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5M users in 4 months. How hike plans to win the global messaging space

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Re: 5M users in 4 months. How hike plans to win the global messaging space

#21

Post by kbmittal »

tlack wrote: post #8

Curious about this line from the article: "128bit encryption over Wi-Fi." Why only when using wifi? I'm not aware of too much bandwidth overhead involved in exchanging public keys and using AES in some kind of stream-emulation block mode. My cynical side worries this is some kind of concession to the wireless carriers that want to easedrop on traffic easily. I hope that's not the case! Anyone know?

We've built SSL on our HAProxy boxes. The concurrent load one can handle with SSL on one of these boxes is significantly less than without. Applying this to mobile traffic further reduces the average concurrent load we can manage on a HAProxy box. Given how quickly we've had to scale up its a technical decision we've taken.

Eventually we'd like to have it all across.

(Creator @hikeapp)

Re: 5M users in 4 months. How hike plans to win the global messaging space

#22

Post by kbmittal »

ishansharma wrote: post #15

And all this with spamming! No offence with them but I've been spammed like anything by them. It has happened with lot of my friends. When they install app, it sends texts to ALL contacts without permission prompting to install the app! And this has been #1 reason I did not install it.

The intention was and is never to spam at all. There are a couple of screens that allow you to invite your friends. It's pretty clear that users don't pay attention to this, so we've decided to remove this completely.

We learn quick :)

(Creator @hikeapp)

Re: 5M users in 4 months. How hike plans to win the global messaging space

#23

Post by kbmittal »

orangethirty wrote: post #4
pathik wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. We don't believe ads are the best way to monetize. And anyways, why create a beautiful UX and then plaster ads on it? We'll start looking at that once we hit a certain critical mass, but in much smarter ways. Right now, all focus is on growth and engagement. PS: I'm the growth hacker at hike.

Growth hacker, eh? Tell me one thing: how do plan to recover the cost of sending the sms? You cant really call it growth when you are losing money on every user.

Almost every consumer business in the Internet space loses money initially on every customer no matter how small or big. Else there wouldn't be a need for VC industry now would there? :). Having a viable business model is important and we have a few that we believe will work well. Time will tell (Hint: Not ads)

(Creator @hikeapp)

Re: 5M users in 4 months. How hike plans to win the global messaging space

#24

Post by iamshs »

orangethirty wrote: post #18
pathik wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, to enter and grow so fast in such a competitive space, you've to differentiate yourself from your competition. Our differentiators are: 1. A beautiful UX/design 2. The ability to message everyone through hike/SMS #1 works everywhere and has driven growth for us globally. #2 combined with #1 gives us a compelling proposition for Indian users, the first market we intend to dominate. It's very powerful for a marke…

I think we must include where you are growing as a factor of the discussion. The Indian consumer does not have a very high purchasing power. This means that the average Indian must focus on covering his/her basic needs, rather than buy luxury items. Your app falls manages to squeeze in by allowing Indians to send SMS without incurring into any cost. You are simply buying your way into their phones in order to get a f…

Well let me tell you something: The creator of this app (Kavin Bharti Mittal) is son of the guy (Sunil Bharti Mittal) running one of the big telco company (Airtel) in India. I think he sure has something up his sleeve, and this is why the investment of 7M sounds disingenuous and misleading, given that the VC company is just another venture of Airtel.

I got interested as to what is their value proposition and why are they doing it. Then I came upon this information. Here is the nitty gritty.

From their TOS:

We may share non-personally-identifiable information (such as anonymous user usage data, referring / exit pages and URLs, platform types, asset views, number of clicks, etc.) with third-parties to better understand usage patterns for certain content, services, advertisements, promotions, and/or functionality related to hike application.

hike may receive data whenever You connect with an application or site through hike (such as during status update, when You connect to other sites and in which case hike posts to these sites on Your behalf ). This may include date and time You visit the site, the web address, IP address information, browser and if You are logged into hike and Your authentication tokens used on such sites. Your authentication tokens may be saved on the server for the sole purpose of seamless posting to the same site by You in the future through hike.

They store the "Authentication tokens"...

Re: 5M users in 4 months. How hike plans to win the global messaging space

#25

Post by kbmittal »

iamshs wrote: post #16
ishansharma wrote: post #15

And all this with spamming! No offence with them but I've been spammed like anything by them. It has happened with lot of my friends. When they install app, it sends texts to ALL contacts without permission prompting to install the app! And this has been #1 reason I did not install it.

What makes it more shady is that they are funded by Bharti Softbank. Bharti manages Airtel, one of the big telcos in India. So maybe, they want more people to use Hike and maybe sell over some data to Airtel. Since they are spamming, their privacy policy needs to be combed over too. Also, the article looks like a PR piece for SF expansion, and to generate American funds.

