What’s Kik Messenger All About?

By on Nov 10, 2010 at 12:19 PM
mobile November 10, 2010

If you’ve heard about the Kik messaging app, or as some would call it, “the new BBM”, you probably sat at the cool-kid lunch-table at school. Kik, a multi-platform messaging app designed to do one thing — communicate instantly and effortlessly with buddies — has absolutely exploded over the last few weeks. Originally on track to launch an innovative (and pretty cool) music-sharing, remote-controllable service, Kik soon found themselves creating a messaging app with some of their existing technology while the music service firmed up behind the scenes. After a pretty poor original launch (I tried Kik back then and the beta was definitely a beta — I uninstalled it soon after it was first installed), Kik stripped away almost everything until they ended up with one of the quickest and most reliable messaging apps around.

Kik has over 1.2 million unique users signed up, Kik CEO Ted Livingston told BGR yesterday evening. The company is expecting its user-base to cross the 1.75-million user mark any day. Ted even said that Kik had to charter a plane and load it up with extra servers to bring to their data center just to keep the service up and running to handle the influx of users. Kik’s growth is nothing short of remarkable, with a completely viral marketing initiative spreading like wildfire across Facebook and Twitter. What’s exciting is that Kik knows that their users expect an even better user experience, and even more features. Here is what Kik is planning on doing:

They have just submitted a new update for the app to Apple’s App Store which should fix any bugs, but more importantly introduce new privacy features. We’re told Kik will add the ability to opt-out of the service suggesting users to you (and you to other users) in addition to the ability to block users. Going one step beyond this, instead of introducing an accept/decline system for friend requests, Kik seems to have a pretty nifty solution planned. By default, you will be able to make it so that any user who you don’t manually add to your buddy list, won’t be able to message you. If they happen to get your Kik username and send you a message, you won’t get it. They’ll get an automatic response to their sent message that you have enabled a privacy feature and that you would need to message them first.

After solidifying the app and introducing these new privacy features, Kik plans to bet big on photo sharing. Sending pictures back and forth isn’t anything new, but it links in nicely with Kik long-term strategy — a desktop browser-based mobile community. Kik is touting a system they have created to let your phone sign you into Kik.com, thus accessing your buddy list, shared photos, and possibly even more down the road. It appears to be a pretty novel concept, just walk up to your computer, wave your phone back and forth, the system will authenticate you, and you’re off and running. All your buddies are there, you can chat, see your message history, photos, and other content in one place. We still don’t know how Kik plans to monetize their service. It would prove to be pretty difficult to start charging millions of people for a service that was free from the beginning, but mobile ads are certainly a possibility in our mind. Possibly a premium product with additional features? Who knows. All we do know is that with Android, BlackBerry and iPhone apps that can all talk to each other, you don’t have an excuse not to be on Kik.

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  • http://twitter.com/Yellow_Trash Garbage Man

    FYI for BB users when you register for the first time, It’s very easy to mistaken the “Username” field as a “Password” field, you’ll end up registering your password as your username, and it will automatically recommend other users to you. The recommended users will be able to see your password as a username.

    This is a very serious security problem for people who dont pay attention. Kik has no measures to prevent it from happening and will not delete any accounts or change any usernames as soon as it’s registered. .

  • Suckmydonkeykong

    LIVE PROFILE MY FRIENDS

  • Anonymous

    i have been using it for like 2 weeks i guess and i will say it def has a lot of potential. the difference than say a dedicated im is that it pull from your contacts unless like was mentioned in the article u opt out of having it do that which is a little different than having somebody create a whole profile just to use a service like aim, yahoo, or msn. once they scale the servers and give you more setting options then i believe it will be a must have app. i enjoy the simplicity of it but i would also like to be able to set a profile picture and be able to nickname my contacts

  • Ross

    Used it months ago. Not a very good app. Kills your battery big time. Sometimes huge delays in msgs.

    Love all these “BBM killers” that end up sucking. Whatsapp, Ping, KIK…they all suck. Seriously just use gtalk, aim, msn, icq, jabber, yahoo that have established networks if you want cross phone talk, plus all them can be used on a computer too.

  • Frank

    Looks like this was created so iPhone users could have something as cool as BBM. Unfortunately, it is a very weak attempt. I have it, don’t think much of it. I also have WhatsApp, much better IMHO. And actually, I believe if Blackberry Messenger were to be released as a cross platform IM client, then it would dominate any other instant messeging app. It does it all, hands down.

  • Nallanos

    i’ve got a phone that uses this great technology call sms. it’s fucking sweet.

