6 ms·
Playing devil's advocate: WhatsApp is a $22B investment. It makes sense to try to prevent it from being canabalized from the inside. We've seen something like
by venning 11y ago
Playing devil's advocate: WhatsApp is a $22B investment. It makes sense to try to prevent it from being canabalized from the inside.
We've seen something like this before, when AIM allowed MSN Messenger to interoperate. I know this is a little different, but that was still how AIM lost.
Here is a fantastic war story from one of the MSN engineers on the battle to subvert AIM [1].
[1] https://nplusonemag.com/issue-19/essays/chat-wars/ https://nplusonemag.com/issue-19/essays/chat-wars/
- amyjess 11y ago> We've seen something like this before, when AIM allowed MSN Messenger to interoperate. I know this is a little different, but that was still how AIM lost. Lost? AIM was the dominant IM platform in the US until the late 00s/early 10s when mobile and cloud-based services took over. First SMS/MMS and then platforms like Facebook Messenger, Google Hangouts, and Skype. The only place MSN was dominant was third-world countries like Brazil.
- Laaw 11y agoSMS/MMS lost? Tell that to my friends/family/telcos.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- amyjess 11y agoNo, I said that AIM was first overtaken by SMS/MMS and then by Facebook/Google/Skype. I didn't say that SMS/MMS died out, just that it was joined by the others.
- MAGZine 11y agoMSN was way more popular than AIM in parts of Canada (maybe all, I can't speak nationally). Probably, AIM usage correlated with AOL's marketing strategy, meaning it prevailed in the US, though I'm not even sure about europe. Anyhow, your assertion that MSN was only dominant in 3rd world countries is unfounded.
- realusername 11y agoDon't know about other countries, on my case in France, it was MSN-only, I've never seen anyone with a AIM account ever. I had no idea it used to be popular in the US, I've actually learned that now.
- scottmcf 11y agoI'd say MSN had the edge over AIM in Scotland too, although the populations overlapped heavily (i.e. most people I talked with had both).
- venning 11y agoFair point. I got a little word-happy.
- roymurdock 11y agoFrom my experience, AIM lost because it was the cool thing to do in high school before everyone had cell phones. Once texting/BBM was a thing, AIM became completely obsolete. I don't think I know anyone who ever used MSN Messenger.
- fluxquanta 11y ago>I don't think I know anyone who ever used MSN Messenger I did because it had the best quality video chat at the time, before Skype became a thing, but that was probably 15 years ago. My current company used to use it for in-office communication as recently as five years ago when I was first hired. It was an abysmal mess of sending out group chats as individual windows every time someone had a question. For a software company it was really disgraceful.
- ParadoxOryx 11y agoMy company used Yahoo! Messenger for the longest time. Thank goodness for HipChat/Slack.
- giancarlostoro 11y agoBut MSN had group conversations (as far as I remember), why not simply use those?
- fluxquanta 11y agoOur office was about 20 people at the time. Any time anyone had a question, but didn't know who to direct it to, a new group conversation was initiated with everyone in the office. That was the problem.
- joepie91_ 11y agoIn the Netherlands, there was almost nobody who didn't use MSN Messenger.
- izacus 11y agoMSN Messenger was one of those "regional" services simillar to WhatsApp - it was very popular in Europe, pretty much everyone used it around here, while as far as I heard it was very rare in US.
- HappyTypist 11y agoPreventing interoperatibility is one thing. Rewriting user messages without their consent is another.