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Telegram Ad Platform

promote.telegram.org

201–210 of 256 posts

Re: Telegram Ad Platform

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish all my friends were on tg Just send them all a message that you prefer to be contacted on Telegram now. That works surprisingly well, so many people are on the fence waiting for somebody else to make the first move.

So you expect them to care about your preferences, but you don't care about theirs? That seems pretty selfish.

I am not installing an application which collects my data and spoonfeds it to entities with the explicit intention of influencing my behavior. No matter what side benefit that app provides.

And yes, I prefer to not communicate with people who would make such demands of me.

Re: Telegram Ad Platform

#202

I hope this works for telegram! They were going to need to launch ads at some point and this transparent plan to get started seems like it considered the user base. It’s become my favorite messaging app and I enjoy the pace of innovation. I get it’s not end to end encrypted but that’s not what I am asking for with telegram - just a decent messaging app that makes it easy to remain anonymous (not sharing phone number)…

> I get it’s not end to end encrypted but that’s not what I am asking for with telegram - just a decent messaging app that makes it easy to remain anonymous (not sharing phone number)...

Big thumbs here to TG: I don't use WhatsApp. Never installed it, never will. TG is not just about "not being FB": the UI is really cool and the synch between several devices (say phone and laptop) is flawless.

Now... You wrote "easy to remain anonymous" but AFAICT you cannot register a TG account without a phone number? Or can you now? As in: can you only download the desktop app and do all your messaging from you computer, without ever installing anything on your phone and without ever giving out a phone number for verification?

Re: Telegram Ad Platform

#203

> Turn off ad blocker > You appear to be using an ad blocker that may prevent pages on the Telegram Ad Platform from working as expected. > Please turn off your ad blocker or add promote.telegram.org as an exception to manage your promoted messages. > Close Oh, well ^^ I was a Telegram user for year until I completely switched to Signal 2.5 years ago. I'd pay 1-10€ a year for a Telegram experience with e2e and withou…

> Why can't the old WA model be used?

I don't think WhatsApp was profitable on that model, and they also had surprisingly low costs (due to great server tech, small team) that I suspect Telegram can't match.

Re: Telegram Ad Platform

#204

I hope this works for telegram! They were going to need to launch ads at some point and this transparent plan to get started seems like it considered the user base. It’s become my favorite messaging app and I enjoy the pace of innovation. I get it’s not end to end encrypted but that’s not what I am asking for with telegram - just a decent messaging app that makes it easy to remain anonymous (not sharing phone number)…

> I get it’s not end to end encrypted but that’s not what I am asking for with telegram - just a decent messaging app that makes it easy to remain anonymous (not sharing phone number)... Big thumbs here to TG: I don't use WhatsApp. Never installed it, never will. TG is not just about "not being FB": the UI is really cool and the synch between several devices (say phone and laptop) is flawless. Now... You wrote "easy…

AFAIK you do have to use a phone number to sign up with Telegram, but you never need to expose it to other users. I assume that's the kind of anonymity that OP means.

Re: Telegram Ad Platform

#205

I hope this works for telegram! They were going to need to launch ads at some point and this transparent plan to get started seems like it considered the user base. It’s become my favorite messaging app and I enjoy the pace of innovation. I get it’s not end to end encrypted but that’s not what I am asking for with telegram - just a decent messaging app that makes it easy to remain anonymous (not sharing phone number)…

> I get it’s not end to end encrypted but that’s not what I am asking for with telegram - just a decent messaging app that makes it easy to remain anonymous (not sharing phone number)... Big thumbs here to TG: I don't use WhatsApp. Never installed it, never will. TG is not just about "not being FB": the UI is really cool and the synch between several devices (say phone and laptop) is flawless. Now... You wrote "easy…

The sync is so great, especially if you're trying to message with in-flight wifi. In-flight wifi usually only works on one device at a time which means you can't use Whatsapp from your iPad or laptop on the plane.

You do need a phone number to register (I use my google voice number), but you can select who can actually see it on your profile. When you join groups, it isn't exposing it to others unless you add them as contacts - and even then you can disable from sharing with those contacts.

Re: Telegram Ad Platform

#206

I hope this works for telegram! They were going to need to launch ads at some point and this transparent plan to get started seems like it considered the user base. It’s become my favorite messaging app and I enjoy the pace of innovation. I get it’s not end to end encrypted but that’s not what I am asking for with telegram - just a decent messaging app that makes it easy to remain anonymous (not sharing phone number)…

> I get it’s not end to end encrypted but that’s not what I am asking for with telegram - just a decent messaging app that makes it easy to remain anonymous (not sharing phone number)... Big thumbs here to TG: I don't use WhatsApp. Never installed it, never will. TG is not just about "not being FB": the UI is really cool and the synch between several devices (say phone and laptop) is flawless. Now... You wrote "easy…

I think they meant anonymous with respect to other users. With Telegram you can create a username and be contacted through that without revealing your phone number. As far as I know that's not possible with WhatsApp.

Re: Telegram Ad Platform

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is, because instant messaging only works with multiple people. The usfullness of an IM service is directly coupled to the amount of your peers using it. If there is no one to talk two, why bother? Sure, you and I may be happy to pay this, and may even fork out the fee for our loved ones, but how many other people would do that?

Whatsapp almost reached one billion monthly users before they changed from paid (1$/year) to free.

Not sure about the exact numbers, but there is one thing to keep in mind: a significant part of those users were in "developing markets", where the fee was never introduced in practice. WhatsApp kept granting free extensions to them until they ditched the paid plan completely. I think that their next billion or two users have also been mostly in markets that wouldn't have been subject to the fee anyway.

Re: Telegram Ad Platform

#208
post #64

Any Telegram users here? I've only ever heard it used when talking about batshit American cults. Not exactly a target audience i want to reach.

I don't personally keep in touch with people so I can't really say how it's like, but I do know that it's popular around my neck of the woods. On par with whatsapp, it feels like.

Re: Telegram Ad Platform

#209
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so what (technically) is stopping a true E2E P2P platform? The fact that nobody really wants a true p2p platform: you don't want to lose all your stuff if you lose the device. It is clear that federated services like email are superior for most users bar some real hardnuts mindfixed on privacy.

> The fact that nobody really wants a true p2p platform: you don't want to lose all your stuff if you lose the device. Why not provide encrypted backups to a personal cloud storage service? Even WhatsApp does it these days.

I don't mind you doing it and showing us how it should be done.

Ah, btw, how will a true p2p platform work on iOS? What entity will send you push notifications when there are messages for your device?

Re: Telegram Ad Platform

#210
post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has some convenience tradeoffs. E.g. I can read the same chat on phone and desktop without hiccups.

WhatsApp does that too now, even on the web. Signal has a desktop client as well (no web one, unfortunately) – I also haven't seen any hiccups there. Yes, this is 10 or 100 times more complicated to get right when using end-to-end encryption, but it's clearly doable, and Telegram has finally been proven wrong empirically about there being a dilemma of security vs. usability in messaging. Yes, they still lead the fiel…

With Matrix you can even browse E2E history on a brand new device.
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