Messaging, What’s the Matter ?
Messaging is like Speaking, Moving, Eating. It’s simple and we have always passed a lot of time doing it. So what’s different? Back in 1835, a simple correspondance between Alfred de Musset & Georges Sand could take weeks. in 2015, Mike and Anna who never met before, match on tinder, chat and get together… Within two hours only. A message is sent, delivered and read in less than a second.
We have always been communicating with each others. It’s just getting faster, better, deeper. And while our smartphones can more or less execute simple tasks through voice commands and deliver a decent speech-to-text experience, messaging has taken over speaking. Simple reasons:
It’s more comfortable. People find it easier to “sext” than to “speax” for instance. You can think (preferably) before you text…
It’s more discreet. People don’t hear what you text. In a crowded environment, everybody can text, not everybody can speak.
It can be both asynchronous or instantaneous. You don’t always answer the phone, but a message is always delivered to the recipient.
It’s visual. You can display pictures, videos but also plug a lot of additional features and services.
Messaging is the primary standard of communication and information sharing before everything else… It has become reliable, mobile, and can be used for all kind of interactions:
One to one (iMessage…)
Groups (Whatsapp…)
Friends (Facebook Messenger…)
Dating (Tinder…)
Colleagues (Slack…)
Services (Magic…)
Anyone (Email…)
So no wonder why people are excited about it. And since Slack has taken off and that operators (Operator, Magic…) can “magically” answer any demands, people tend to get more and more excited like messaging was the new Grail. Also, messaging is a lot easier to explain at dinner parties than bitcoin as a protocol.
Oh Yes, there are infinite possibilities through messaging. Various Technologies and Artificial Intelligence are increasing the scope and messaging has certainly been under-used the last 10 years. But let’s calm down for a minute.
What really matters about the use of messaging as a protocol is that its only goal is to improve the user’s experience, nothing else. How? By:
Allowing a faster access to information.
Providing a unique valuable experience, hopefully thanks to a unique asset or technology (temporary sharing for snapchat…).
Delivering better interactions.
Whatever your app or your service, if you think about using messaging as a core feature, make sure it brings real value to the users by combining a unique asset that allows you to provide better interactions, faster than any other means.