat functionality to my app or is it mainly for
content right now?

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yblokhin
It is designed for content - textual & binary. While I can imagine an ugly
fugly way to overload the api and use it for chat functionality within your
app, but then it would make for a really bad user experience within your app.

This version of the SDK was designed with the sole intent of content sharing.

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panabee
It's always beneficial if a company can ascend to platform status, but are
there enough Kik users today to attract developers? It is a great concept,
though.

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axiom
Pretty sweet!

Looks like an easy way to get $5k to me: <http://kik.com/dev/contest.php>

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ThomPete
And now go find a designer to help you out on weekendhacker :-)

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D0b0
Great next step for a great new App! Go KIK some butt!

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nixpa
Sweet, now that means Kik will get all the functionality other apps have and
more (like location and contact sharing etc)

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canistr
I wonder how well this will work for gaming.

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llamatrocious
The current implementation will work really well for turn based games.

Currently, it isn't a drop in network layer for synchronous multiplayer or
anything, but this is only the first release :)

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moonboots
unfortunately anti-semitic name

