The Curious Case of FireChat, the messaging app that works with no Internet connection
A technology with a “Glocal” Approach
A few hours ago, the folks at GIGAOM aired a post with an intriguing headline: FireChat sees 100K app downloads a day with a huge uptake overseas.
FireChat? 100K/day? How come an almost-unknown app is exploding that big?
As the realistic-pessimist I am, my first reaction is that someone is selling a pig in a poke. A new Flappy-like ephemeral success.
Fortunately, I always feel impelled to dig up these phenomena. Glad I did. This time there’s something juicy underneath.
FireChat, iOS 7 and a disrupting technology
FireChat is an anonymous messaging iOS app with an oddity: it doesn’t require an Internet connection to chat with people nearby.
FireChat makes the most of one of the least-known new features of iOS 7: Multipeer Connectivity Framework. This novelty basically consists of connecting devices locally using Bluetooth and Wi-Fi Direct technology.
No 3G or WiFi hotspots required (you can use it to join global chat rooms tough).
Two or more devices supporting this technology can create a peer-to-peer network if they’re within range of each other (which is around 100 feet). Any compatible device nearby may join the network and extend it further. And so on and so forth.
It’s like setting up a wired LAN… with no cables.
The technology isn’t exclusive to iOS 7. In fact, Open Garden, the developers of FireChat, has been testing this technology on Android OS for quite a while.
However, the Multipeer Connectivity Framework of iOS 7 adds a decisive new feature: it lets apps communicate with other devices using said infrastructures.
The potential of such a technology - which surprisingly has gone quite unnoticed - is enormous and ready to proliferate. Open Garden spotted it and started with the most evident application: communication.
Is there a market for FireChat?
As access to data plans and WiFi hotspots becomes easier all around the world, it’s natural to ask if there’s a chance for hyperlocal network apps like Firechat to succeed. Let the numbers answer that.
According to GIGAOM, “FireChat was being downloaded from the App Store more than 100,000 times a day, adding 1.4 new users a second”. Although Open Garden didn’t reveal total download figures, hitting the charts so abruptly amounts to a great success.
In fact, CEO Micha Benoliel said they are “almost overwhelmed by the success,” and he adds “We’ll see if FireChat will be a revolution. As of now, it’s fair to say it’s an explosion.”
Behind FireChat’s numbers
Of course, a consumption explosion is always a response to one or more unfulfilled needs.
The new technology that has made possible FireChat is giving response to multiple demands.
First, it provides interconnection when there aren’t infrastructures.
We may dream with a world where Internet access is affordably within everyone’s reach, but that’s far from being reality. Being connected with everybody in the global village is the goal, but as long as that’s not happening yet, being connected with some is better than being connected with none. FireChat is a communication tool that provides a minimum local connection that’s demanded in many regions of the world.
There are situations in which that lack of infrastructure isn’t systemic, but circumstantial. Imagine, for example, natural disasters. A communication app like FireChat can provide a way to create a local network, even after antennas and repeaters have collapsed.
Or… maybe the access is limited by governments or ISP providers for political reasons. Take most recent Turkey’s case or 2011 Egypt Internet Shutdown which was the spark for the following revolution against Mubarak. Internet censorship and surveillance (NSA) may no longer be used as a weapon to control the population if authoritarian governments perceive that the dissenting citizens may still have alternative networks to communicate. Some users may find in this technology a way to contribute keeping the Internet free and neutral.
Second, it breaks the exposure intertia of the web 2.0
You’ve heard about it. Teenagers are leaving Facebook at the very same time anonymous and ephemeral platforms like Snapchat, Secret or even Reddit are blooming. One is the consequence of the other. It’s a trend change led by the young.
After the boom years, fatigue symptoms are evident. People don’t want anymore that 24/7 exposure which endures forever in albums and logged timelines. Anonymous messages that self-destruct in 5 seconds and leave no trace of the nipple. That’s what people is demanding. FireChat is offering that anonymity. So that partially explains its explosion.
It’s true that current communication isn’t subjected anymore to a specific place and time. We can now connect asynchronously and remotely with anyone but we keep contacting known people, mostly our loved ones. That was the idea behind web 2.0 and personal social networks, isn’t it?
It’s not that FireChat will break that. Rather the opposite: it will strengthen familiar relationship. However, local communication tools can ease the contact with the stranger who stands next to us. Especially if that first contact starts anonymously.
A new way to engage with people? A “count me in” will be a reflex action.
Don’t get me wrong
I’m not saying FireChat’s the cure-all.
In the end, it’s a pioneer app that makes the most of an innovative technology. Open Garden has just laid the first stone. However, it can either succeed or fail. Whatever it does, similar apps will come to take its place.
Hands down, it’s the technology that supports it what’s such promising. The reasons are listed above. You only have to focus on one of those unfulfilled needs and exploit it.
Developers: it’s up to you taking this disrupting technology beyond messaging.
