GroupMessaging
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Microsoft is reportedly taking on Slack with 'Skype Teams'
Microsoft is building Skype Teams, a group messaging service that's similar to Slack, according to a report from Microsoft news blog MSPoweruser. Skype Teams takes a lot of the features that makes Slack so popular, including the ability to add channels, share files and privately message people, and it adds a few more functions.
Facebook's WhatsApp messenger hits 1 billion monthly users
Last time WhatsApp crowed about its active monthly user count, it was a zero shy of where it is now: 1 billion. The outfit says that's almost one in seven people on Earth who use Facebook's $19 billion messaging application. The announcement says not to expect much to change with this notable milestone other than forthcoming improvements to speed and security, most notably, while aiming to get the other six billion of our neighbors using the platform. Just think, if the company hadn't dropped its $1 annual subscription fee, that'd be a relatively easy billion dollars a year in income -- and we all know just how cool that much money is.
MessageMe chat app amasses 5 million users in 75 days across Android and iOS
Between WhatsApp, Viber, Google+ Hangouts and a raft of others, the mobile messaging app space is crowded, but recent entrant MessageMe has still managed to make notable headway. After a mere 75 days since its launch, the application has amassed 5 million registered users, up from 1 million in its first ten days. Now, the software is churning out an average of 1,500 notifications per second and handling approximately eight image uploads each second. For the uninitiated, the app is attempting to woo chatty folks on Android and iOS away from its rivals with the ability to send pictures, doodles, videos, audio, music and location information between two people or a group of friends. Sticker- and money-sending features are poised to bring home the bacon for the firm, but CEO and co-founder Arjun Sethi recently told The Next Web that it doesn't plan to activate them just yet, as it's focusing on attracting more users first. If you're itching for another outlet to dispatch notes to pals, hit the bordering more coverage links to grab MessageMe.
Addappt goes public, gives iOS users group contact control and messaging
While Addappt has been teasing painless contact syncing between iOS-using friends and colleagues since its December launch, its invitation-only nature has kept most of us on the sidelines. It may be time to try Addappt now that an update opens the doors to the public. On top of widening the app's audience for its update once, share everywhere approach, the 1.3 release brings group management that easily lets us lump coworkers or social circles together. Messaging is appropriately easier as well -- it's possible to quickly text or email everyone in a given group, including the option to share more photos at once than the five that iOS usually allows. A port to Android isn't yet on the cards, but iPhone and iPod touch owners tired of missing phone number changes can give Addappt a whirl today.
GroupMe moves up to v4.0, embraces the iPad
Group messaging service GroupMe has just been bumped up to version 4.0, and now plays well with the iPad. The refresh may not be as profound as the last big one, but brings with it a slew of design revamps, including Facebook app-inspired side drawers, bigger images and avatars, and centered chats. In addition, the app also allows sharing location using maps, inviting people to groups using URLs and rejoining previously abandoned groups. BlackBerry and Windows Phone users of the app can't board the freshly-painted bus just yet as the update is only available on iOS for now, while those on Android can get a taste via a beta that needs to be sideloaded atop the older version. There are other services vying for your attention too of course, with WP8's Rooms already open and RIM promising big things on BB10. However, if this sounds like what you covet, use the source links below to get in on the action.
Viber comes to Symbian, S40 and Bada, adds HD voice calling and group messaging to Nokia Lumia handsets
VoIP-over-3G app Viber broke down in tears when it learned that, after Android, iOS and Windows Phone, there were no new worlds to conquer. Then a helpful soul pointed out that there were more than 1.5 Billion S40 devices in the world, and it set about adding that to the existing 100 million users of its service. In addition, it's bringing its free-calls platform to Symbian and Bada handsets while current Nokia Lumia owners running Windows Phone 7 will find they can now access HD voice calls and group calls. iOS users shouldn't feel left out, however, since an update to their app will add support for a variety of languages including Simplified Chinese, Hebrew and Portuguese.
