WhatsApp. Line. KakaoTalk. WeChat. Skype. BlackBerry Messenger. Path. iMessage. Facebook. These are just a few of the currently popular messaging apps. It’s inevitable that people will have to use more than one of these apps to contact different groups of people, adding to the complexity of communications, thanks to the different features each company has chosen to highlight, but the newer apps are getting more love from mobile consumers.
On CampaignAsia, CEO of McCann Worldgroup Singapore, Ben Lightfoot said, “People now want platforms which help them increase the quality of their relationships, to create deeper emotional connections with those closest to them”. McCann Worldgroup is the agency that handles Line’s campaign in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong.
Lightfoot’s comment implies that the older messaging apps do not bring out such sentiments from their users. Those apps have mostly been very task oriented and less personal which does not entice people to keep using them beyond what is absolutely necessary, whereas the new generation of apps help create that bond.
Some time ago we wondered which text messaging apps will storm the market and grab the lion’s share. The names we mentioned back then were Facebook, iMessage, Google+, WhatsApp, mig33, and Skype. How different the landscape is today. Asian messaging apps are grabbing all the headlines these days and there’s been very few, if any, innovations launched on the older, more popular services. Today’s landscape is all about mobile messaging and the Asian apps are rolling with the punches.
