The way we interact with clients is changing. Our obsession with messengers and social networks has made people less willing to communicate on the phone or in person, especially with businesses. We started spending much more time on the Internet. Do you have a question? Google it. Need to buy something? Hello, Internet. Bills to pay? Why stand in line at the bank – long live online-banking! It seems that almost everything can be done online, which really saves you a lot of time.
Last time we described the first wave of messengers, which boomed in the late 90s – early 00s. The first generation of messengers is out of date, whilst the second still can be seen in almost every smartphone. The second wave of messengers began with the vast increase in smartphone users when the iPhone and Android appeared on the market in 2007 and 2008 respectively. The ‘Application’ became the new fundamental concept, which led to a complete overhaul and rethinking of the messenger concept.
Perhaps WhatsApp (at first based on XMPP protocol, and then evolved) is the most famous and most common messenger for smartphones. Other players of the second generation are: WeChat, LINE, Google Hangouts, Viber, KakaoTalk, Telegram, ChatON, Hike, Kik, and Facebook Messenger (which is still competing with WhatsApp even after Facebook purchased it).
While developing EasyLy we discovered a lot of new interesting things about messengers, their development and their functionality. We decided to write a series of articles dedicated to the history of messengers from their roots to the present day.
In addition to emails, instant messages have a huge impact on connecting people; nowadays you can easily contact a person on the other side of the world. How did it all begin?
Given the immense popularity of messengers these days, it’s no wonder that businesses try to use any opportunity to get closer to the consumer. Has Whatsapp’s ad spam managed to get to you too? So annoying! Let’s skip the sad part and talk about useful technology.
About 75% of Internet users use messengers. Messengers even surpass social networks in number of active users. It is no surprise that the business sees Facebook Messenger, a new platform, as a loophole towards the consumer.