3 ms·

Some blunt questions for you: iMessage doesn't have ads (and honestly i cannot see it ever changing), but it does have one hell of an ecosystem. Why is yours

Some blunt questions for you: iMessage doesn't have ads (and honestly i cannot see it ever changing), but it does have one hell of an ecosystem. Why is yours better? How do you propose to enter a very crowded space and get enough users to pay you keep the lights on when every alternative is free? If you're actually a WhatsApp alternative instead of an iMessage alternative, why are you better than Signal? It's free, and they're a nonprofit with a warchest and really, truly no incentive to keep any metadata about you at all.

danfang 7y ago
1. We're not restricted to the Apple ecosystem. A majority of the world's users are on Android. There's a lot of evidence that the exclusivity of iMessage is causing anxiety and stress in certain social circles: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20715188 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20715188 2. We plan to offer a very different kind of product than "simple secure messaging" (WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram). We want to truly capture meaningful, social interactions beyond just quick messages. I want to build a service that better ties in event planning, payment splitting, and location sharing into your groups. An experience like Google photos where you can build shared albums in your groups. One where sharing music and videos feels natural and you can have "shared" experiences. We plan to integrate with a ton of third parties to offer intelligence on top of your messages (restaurant ratings, flight tracking, etc). 3. We want to build a better platform on top of messaging. Plugins and bots are pretty useless right now. We think we can offer apps and services that live in your conversations in really meaningful ways. It will be strictly opt-in, so users are choosing which services they want to integrate with. We're starting with messaging because that's the starting point for meaningful group interactions, but I don't see anyone else in the space filling the gap for the things I mentioned.
- oarsinsync 7y ago
  > We plan to integrate with a ton of third parties to offer intelligence on top of your messages You need to be real careful about how you do this, and be mindful of this not becoming a privacy leaking side channel
  - giancarlostoro 7y ago
    I agree, everyone loves giphy, and talking to bots... or using custom Slack / Discord commands, but those are opt-in and predictable. Anything beyond that would be dangerous.

danfang 7y ago

1. We're not restricted to the Apple ecosystem. A majority of the world's users are on Android. There's a lot of evidence that the exclusivity of iMessage is causing anxiety and stress in certain social circles: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20715188 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20715188 2. We plan to offer a very different kind of product than "simple secure messaging" (WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram). We want to truly capture meaningful, social interactions beyond just quick messages. I want to build a service that better ties in event planning, payment splitting, and location sharing into your groups. An experience like Google photos where you can build shared albums in your groups. One where sharing music and videos feels natural and you can have "shared" experiences. We plan to integrate with a ton of third parties to offer intelligence on top of your messages (restaurant ratings, flight tracking, etc). 3. We want to build a better platform on top of messaging. Plugins and bots are pretty useless right now. We think we can offer apps and services that live in your conversations in really meaningful ways. It will be strictly opt-in, so users are choosing which services they want to integrate with. We're starting with messaging because that's the starting point for meaningful group interactions, but I don't see anyone else in the space filling the gap for the things I mentioned.

oarsinsync 7y ago
> We plan to integrate with a ton of third parties to offer intelligence on top of your messages You need to be real careful about how you do this, and be mindful of this not becoming a privacy leaking side channel
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  I agree, everyone loves giphy, and talking to bots... or using custom Slack / Discord commands, but those are opt-in and predictable. Anything beyond that would be dangerous.