Facebook Messenger sinks Beluga, Raffi heads back to the drawing board
Beluga has just confirmed the inevitable -- it's being swallowed by Facebook Messenger. The group messaging app will no longer send texts as of November 11th and will shut down for good on December 15th, just a few months after Zuckerberg & Co acquired it, alongside digital book-maker Push Pop Press. "Now that Facebook Messenger is available everywhere, we've decided to stop offering Beluga as a separate service," the company explained in a blog post last week. If you'd like to grab an archive of your pods before the December 15th shutdown, you can do so at the coverage link below. Otherwise, just head past the break to join us in maritime remembrance.
Skype adds Groupme to social portfolio, sets sights on mobile market
Sure, we're still waiting for that Microsoft-Skype deal to close, but it looks like Redmond's about to get more than it initially bargained for. Skype announced today that it has reached an agreement to snatch up Groupme, the mobile group messaging service that made a splash at Google I/O. Outfit head honcho Tony Bates told TechCrunch that Skype needs to invade the mobile space if it hopes to reach its goal of scoring one billion users, and cites Groupme's "sticky group messaging experience" as the ideal mobile addition to the Skype family. But don't take our word for it, hit the break and dig the PR for yourself.
Groupme 3.0 goes international and cross-platform, questions everything
Groupme, the little group messaging service that made a bit of a splash at Google I/O, turns 3.0 today. There are some shiny new features on board, including a simpler way to exchange private messages and "Questions" for sparking conversations when you're not sure who to talk to. But, the big news -- Groupme 3.0 is now platform and nation agnostic. With the latest update, the service will be available in 90 countries and add Windows Phone 7 to its list of supported OSes, alongside iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android. Even if you're sitting in front of your desktop you can still take part in the mass messaging fun. The website has been overhauled and now sports all of the same features, like photo-sharing and group management, as the mobile apps. Check out the source link to get the latest version for your handset of choice -- provided you're not a Symbian fan -- and don't miss the gallery below. %Gallery-129813%
A primer on group messaging apps
If you follow our tech startup sister site TechCrunch, or if you've read any of the reports from the South by SouthWest (SXSW) conference this year, you've probably seen a lot of column inches given to current-media-darling "group messaging" apps. SXSW has a reasonable track record of predicting the Next Big Thing. It was where Twitter first came to many people's attention in 2007, for example, and it was an early success story for Foursquare in 2009, too. My usual reaction to hype like this is to roll my eyes and avoid the apps in question altogether, although that might just be because I've never blagged tickets to SXSW. Eventually, though, TechCrunch's relentless enthusiasm wore me down, and I took a look at one of the commonly mentioned apps, Beluga. To my surprise, what I found was a slick, well-designed app that solved a communication problem I didn't know I had. That'll teach me to be cynical! Before I explain what I liked about Beluga, an aside: there are a number of other significant group messaging apps, including GroupMe, Fast Society, Yobongo, the soon-to-relaunch Betwext Talk and the brand new, bought-by-Google Disco. However, international availability of these apps is spotty. For example, at the time of writing, only Beluga and Yobongo were in the UK App Store -- this is probably because these apps incorporate free-to-the-user SMS features that are tricky to make work cheaply internationally. As I'm in the UK, this means I can't do a detailed review roundup of all the apps. Look for this in a future TUAW post by one of our American bloggers. I'll use Beluga as an example to demonstrate concepts that are common to all the group messaging apps.
Group Messaging / Presence to keep your messaging sessions rich
Not sure if you've noticed, but text / video messaging has remained fairly constant while web browsing, multimedia playback and navigation applications have all steadily improved. Thankfully, The Wireless Association and its awesomely named Enhanced Messaging Action Team has a thing or two to say about that. The group has just released its Final Set of Use Cases and Call Flows for the development of Enhanced Messaging solutions, which have reportedly been agreed to by every major US carrier. This provides said carriers with "a complete set of the tools and information" that they can use to develop interoperable Enhanced Messaging products, enabling both Group Messaging and Presence functionality. The former enables "multiple users to interact with text based communication on their mobile devices, as well as support multimedia files in group communications," while the entire Enhanced Messaging platform is said to be "a presence-enabled mobile messaging service that allows for richer real-time text messaging and communications than traditional mobile messaging." Hard to say when any meaningful developments beyond this will occur, but we're clearly just years away from SMS telepathy.[Image courtesy of Cast-Online]
