RCS vs. OTT Messengers

This is from a post I recently made on LinkedIn...

RCS promises to be a major upgrade to the Native Messenger on your Android smartphone. But is all the talk about a Sleeping Giant over blown? 

RCS vs. OTT Messengers

 

RCS, or Rich Communications Services, is a protocol that's been around for several years. It allows carriers to provide services like Voice and Video Calls, File Sharing (think Photos), and of course Chatting 1:1 or as a Group. The problem with RCS for years was that it requires Interoperability between carriers, otherwise end users can only use the messenger among friends on the same network. These contracts take time and create a complicated user experience (Johnny: "Why didn't you get my text?").

 Jibe Mobile created a Hub to allow carriers to create one NNI (Network-to-Network-Interface) with their communications service in order to create interoperability with any other carrier also connected to the Hub, provide they used their white-label messenger (Messenger Plus). They offered colourful skins so carriers could "customise" the user interface. Google acquired Jibe last year, and at MWC a few weeks ago they made some announcements. Yippie! 

Google's new platform is great, don't get me wrong. However, it is great as an upgrade to the native messenger available on your Android smartphone if it supports RCS (btw only a fraction of all Android devices currently support it, though that will certainly change). The idea that RCS will emerge as a rival to OTT Messengers like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or WeChat (not to mention Instagram, SnapChat, or anything else new that "tweens" are using) is unfounded in reality, or really optimistic. 

The bottom-line is people use OTT Messengers (like other social media) because their friends use it, it's personal, it's unique, and often it's private -- or at least more private than your Google-provided messenger. And more than ever, OTT Messengers are evolving to rival not SMS or other Communication tools, but Operating Systems themselves. They are the new layer upon-which all m_commerce is being built... or rather integrated with. 

If App distribution was broken before, it's dead now. The tops apps are almost always Facebook, Google, or Apple (or some other usual suspect). Services, both private and public, don't have the time or money to compete with those giants for audience. Enter the OTT Messenger with a dedicated audience that's big and local. On-demand services, eCommerce, traditional businesses, public services, payment (p2p, c2b, and even c2g) can all be integrated to the OTT Messenger. And these integrations can be surfaced, or not, based on wherever the user is. WeChat is a great example of this, and they are pushing into Subsaharan Africa something fierce with their major shareholder Naspers. That's significant in several ways, but in terms of the above examples that means millions of people who are already using their phones to pay for everything. A nudge may be all it takes to put WeChat and Naspers at the centre of m_Commerce there similarly to how WeChat has positioned itself in China. 

In addition to services, OTT Messengers are ideal for content distribution which drive downloads for other types of apps. This could be anything, literally. 

So sleeping giant? Maybe, those guys at Google are obviously creative and smart. We'll see what they come up with. But on the face of things, Google's new Jibe makes for some fancier Native Messengers, but will hardly impact the impressive rise of OTT Messengers to the centre of our smartphone experience. 

Here is a presentation I put together to compare the two: RCS vs OTT Messengers

Frankly The Best "Ephemeral" Messenger

Disclaimer! SK planet is an investor in Frankly Inc. but this is in no way a “native advertisement” nor is it an official position of Frankly, SK planet, or any other business partner. No one asked me to write this, I just really like the app and want to write about it. Also I may be biased… but seriously Frankly is still awesome and you should download it right now anyway → iOS   Android

Since reading No Place To Hide, a great book about Edward Snowden and many of his revelations, I started to feel less comfortable with how Google, Facebook, or (since I live in Korea) Kakao, and most social media companies were storing my data. Naturally, a lot of people felt that way making anonymity the new black according to Digiday.

Around that same time SK planet invested in Frankly. Since I work at SK planet I’ve had the opportunity to have several great conversations with the amazing people at Frankly, and I know for sure that privacy is top-of-mind and that none of their users messages are stored. They set out to liberate social networking with a secure, snoop-proof messenger platform, period.

What’s Behind Frankly

The idea behind Frankly was that people should have a platform where they can chat frankly with each other without concerns that their conversations are being recorded. Bottom line philosophy at Frankly: our conversations on messengers should be at least as secure as conversations IRL (“in-real-life”).

