The first email I ever received was a letter from outer space. My father sent it from Israel, probably in 1987; someone else had to print it out and deliver it to my mother. But it was special because it came from outer space. The message itself was an update on his trip with a paragraph devoted to explaining the new technology. I remembered wondering if I’d ever get another email.
Nearly three decades later, I find myself wondering again if the email I just received will be my last…
Facebook is creating a new web. With one single King. We might want a “United Federation of Planets” instead.
The basic idea goes: Everyone uses Chat-Messengers. It is the dominant medium today.
The money bet goes: “(Chat) Conversation” is a great new way for businesses to interact with customers in a million ways. Creating a great platform and — if used dominantly — a new web over time.
Many great ideas from startups have been seen, messengers added platforms (Kik, Telegram, Slack, Skype, WeChat) & one player tries to own it all: Facebook…
How do you tell a bad bot from a good bot?
Last week, at its F8 developer conference, Facebook revealed the first wave of Bots for Messenger. These automated, interactive programs respond to natural language and allow users to shop, order food, read the news and get personalized weather forecasts — all without leaving the Messenger app.
Separately, messaging app Kik also revealed its bot store, while Slack and Telegram have been experimenting with bots for some time. Microsoft also made a big push for bots at its Build 2016 conference, introducing developer tools for creating bots for Skype and other Microsoft services…
Well, we knew it was coming, but according to a new report from Chinese data tracker Quest Mobile, it’s now official: Tencent’s WeChat broke the 700 million monthly active user (MAU) barrier in March.
WeChat has been China’s social app of choice for years now, of course, but Quest Mobile’s report – which is based on data from both Android and iOS devices in March – shows just how far Tencent is ahead of the competition when it comes to user base…
Over the course of the last weeks and months you couldn’t escape news and stories about messaging platforms going after B2C use cases à la “order me some food”, “book me a hotel room” or “I need a ride downtown in 30 minutes”.
Pioneered and taken to huge success in Asia by platforms like Weixin/WeChat, LINE and Kakao, especially Facebook with its two behemoth platforms Messenger and WhatsApp is taking decisive actions to bring businesses and consumers together on their platforms. Kik is even faster, having just launched such a botstore for brands. In their launch line-up are 18 well-known brands such as Sephora, H&M or The Weather Channel. And with these moves, communications platforms will tap into significant revenue streams in the form of rev shares and commissions for being the facilitator between businesses and consumers in everyday Transactions.
Continue reading “AI is absolutely essential for the Messaging Platform Business Model to take over the World (of B2C) (André Cramer)”
FOR MOST OF the past six weeks, the biggest story out of Silicon Valley was Apple’s battle with the FBI over a federal order to unlock the iPhone of a mass shooter. The company’s refusal touched off a searing debate over privacy and security in the digital age. But this morning, at a small office in Mountain View, California, three guys made the scope of that enormous debate look kinda small…
Source: Forget Apple vs. the FBI: WhatsApp Just Switched on Encryption for a Billion People | WIRED
35,000 visitors from all over the world are yet another milestone in the ongoing rise of SXSW as one of the key events of the tech industry. A must-visit conference that this time even the president attended. In his speech at Austin’s The Long Center for the Performing Arts he made an impassioned and partisan plea to technology professionals and tech-minded citizens to apply their ideas and talents toward solving some of the country’s biggest challenges and philosophical divides.
But there was much more to SXSW 2016. Continue reading “My SXSW 2016 key take-aways (André Cramer)”
If Facebook announces the “Messenger Bot Store” at F8, as many predict, it would be arguably the most consequential event for the tech industry since Apple announced the App Store and iPhone SDK in March 2008.
Even Steve Jobs could not have foreseen the impact of what he described as “a new application that lets users browse, search, purchase and download third party applications directly onto their iPhone”…
Source: Facebook’s Messenger Bot Store could be the most important launch since the App Store | TechCrunch
There’s a surge of excitement around messaging as a new platform and the idea of ‘Conversational Commerce’. There are a number of great pieces and podcasts that have been published documenting and forecasting the new ways we will see messaging used in 2016. I recommend reading them all. What I would like to add to the conversation is the why, how, and who will get us there. This is my snapshot of why messaging is so interesting and a map to help understand the stack. There is a lot to cover, so this is broken up into three sections…
ANDRÉ CRAMER 
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