    • Bringit

      Sweeter than free?

      • Anonymous

        um no

      • jason6g

        $5 text plan is cheaper than a $30 data plan ;)

        i mainly text, but it is nice to know when one goes international and doesnt have to pay out the nose for international text rates. pop in a prepaid sim, and never miss a beat.

  • CatatonicBug

    What? No Windows support? Not that I can see the need for anything more “instant” than Texting (really… who doesn’t have a texting plan nowadays?), but why would they leave out the Windows Phone market?

    • Anonymous

      Because all of the companies that made Windows Phone apps are the ones M$ paid to. If M$ paid them they would too… And texting often slower than IM especially when messaging several people at once.

  • Norm

    This will be great on my DROID PRO. Really, ultimate messaging capability with an uncanny QWERTY keyboard plus the DROID OS… you can’t go wrong. DROID FTW!!!

  • Anonymous

    How much did they pay you guys to write this?

    • http://www.bgr.com Jonathan Geller

      I reached out to them. Is it bad I like BBM-like services on non-BlackBerry devices?

      • BG01

        How come no review on PingChat then? Does all the same stuff…PLUS media sharing already. To each their own I suppose, but why review one and not the other when they’re very similar? at least a comparison review or something.

    • Anonymous

      How much do I have to pay you to leave? God forbid the owner of a tech blog liking a tech company that a reader doesn’t.

  • Lovin2act

    This might get me off of my bbm addiction finally!

    • rkpowah

      Yeah but onto a kik addiction lol

  • drew dogg

    it needs group chats n it would be perfect!!!

  • Luiferm

    It crashes a LOT… deleted it

  • Riley Biers

    THANK GOD they’ve added the privacy features. I might reinstall it now.

  • Aw2inc

    Kik was the best option out there but you guys should try pmessenger… It’s got group chat, read receipts like kik and has group chat! Best part is you can have profile pictures and status updates. You can try the free version that had ads or the 99 cent one which adds enhancements and works alot better. Hope this helps!

  • http://twitter.com/ctbeiser Chris Beiser

    No reason, you say? What about, say, I’m using webOS or Maemo or WP7 or a dumbphone?

  • Anonymous

    I’ll take a look at this KIK, but it sounds like its playing catch up to PingChat!

  • Anonymous

    I still don’t see the point of more messenging services like this and bbm. I already have a smartphone with unlimited texting as do most of my friends. I also have ebuddy with access to googletalk, aim, and facebook chat.

    Why would I want to sign up/create a new username for yet another service?

    • Venc

      Group messaging, mainly when people are in different countries. Not everyone has unlimited texting plans. This goes for BBM. I not really a fan of this type of apps anyway.

      But if you had a BB before you’ll see how BBM is much, much better than regular TXT.

      Not only that, you can send voice and video text quickly. Which is not covered in unlimited txt plans, at least to other networks

  • http://www.facebook.com/jonmorales Jon Morales

    I have an Android and I really have no clue why in the hell I would use this over Google Talk? With Google Talk I can respond on PC or Phone. I don’t have to think about it either.

    I don’t get why this is any different than any other IM???

    I also hate the retarded bubbles on either side that iPhone introduced and everyone had to emulate such a horrible idea. I much prefer color differentiation and being able to read messages across the length of my already small screen.

    Can someone please state plainly how is this any different than any other IM???

    • http://twitter.com/MattSTKC Matthew H.

      not everyone uses gmail. I’ve had Google, MSN, Yahoo, and AIM accts to keep track of all the various people who use different IM services. If everyone on every smartphone (iPhone, Android, BBerry) got on kik, then I’d only have one IM service no matter the individual’s email platform.

      IM services have been tied to email platforms since inception. This is the first major unchained IM service. They’ll have a desktop service soon enough. Looking forward to one communication platform.

    • http://twitter.com/Sndper Dave Leonard

      Kik runs in the background and takes up almost 0 CPU. Thus allowing you to be connected all day with almost no impact on your battery life. Try being online with yahoo messenger all day!

    • gleenyc

      well kik works on iphones, ipod touch, android, and BB. there is no native google talk app for the iphone and i dont want all of my google contacts having the ability to message me.

  • http://www.facebook.com/alamnash Jordan M’Nash

    Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy!

  • Asidj

    kik really sucks compare to BBM…but after saying that i think being a little faster would be nice along with knowing if the user is avail or not. Also on my BB if im in vibrate it wouldnt do anything but flash a led saying i have a new message…

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