4 ms·

Isn't this just as fail as BlackBerry Messenger was? A lock-in iOS only service will be about as useful as BBM was, pretty useful if you and all your friends ha

Isn't this just as fail as BlackBerry Messenger was? A lock-in iOS only service will be about as useful as BBM was, pretty useful if you and all your friends have the same phone, but not as useful as SMS because everyone else can get that too. It's the network effect all over again, any network's value is exponentially proportional to the number of users it has and SMS has more users. A better approach would be to work better with IM like jabber/gTalk and MSN because as we move into the smart phone era nearly all cell phone users can send/receive those so your cell phone user overlay will be much closer to that of SMS, but where it will really kick SMS is that it will also cover all your friends at a computer not on their cell. This is useless for anyone with friends with Android phones because you'll be back to SMS for them. Special clubs are no fun if all your friends and family aren't in them.

mindstab 15y ago
And by just as fail I mean medicinally successful for Blackberry and it's users for a while, but completely useless at actually killing SMS which the title purports this will somehow do. With ~75% of people using non iOS devices this will never kill SMS. period.
btilly 15y ago
any network's value is exponentially proportional to the number of users it has Demonstrably false. The most widely quoted version of this is Metcalfe's Law, that the value of a network is dependent upon the square of the number of members. However the best empirical evidence is that the actual scaling factor is O(n log(n)). Which means that competing networks of different size and coexist for extended periods of time. (A phenomena that has actually happened on multiple occasions.)
gwright 15y ago
My understanding is that delivery and read receipts are features that BBM users are loath to give up. Could iMessage simply be a way to siphon off more RIM users? Enterprise IT departments might be more easily swayed to support IOS and abandon RIM with iMessage in place.

mindstab 15y ago

And by just as fail I mean medicinally successful for Blackberry and it's users for a while, but completely useless at actually killing SMS which the title purports this will somehow do. With ~75% of people using non iOS devices this will never kill SMS. period.

btilly 15y ago

any network's value is exponentially proportional to the number of users it has Demonstrably false. The most widely quoted version of this is Metcalfe's Law, that the value of a network is dependent upon the square of the number of members. However the best empirical evidence is that the actual scaling factor is O(n log(n)). Which means that competing networks of different size and coexist for extended periods of time. (A phenomena that has actually happened on multiple occasions.)

gwright 15y ago

My understanding is that delivery and read receipts are features that BBM users are loath to give up. Could iMessage simply be a way to siphon off more RIM users? Enterprise IT departments might be more easily swayed to support IOS and abandon RIM with iMessage in place.