Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

blog.textit.in

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 239 posts

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#201

Post by diaz »

dhawalhs wrote: post #36

A comment [1] I made 829 days ago on Whatsapp Its biggest plus is that it is cross platform. They have apps for Blackberry, Android, iOS and Symbian. So you can talk with almost anybody out there. At least in my home country, most people have Blackberry/Symbian. Imagine having a group conversation with people on different platforms and in different countries. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3231053

Well they don't have an app for Jolla and are now sending takedown notices for the existing apps that try to take on that problem.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#202

Post by diaz »

furyg3 wrote: post #84
keerthiko wrote: post #69

This. This is the answer I have always looked for. > "But, but, how is WhatsApp any different than iMessage / Facebook Messenger / Hangouts?" I have made this exclamation multiple times, and my friends in India and Singapore and other parts of Asia just turned up their palms with a "I dunno, everyone uses it and told me to get it." I refused to use it since I like to use as few messaging platforms as possible (just G…

In Holland, WhatsApp dominates, and it's not a $10/day country. It dominates because SMS rates were too expensive here. Even when Mom & Dad would buy you an iPhone, kids were choosing Blackberries (!) as their primary phone because of internet messaging. WhatsApp was seen as something worked with non BB devices (iPhones, Androids). It pretty much murdered the cell phone providers who were giving away cheap data rates…

I'm from Portugal and I saw in the comments that many people use it here. In my experience I never used it. I know maybe two people that use it. But clearly my view must be totally off the reality because of the stuff I read here and in the article comments section.

I pay 5€ a month and have unlimited free SMS's for almost everybody in my network. And that's it. That's what I use.

I could see the problem of cross device messaging, but SMS are for that.

To use Whatapp I'd need internet and pay for that in my mobile plan. I don't want that.

Although I have free unlimited sms for people I contact to (and use it a lot) there's still a little problem, that normally it is only for people in the same mobile network as me. But not really a huge problem because those people are very few and I don't mind spending the money in my phone that I wouldn't use for anything else.

Oh the sms and calls for people in my network are all free, so I have always money not being used for anything in the phone card.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#203

Post by ubercow13 »

keerthiko wrote: post #69

This. This is the answer I have always looked for. > "But, but, how is WhatsApp any different than iMessage / Facebook Messenger / Hangouts?" I have made this exclamation multiple times, and my friends in India and Singapore and other parts of Asia just turned up their palms with a "I dunno, everyone uses it and told me to get it." I refused to use it since I like to use as few messaging platforms as possible (just G…

WhatsApp just works and it works really well - you don't have to sign up, you don't have to add contacts. Isn't it obvious what a big deal that is? Also it is really reliable and fast. Often it seems even when my phone has only the slowest GPRS internet connection available to it, WhatsApp is still as good or better than texts in terms of speed and reliability. Facebook messenger probably wouldn't even connect in that situation in my experience. I'd be surprised if Hangouts wasn't the same

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#205

Post by outworlder »

clavalle wrote: post #180
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little more skeptical. This guy worked hard, sure, but as he seems to be the only guy making out big, after scores of guys worked hard. Maybe he's not much of a hero.

I don't think anyone is denying the role of luck, but there is something to be said about not falling in love with 'making the start up scene' so to speak. For many people it is a colossal waste of time. I am trying to reign in a co-founder right now (not surprisingly the only non-technical co-founder) that is just a goo-goo eyed about the scene and not our product and not what I think his main goal should be which i…

Yeah, you are either fundraising, or you are not. If you are, then go have lunch with the wealthy investors. If not, don't bother, it is a waste of energy.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#206

Post by laurentb »

kitsune_ wrote: post #88
keerthiko wrote: post #69

This. This is the answer I have always looked for. > "But, but, how is WhatsApp any different than iMessage / Facebook Messenger / Hangouts?" I have made this exclamation multiple times, and my friends in India and Singapore and other parts of Asia just turned up their palms with a "I dunno, everyone uses it and told me to get it." I refused to use it since I like to use as few messaging platforms as possible (just G…

This doesn't explain the success WhatsApp had in Europe. Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland, etc. WhatsApp dominates all of these markets. I think a reason for this is that in Europe, we're not used to unlimited text plans. Unlike the US, we don't have to pay to receive text messages, only to send them, so there is little incentive to get an "unlimited plan" anyways. But ultimately, you still end up paying 20 cent…

almost all of France's carrier offer ulimited SMS as default. then comes MMS then voice.