Here's our privacy policy - hike.in/terms. I'd love for you to go through it line by line. The invites sent when a user launches the app is user initiated. The UX built wasn't great clearly so we removed it.

On Data and Airtel, can't blame you for thinking that way. Most of the industry is filled with those kinds. Airtel and BSB are different companies. No such thing happening.

(Creator @hikeapp)

Re: 5M users in 4 months. How hike plans to win the global messaging space

#26

Post by iamshs »

kbmittal wrote: post #25
iamshs wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes it more shady is that they are funded by Bharti Softbank. Bharti manages Airtel, one of the big telcos in India. So maybe, they want more people to use Hike and maybe sell over some data to Airtel. Since they are spamming, their privacy policy needs to be combed over too. Also, the article looks like a PR piece for SF expansion, and to generate American funds.

Here's our privacy policy - hike.in/terms. I'd love for you to go through it line by line. The invites sent when a user launches the app is user initiated. The UX built wasn't great clearly so we removed it. On Data and Airtel, can't blame you for thinking that way. Most of the industry is filled with those kinds. Airtel and BSB are different companies. No such thing happening. (Creator @hikeapp)

Thank you for replying. Good to know Airtel and BSB are separate enterprises. I went through the terms.

"Hike TOS:

hike may receive data whenever You connect with an application or site through hike (such as during status update, when You connect to other sites and in which case hike posts to these sites on Your behalf ). This may include date and time You visit the site, the web address, IP address information, browser and if You are logged into hike and Your authentication tokens used on such sites. Your authentication tokens may be saved on the server for the sole purpose of seamless posting to the same site by You in the future through hike.

We may share non-personally-identifiable information (such as anonymous user usage data, referring / exit pages and URLs, platform types, asset views, number of clicks, etc.) with third-parties to better understand usage patterns for certain content, services, advertisements, promotions, and/or functionality related to hike application."

So you store "authentication tokens", and maybe FB and Google+, twitter data interactions....I think you are aiming for this goldmine, since normally this data through Airtel's network will be encrypted. Pardon my skeptic viewpoint, but it looks you are not aiming for directly monetizing this app itself but are building a satellite platform based upon this app.

Re: 5M users in 4 months. How hike plans to win the global messaging space

#27

Post by kbmittal »

iamshs wrote: post #26
kbmittal wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's our privacy policy - hike.in/terms. I'd love for you to go through it line by line. The invites sent when a user launches the app is user initiated. The UX built wasn't great clearly so we removed it. On Data and Airtel, can't blame you for thinking that way. Most of the industry is filled with those kinds. Airtel and BSB are different companies. No such thing happening. (Creator @hikeapp)

Thank you for replying. Good to know Airtel and BSB are separate enterprises. I went through the terms. "Hike TOS: hike may receive data whenever You connect with an application or site through hike (such as during status update, when You connect to other sites and in which case hike posts to these sites on Your behalf ). This may include date and time You visit the site, the web address, IP address information, brow…

1. "Authentication Tokens" are stored only with user permission. Why? So we can seamlessly allow the user who gives us permission to post to FB, Twitter. Its standard industry practice.

2. non-personally-identifiable information is something every app collects and should do so. It helps us understand our how to serve our users better. With respect to 3rd parties - see 'Kontagent' for example. They're a super smart data analysis company. Why re-invent the wheel. Again, a standard industry practice.

Hope that puts your skeptical viewpoints to rest :)

Re: 5M users in 4 months. How hike plans to win the global messaging space

#28

Post by kbmittal »

iamshs wrote: post #24
orangethirty wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we must include where you are growing as a factor of the discussion. The Indian consumer does not have a very high purchasing power. This means that the average Indian must focus on covering his/her basic needs, rather than buy luxury items. Your app falls manages to squeeze in by allowing Indians to send SMS without incurring into any cost. You are simply buying your way into their phones in order to get a f…

Well let me tell you something: The creator of this app (Kavin Bharti Mittal) is son of the guy (Sunil Bharti Mittal) running one of the big telco company (Airtel) in India. I think he sure has something up his sleeve, and this is why the investment of 7M sounds disingenuous and misleading, given that the VC company is just another venture of Airtel. I got interested as to what is their value proposition and why are…

I am Kavin Mittal and you can point all your questions to me.

On Data and Airtel, can't blame you for thinking that way. Most of the industry is filled with those kinds. Airtel and BSB are different companies. No such thing happening.

1. "Authentication Tokens" are stored only with user permission. Why? So we can seamlessly allow the user who gives us permission to post to FB, Twitter. Its standard industry practice.

2. non-personally-identifiable information is something every app collects and should do so. It helps us understand our how to serve our users better. With respect to 3rd parties - see 'Kontagent' for example. They're a super smart data analysis company. Why re-invent the wheel. Again, a standard industry practice.

Have a skim through any other messaging apps terms and I'm sure you'll see nothing different.

Anything else?

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