Kik is the new real-time text messaging service that allows free texting across all three mobile platforms. At last, we are all connected harmoniously.
There are already messaging services on the market, What’sApp and Ping Chat for example, but none of these provide cross-platform communication like Kik does.
Of Kik’s 1.5 million users about 620,000 are on iPhones and the rest are spread out between Android and Blackberry. Kik has been hailed by users as “Blackberry Messenger for the rest of us”.
What sets Kik apart from other messaging services is it’s speed – it’s very fast. Kik founder, Ted Livingston says, “It’s like you can feel the person on the other side of the chat”. Until we have a chance to play with Kik ourselves, we will take his word for it.
Kik is somewhat of a success story, going from 0 to 1.5 million users in only 18 days, as shown in the graph below (image courtesy of Kik.com)
Kik has also received fantastic feedback, of the 8,000+ reviews in the Apple iTunes most are very positive.
Kik has big plans to expand it’s growing empire, in a recent blog post Kik hinted at some exciting future developments including optimised battery usage, the ability to add profile pictures to conversations, picture messaging and wireless connections to PC and TV.
Of course, no app comes without it’s issues and Kik is no exception. There has been a lot of noise about privacy concerns as it automatically imports your contacts without asking for permission. This has lead to debate as to whether this violates Apple’s iOS Developer Terms of Service.
When asked, Livingston said that he was baffled as to why the app had already been accepted into the App Store four times without contest if it in fact was in violation of Apple’s TOS.
Initial privacy issues aside, Kik looks to be a very good app and we’re predicting big things for the company.
Can we Kik it? Yes we can!