I'd venture and propose that one of the biggest reason WhatsApp (and before that BB and why the blackberry platform had an appeal to mass consumers) worked so well is for a simple reason yet none is going to easily admit willingly:

WhatsApp lets you see if the person you texted to has read your text or not in a non intrusive way.

Also not to forget, WhatsApp started when iMessage didn't exist and Facebook messenger either, it wasn't even giving a delivery confirmation. Only BBM did, only on blackberries. And here comes WhatsApp who does the exact same thing only much simpler ("are you on whatsApp? yeah! give me your phone number, i'll add you" instead of BBM pushing their PIN system...) and it comes working for almost all platforms. when it launched, it sure worked on Blackberry and iphone.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#207

Post by yohanatan »

avenger123 wrote: post #155

The message of the article is good but it's not seeing the forest from the trees. Having just read the Forbes artcile on the company and Jan in particular, some interesting things stood out: 1) Jan had money to start and was able to take time to build a user base and find the real value in the App and didn't need to go around "raising money". The SMS component of the app wasn't the initial focus. The company didn't n…

> 3) There is real value in the app. No one needs to question this. There's no big pitch deck's, presentations, etc.The app was allowed to grow organically due to its network affect. The business can scale into the millions and billions of users.

Can you explain this one? Something that seems to have been lost in all the hype is how yet another messaging app is somehow novel, innovative, or exciting. Is this somehow a major technological leap from other instant messengers (which we've had for nearly 2 decades now).

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#209

Post by hayksaakian »

yohanatan wrote: post #207
avenger123 wrote: post #155

The message of the article is good but it's not seeing the forest from the trees. Having just read the Forbes artcile on the company and Jan in particular, some interesting things stood out: 1) Jan had money to start and was able to take time to build a user base and find the real value in the App and didn't need to go around "raising money". The SMS component of the app wasn't the initial focus. The company didn't n…

> 3) There is real value in the app. No one needs to question this. There's no big pitch deck's, presentations, etc.The app was allowed to grow organically due to its network affect. The business can scale into the millions and billions of users. Can you explain this one? Something that seems to have been lost in all the hype is how yet another messaging app is somehow novel, innovative, or exciting. Is this somehow…

His 3rd point was regarding the value of the app.

I think we can agree on it's usefulness, but your concern was Whatsapp's novelty.

The part that's indisputable is the massive and active user base.

The real question is whether Whatsapp can retain their users, due to it's novelty or despite the lack thereof.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#210

Post by corresation »

netcan wrote: post #179
corresation wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the 80% of android phones that are cheap and basic with small data plans and limited access to slow wifi Ignoring the fictional statistics, the cheap devices (e.g. Xiaomi) in countries like China still tend to be surprisingly powerful, and you hardly need to design down to them. And it's a rare app, beyond something like video conferencing, that puts any real burden on connectivity.

It is pretty much fictional, or rather arbitrary because you can draw the line between low and high end wherever you want. I actually got it from here: http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/11/12/idc-data-shows-66-... And it turns out I misrepresented the fictional statistic. The "real" number is 66%. Though I suppose if you count older mid tier models (this counts sales) still in use, 80% might be pretty close. IMO yo…

The "real" number is 66%

While I don't normally agree with dismissing something from the source -- in this case Apple Insider -- the way that the article digs to try to generate their manufactured numbers borders on comical. Secondly, the metric that it is "junk" (the article's word) because the ASP is $200+ is asinine, if you will. As is the notion that such makes it a "feature phone" (where ASPs were in the LOW double digits).

A $200 device in many Asian markets is a decidedly premium device. The Xiaomi Redmi, for instance, is a $139 (retail!) decidedly decent mid-range device. In no way does anyone have to design down at all for devices like that, the notion being absurd.

Post reply on HN