51–60 of 63 posts
Too many chat apps .... My son is in japan, I have to load line on my phone. I sometimes work in China, I have WeChat. Hangouts for text messages. Work uses Zoom. Another group I hang out with have settled on Slack .... I want just one
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Line is a fad like Facebook is a fad then. Pretty much every single person in Japan with a smartphone has the app and it is the standard way to communicate. I didn't need a phone plan when I lived there because I ended up making maybe 5 actual phone calls over the course of 3 years because LINE totally served my needs. The only people I met with a Facebook were people who liked traveling and were actively looking for…
This is also the case in countries down south like Thailand. Everyone who is anyone is on LINE, and businesses display their LINE ID before anything else.
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I'm not sure that's the case for Line. I've used Line only sparingly, but I live in South Korea, which has KakaoTalk, the chat app usually described as being to Korea what Line is to Japan (or vice-versa, since Line was patterned after Kakao). Their UX is very similar. KakaoTalk is huge. It's hard to separate from being Korean. Everybody has it by default. It's the standard way to communicate. It's used for notificat…
That's interesting - what do you mean by being used for notifications? Sites / services / stores can send you a KakaoTalk notification? I experimented with sending alerts for server health via WhatsApp but the phone number -> ID ties make it difficult.
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People don't care about the news or comprehensive journalism. Bread and circuses.
Yep, Humans are social animals and chatting is just as crucial as eating (in 1st world countries). Reading the news? We can do without it. One is addressing a need, the other isn't.
Too many chat apps .... My son is in japan, I have to load line on my phone. I sometimes work in China, I have WeChat. Hangouts for text messages. Work uses Zoom. Another group I hang out with have settled on Slack .... I want just one
Indeed. I only learned about LINE today and it's apparently "2016's largest tech IPO"...
This stuff is a fad, like the housing bubble and the .com boom. People who don't really understand technology or the internet or how people use both think they smell gold and they take us on these ridiculous roller coaster rides about "The next big killer app" or whatever. Then that app is dead in 5 years. I guess if all one is interested in is making money, then good for them, kudos. But in the grander sense.. "the…
Easy to say about any new app. Do you include Facebook and Google in this? They were most certainly a "killer app/site" at launch, but managed to stick around.
This stuff is a fad, like the housing bubble and the .com boom. People who don't really understand technology or the internet or how people use both think they smell gold and they take us on these ridiculous roller coaster rides about "The next big killer app" or whatever. Then that app is dead in 5 years. I guess if all one is interested in is making money, then good for them, kudos. But in the grander sense.. "the…
I'm not sure that's the case for Line. I've used Line only sparingly, but I live in South Korea, which has KakaoTalk, the chat app usually described as being to Korea what Line is to Japan (or vice-versa, since Line was patterned after Kakao). Their UX is very similar. KakaoTalk is huge. It's hard to separate from being Korean. Everybody has it by default. It's the standard way to communicate. It's used for notificat…
Someone else deserves the credit for saying this, but the only things that survive on the internet are protocols. E-mail, FTP, HTTP, and as it relates to messaging, Jabber. These things are not fads and the only reason I've seen them fail is when the technology does not live up to the needs of people. If Jabber didn't have a number of important issues, perhaps all chat apps would still be using Jabber and none of these "SMS Replacements" would exist.
I think I might be biased, because none of the popular chat apps in recent years has been truly open. I hate proprietary messaging apps. I hate when progress takes a back door to profiteering, especially when the profit model is selling stupid, un-exportable .gifs for $1 each. Talk about preying on the weak.
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I'm not sure that's the case for Line. I've used Line only sparingly, but I live in South Korea, which has KakaoTalk, the chat app usually described as being to Korea what Line is to Japan (or vice-versa, since Line was patterned after Kakao). Their UX is very similar. KakaoTalk is huge. It's hard to separate from being Korean. Everybody has it by default. It's the standard way to communicate. It's used for notificat…
It's only existed for 5 years. Technology moves very swiftly and with new capabilities comes new apps, something will replace it and so I call them fads, maybe I'm wrong to do so, but let's see if it still exists in 20 years. Someone else deserves the credit for saying this, but the only things that survive on the internet are protocols. E-mail, FTP, HTTP, and as it relates to messaging, Jabber. These things are not…
So KakaoTalk and that I use it is a thorn in my side. Client and servers are closed source, there isn't an API allowing for client replacements, the protocol is undocumented, there is no federation, it's known to be under government surveillance, you get a single login session per SIM so you can't do multi-identity on the same device, there are no clients for open platforms, there is no open governance of any kind. It's so wrong.
At the same time I've learned it's wrong to resent the user and their lack of care and diligence. It's misspent energy and distracts from forward progress. It doesn't ever change minds. Instead you need to try and have empathy and understand why they do what they do, and why their priorities are different. They're not weak.
The truth is, KakaoTalk does what it does very well and friction-free. The UX is great. They improve things regularly and thoughtfully, supporting what people actually do with the app. It's kinda magic. The stupid .gif's aren't stupid at all, they're ~$3 for ~20, and users would readily say they're worth that - and they're right, compared to the value they get out of a hamburger it's a steal. They meaningfully make their days better.
If you want to beat it, you have to be at least better at the things people care about. It's not easy, because it's very good at them.
I hope we figure it out.
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Easy to say about any new app. Do you include Facebook and Google in this? They were most certainly a "killer app/site" at launch, but managed to stick around.
Yes, however neither google nor facebook can be pinned down to a single product. They are now holding companies which own dozens of products, some of which are successful, some which are fads.