Frankly gives you total control of your conversations and promises they are ephemeral so you can chat freely. Not too mention that you will have a fun and compelling experience too.  To accomplish that they have built a first class team that shares this philosophy, raised more than $20 million, and recently IPO’d in Toronto. Frankly has the runway to make their vision of a liberated social networking experience as reality.

Compelling and Secure

It can be tough to adopt a new messenger, but by making the experience compelling and totally secure Frankly has empowered early-adopters to stick it out and get their friends on the app. First, your messages will disappear forever after a few seconds. The the app also looks awesome, plus it’s really easy to customize the way your chats look and feel. You can also “pin” your messages so if you want to remember some important info or context that’s totally possible (which I think is a really neat feature), and remove sent messages you didn't mean to send or rather you hadn't sent. Of course you can also share photos, and they will evaporate as well.

Frankly is probably the best application for group chats. When you enter a group chat on Frankly, your messages are anonymous. This is the most liberating aspect of Frankly, and it makes it a great tool for candid conversation among friends and co-workers, or between brands and customers.

      

Savvy Partnerships To Realize The Vision

Getting user adoption for any app is hard, and for messengers it is really hard. In addition to its own messenger app, Frankly means to achieve their vision of liberating the chatting masses through partnerships. Their SDK is available for any business that shares their philosophy and wants an easy implementation of secure, private, anonymous messenger for their customers.

Last year Victoria’s Secret integrated Frankly’s SDK into their Pink shopping app. The app made it possible for customers, who might be concerned about their privacy whilst chatting-up and sharing photos of lingerie, to engage with the brand with texts, customizable emojis, user photos, and multiple shades of pink. 

Models were even available for live chat!

Overall My Favorite Messenger…

I really love this app, for being awesome and for executing a strategy that is aligned with their core-values. It’s too bad because more people I know aren’t on it yet, but hopefully that will change in 2015. If you’re a business who cares about your customers, get the Frankly SDK. It's a particularly good idea for retailers who want to integrate social networking into their omnichannel strategy, because they can reassure your customers the channel is secure.

Best of luck to the team, thanks for looking out for all of us, and congrats on the IPO!

Getting Buffer

A couple of years ago a friend introduced me to what was then a relatively new service called Buffer. It instantly became one of my favorite applications, since I like to share what I’m reading online but only have a set time during the day when I get most of my reading done. For many people this is a problem because we are in multiple time zones, or because it means we are slamming the network all at once.

Buffer solves this by allowing you to share organically but schedule those tweets or posts to a predetermined schedule on whatever networks I choose. Sounds like Hoot Suite or Tweet Deck, but Buffer is much simpler and feels a lot more like the way I want to share. In other words, this utility really nailed the user experience.

Getting Buffer

Buffer has gotten way buffer since the release of their iOS application -- beefing up on lot's of nice integrations. The once little known web application with a Chrome plugin is now a platform supported by dozens of applications, as well as the big boys Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin. According to TNW, Buffer reached 500K users earlier this year and continues to grow. No doubt, since they continue to iterate with new and very useful features like “buffering” retweets for Twitter, and integrating with super products like Feedily.

Filler Features

Buffer does what you have always wished a social media utility to do:

1. Painlessly add stories or your own content to your “buffer” from awesome services like Chrome, Feedily, Twitter (retweets too!), and more.

2. Share them to your network via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn... you can choose which one as you’re adding to your buffer -- some content is appropriate for LinkedIn, others just twitter, etc.  

3. Adjust your post schedule to meet your audience’s needs and keep yourself from spamming them with an barrage of posts -- without complicated excel spreadsheets.

4. Killer analytics to better understand your audience.

Buffer Rocks

Buffer has been slowly building an incredible product. I’ve worked with dozens of people (entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs) during the past 3-4 years who focus on 1M downloads, or 10M users, perfecting (identifying?) that killer feature, etc. It’s discouraging. Sure, those are important milestones, but the focus both early-on and for the long-term must be on building a great product.

Buffer should be praised for their resilience and for remaining focused on building a great product, that people want to pay for. They nailed the user experience, building a useful product that their target audience loves.

TNW interviewed Buffer’s CEO Joel Gascoigne, you should check it out! He really nailed the pain points of professionals who want to -- or have to -- keep up with their social media but just have 15-30 minutes in the morning or evening to really focus on trends in their field.

Buffer is your elixir. If you aren’t using it yet, best start now!