Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Kik: The Habit

It's become the latest and greatest addiction among smartphone users.  Kik Messenger has taken the virtual world by storm, and I am no exception to that.

It's like instant messaging and text messaging all in one.  Actually it's better than any instant messaging or text messaging application I've ever used on a mobile device.  Let me tell you why ...

You can see when your message has been sent, received and read by the recipient (text features), as well as see when the other person is typing a response (IM feature).  No messaging application that I know of does ALL that.  And not only does Kik,  give you all those great features, but it is super fast (another IM feature)!

But what's the real beauty of Kik, you ask?  You better sit down for this one ...

Unlike BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) that can only be used on a BlackBerry device, Kik Messenger can be used across multi-platform smartphones.  For example, someone using an Android powered phone can "kik" someone using an iPhone, as long as they've both downloaded the app from their respective market/store and accepted each other as contacts within the app.

Speaking of Blackberry, the maker of the smartphone and its operating system -- Research In Motion (RIM) -- has now sued Kik Interactive -- claiming that they stole their idea -- and have pulled Kik from their app world.  And who is suffering for it?  Only the Blackberry users.  They are now once again limited to chatting only with other Blackberry owners.

Kik was re-launched on October 19, 2010, and in two weeks, had over 1 millions users.  It now has over two and a half million "kiksters" and could reach over 3 million users by the New Year.

This morning, Kik updated their already outstanding application to include the ability for users to add profile pictures, as well as new ways to find friends with their enhanced search/suggestion features.  I'm hoping they will eventually add a feature that will allow users to set their status to "away", "available", etc.  Looking forward to see what else they have in store!

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