The Wild World of Mobile Messaging

Why no single app will ever be king.

The messaging space is turning out to be quite different from social networking. Instead of one dominant service taking over, people are using several apps for their communication needs. But why is this?

Messaging apps are easy to get started with and use simultaneously.

People are always looking for better ways to communicate.

• App stores provide an easy way to find new apps to try out — especially through category guides and search.
• Referrals can happen easily through existing social apps, SMS, and even other messaging apps.
• Real world “word of mouth” plays an important role — when you meet friends, you often tell them about interesting new apps for reconnecting.

Getting activated on a new messaging app is low effort.

• Your network can be jump-started with one tap using your address book.
• Most apps follow similar usage patterns, so minimal learning is required to try a new one.

Many chat apps have a similar interface.

Using multiple apps simultaneously incurs minimal friction.

• Messaging apps are grouped into folders or pages on your phone for easy access.
• Not all your friends need to be on the service for it to be useful to you.

There is no “perfect” messaging app because we have diverse personas.

The nature of a conversation depends upon its purpose, its context, and to whom you’re talking. The best way to analyze messaging apps is to consider real-life conversations and the factors that affect them.

Whom are you talking to?

Depending on who you are talking to, you might chose one platform over the other.

Everyone is one Facebook — easy to setup groups for family and friends.

• Texting your parents might be strictly SMS because it’s easy to grasp for both parties.
• Chatting with friends may be best suited for Facebook Messenger because your entire social graph is already there.

Where are you from?

Messaging apps are often localized to appeal to geographic origins and cultural traditions.

• WeChat makes it easy to chat with others with voice since Chinese is difficult to type on a typical keyboard.
• Apps such as LINE and Kakao offer content and stickers with relevance in their respective countries.

Example of stickers from the LINE app — popular in Japan and SE Asia.

The context of the conversation.

People have diverse contexts in which they communicate with others — work vs play, in the moment or at leisure, etc.

The channels features on Slack is a great way to organize conversations.

• Slack is great for workplace conversations since it integrates with many enterprise services and organizes messages via channels.
• Voxer works well for when you need real-time coordination on-the-go.

The type of media being sent?

Some services are designed for text and others for visual communication.

• WhatsApp excels at text conversations.
• Snapchat lets you quickly exchange photos on-the-fly.
• Glide is used for exchanging video messages.

Snapchat is designed to exchange photos — so it can go deep on this feature like introducing geo-filters.

How visible is your conversation?

Sometimes messages should be limited to certain participants and other times its better to have a public conversation.

• Most messaging apps trend toward privacy by making you select who you want to chat with before a chat can start.
• Twitter plays host to more public conversations that anyone can follow and even join through the use of hashtags.

People are constantly seeking better
ways to reconnect with others.

There is still ample room for innovation — especially in creating digital experiences that align more closely with the way we converse in real-life. We are excited to see this space continue to grow and develop!

Sasank Reddy and Jeff Mascia are the team behind Shout Photo Messenger — an app focused on reimagining mobile conversations.