KIK Messenger

[quic]

KIK Messenger is like Blackberry Messenger (BBM) for everybody else.

It exploded onto the market just recently and everybody's interested. KIK is a cross-platform messenger for Android, iOS and Blackberry. It automatically adds friends to your buddylist as they download the app. Check it out it's pretty nice. I just got it yesterday. When i first downloaded it it only showed one other friend with it (the person who told me about it) and after about 12 hours had gone by 50 of my friends had it. It's all over facebook and stuff. People are loving it!!!

Kik Messenger | Free real-time texting for all

 

[d3xn2o]

KIK Messenger is like Blackberry Messenger (BBM) for everybody else.

It exploded onto the market just recently and everybody's interested. KIK is a cross-platform messenger for Android, iOS and Blackberry. It automatically adds friends to your buddylist as they download the app. Check it out it's pretty nice. I just got it yesterday. When i first downloaded it it only showed one other friend with it (the person who told me about it) and after about 12 hours had gone by 50 of my friends had it. It's all over facebook and stuff. People are loving it!!!

Kik Messenger | Free real-time texting for all

I'm Testing it now... I'll see whats up

 

[Kalifornia]

Two barriers that I noticed when I used this on my BlackBerry:

1) Unlike BBM, you have to convince others to install it to keep the service free. Otherwise you have to pay for the SMS messages (although I believe it's much cheaper than the carrier costs). Think Skype for SMS.

2) If you text someone who does not have Kik on their phone, they will get the sms from a different phone number than your phone. Its the way they set it up that you get assigned a phone number when you send the message. I don't know if this is dynamic of static but either way, you have to let everyone know that its you sending the message...or you have to convince them to install Kik (see number one).

Conceptually though it is pretty cool but I am not seeing the same level of adoption to install it myself. I wish I could get everyone to use it...I hate paying for text messages and loved BBM when I had it.

 

[sanibel]

KIK is a cross-platform messenger for Android, iOS and Blackberry.

Sorry but to me "cross-platform" messenger means that Blackberry users do not have to install it: It WILL work with BBM users (their PINs) automatically. In other words: Can you add a contact's PIN (a Blackberry PIN)?
This is just another IM that needs to be installed by everyone. There are several IMs that do that already.

 

[jdhas]

Sorry but to me "cross-platform" messenger means that Blackberry users do not have to install it: It WILL work with BBM users (their PINs) automatically. In other words: Can you add a contact's PIN (a Blackberry PIN)?
This is just another IM that needs to be installed by everyone. There are several IMs that do that already.

That would be a really, REALLY narrow definition of "cross platform," then, wouldn't it?

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

No app ever will work with BBM. RIM will keep that a closed system. It's their trump card over other platforms. Many people that keep BB is because of BBM. The only way to get anything close to multi platform is convince people to adopt a new app. But yeah it's basically an IM app with some extra features. Liveprofile is very similar.

Has anyone noticed a drop in battery life? The issue with apps like this is that they poll, which keeps a data connection open, so it's a major battery hog.

 

[quic]

I've only been running it for since yesterday but i notice no batter life issues. My battery life is consistent today with how it's been since i've had my phone.

 

[sanibel]

Battery life has been better than Liveprofile for me. And I agree that Liveprofile is similar to Kik. I still maintain that the definition of "cross platform" is misleading.

 

[bnob99]

No app ever will work with BBM. RIM will keep that a closed system. It's their trump card over other platforms. Many people that keep BB is because of BBM. The only way to get anything close to multi platform is convince people to adopt a new app. But yeah it's basically an IM app with some extra features. Liveprofile is very similar.

Has anyone noticed a drop in battery life? The issue with apps like this is that they poll, which keeps a data connection open, so it's a major battery hog.

Blue Planet Apps is working on a cross platform messenger that will allow you to send messages to BBM phones. Not sure when it will be released but apparently they have found a way to make this work. Unless I've interpreted their postings and website wrong and the BB user will also have to download an app to make it work.

Crosstalk by BluePlanetApps

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

Blue Planet Apps is working on a cross platform messenger that will allow you to send messages to BBM phones. Not sure when it will be released but apparently they have found a way to make this work. Unless I've interpreted their postings and website wrong and the BB user will also have to download an app to make it work.

Crosstalk by BluePlanetApps

I'd love to see that come to fruition...but it looks like they missed their own deadline for a release date. As far as I knew RIM wasn't releasing an API to hook into BBM, so that might be why it's delayed. But I could see a ton of people switching to this if it works as advertised when it's released.

