After unifying messaging, we want to continue to unify other functionalities, to work toward a sort of 'super app'. It starts with messaging and will evolve from there.
What will you do when the underlying networks start to work against you and shut your third-party client out? They don't want you on their network, they don't want people to use your client, they want people on their client, so they get all the metrics and data.
Look, I had a multi-network IM client for a long time, because screen real estate and notification area icon space was limited, and it was nice to have similar-looking dialog boxes for everyone. But those aren't problems on mobile.
I get it, it would be nice to have the app that everyone has installed, but what problem are you solving for average people? Why would they install your thing and not the real thing?
Instagram and Snapchat are out for the first round. The workaround is going to be too great, so those will come in version 2 as we scale our dev efforts. FB Messenger is the one we are going to put our effort into and work around the API. We will have the bare bones to begin, very basic photo and video options. The basic idea for us is to get to a minimal viable product, see if what we are doing makes sense, and then either grow from there or pivot.
There is no doubt at some point we will get a cease and desist, much like Disa did. We are full aware there will be a day when that happens. At that point, we will discontinue their serves and continue using the other ones. The goal for us is to eventually be our own standalone product.
The real problem people are running into is app overload. It isn;t just messaging, but rather apps in general. By unifying messaging first, we can move on to unifying the next thing from there and eventually having one big super app!
Thanks for your questions and feedback, they are honestly super helpful for me to talk through.
Honestly, they don't. In your previous post you went through your scenario of having to check a bunch of apps. You are a developer, not a typical user, so the typical user has way less. Also, all apps have notification icons, so you don't have to open them to figure out if there's anything there, you can take one glance at a screen on your phone, and you know which three had something. Or take a look at the notification area in your phone, which has the same info.
You're building an app for yourself, great! But you have to realize that everyone is not you. :-)
I also appreciate you reading the few post I have put out here. I am on a bit of a tear writing lately as part of a new year resolution to write more and improve my writing. I figured I might as well couple it with my little project.
Anyways, I am fully aware this app won't apply to everyone. The way I look at it is not everyone uses so many social networks that they can't handle posting to all of them right? While this might not seem like a huge problem, Hootsuite solved for it and now they are a unicorn.
I get this is a problem me and a few other people have right now, but I believe it is going to get worse. There will be an app after Snapchat, then after that, and the apps will continue to pile up. As for notification, we have some things in the pipeline to improve over messaging experaince as well.
If I backtrack just a bit, I am actually more of a swiss army knife position who works at a startup. Mainly I do customer service and data analysis though.
Thanks for your input!