EDIT: Looks like they expect to have more info in a few weeks. An admin in the forums said the restarted development last week. IDK if that means they started over or took a break and came back to it.

 

[ted_livingston]

Hi All, this is Ted from Kik.

Just wanted to jump on the thread, and answer a few questions.

Battery: unlike other chat apps, we don't do any polling. Instead, we push down messages to the device, and then open up a direct connection to the server, so long as you're still chatting. This not only minimizes battery life usage, but it also makes messaging wicked fast (our favorite part of the app

BBM: RIM will never open it up, which is why we made Kik.

Overall, we are quite proud, but also amazingly humbled to see what has happened with Kik. Adoption has gone "viral" (80K new users in the last 2 days, and accelerating).

We hope you'll all give it a shot, and if you have any problems, please let us know. We really want to make Kik awesome, and the only way we can do that is by listening to people like you.

Ted

Ted

 

[murso74]

Hi All, this is Ted from Kik.

Just wanted to jump on the thread, and answer a few questions.

Battery: unlike other chat apps, we don't do any polling. Instead, we push down messages to the device, and then open up a direct connection to the server, so long as you're still chatting. This not only minimizes battery life usage, but it also makes messaging wicked fast (our favorite part of the app

BBM: RIM will never open it up, which is why we made Kik.

Overall, we are quite proud, but also amazingly humbled to see what has happened with Kik. Adoption has gone "viral" (80K new users in the last 2 days, and accelerating).

We hope you'll all give it a shot, and if you have any problems, please let us know. We really want to make Kik awesome, and the only way we can do that is by listening to people like you.

Ted

Ted

are you sure about the battery claim? i've noticed a significant decrease in battery life since i installed the app... also spare parts is listing it kik as keeping the phone in partial wake mode for 33 minutes even though i didnt' use it today. the next closest program is the android system at 1 minute. my total wake time is 43 minutes so to me that's a major culprit. unless i'm reading something wrong here

 

[wildta2000]

Privacy Flaw, Sends SPAM, Shares Contact Info w/o Authorization

Kik has a serious privacy flaw. Kik ties in a person's username with their email address. Kik then sorts through the person's addressbook to find potential friends. This is considered a major privacy issue because a user may not want someone that is in their addressbook to know they have a Kik account--but they will because if they have your email address then they also have your Kik username without authorization or adding that person to your friends list. I understand the usefulness of finding other Kik users quite easily but there should be an ability to turn off the feature that allows Kik to search for other Kik users in your addressbook and SPAMMING them with a "you may know" message.

There's a reason why Blackberry Messenger allows its users to accept/reject another user before they are able to message them, and that it doesn't just sift through the user's address book looking for other potential BBM users.

 

[SenenCito]

just downloaded kik..I got so much adds right at the start im overwhelmed! im surprised I never heard of this seems like every iphone used had it already

hey guys looks like your site is busted, I can't imagine the traffic that must be going through, just checking the #kik hashtag on twitter its a nonstop stream

 

[li2327]

It works pretty good. Only thing I don't like is how people assume you've invaded their privacy because the app automatically suggests people as friends.

 

[French]

I don't mean to be negative but I don't see what Kik offers that I don't already get with Google Talk. Kik doesn't allow sending of files or pictures. Even worse, I ran into a word limit (or some type of limit). I sent a message to a friend and it got cut off and I had to send it incomplete and start another message. I've never had that happen with Google Talk.

Can someone explain what makes Kik any better?

 

[SenenCito]

I don't mean to be negative but I don't see what Kik offers that I don't already get with Google Talk. Kik doesn't allow sending of files or pictures. Even worse, I ran into a word limit (or some type of limit). I sent a message to a friend and it got cut off and I had to send it incomplete and start another message. I've never had that happen with Google Talk.

Can someone explain what makes Kik any better?

its quite simple kik is for the bbm crowd, I can tell you quite a few people stay wit blackberry purely for bbm, its amazing what a little read confirmation can do to messaging

 

[phreddyl]

google talk is ok but I find if some of your contacts have blackberrys they are offline a lot cause they are signed out without knowing it- I find that I wind up just texting them instead- Kik so far is pretty good

 

[ness_lewis]

So far I've enjoyed the app. I wish I was able to send pix at least I also use LiveProfile (which i really like) and gtalk.

 

[ReggieTee]

One of the biggest features of BBM are GROUPS. None of these new cross platform apps are offering groups. Until they do, i'll pass.