Thursday, July 31, 2014

Hike messenger, a big threat to Whatsapp

Everyone knows Whatsapp is making a killing with the no of users under their umbrella. And as Facebook, it is a social network brand name which is getting famous day by day. But wait... there is a threat. Its named Hike.

For those who don't know what is "Hike"??? .Everyone is familiar with word hike, and love it when it is mentioned with their job pay :)

Hike is a messenger, Hike Messenger to be precise. Which is very active in India( will come to that later on). But Whatsapp rules India as of now.

Then why is Hike a threat to Whatsapp? Lets get some Tech food for our brains. Lets Chow.

hike-threat-whatsapp
Hike tops app store above Whatsapp & Facebook

1. Hike is very focused on its Target market.

    The target market is India as of now, as it has a large mobile customer base. Focusing on a specific segment of the market is a good sign of any key player, It helps the product to mold correctly and improve steadily before going for the big leap. By big leap I mean conquering the world market. Whatsapp isn't doing that as such. Remember the hullah created for not having a small smiley of the Indian flag, and later addition of that small smiley icon almost after a year ( that's almost ignoring the sentiments of a large customer base)

2. Hike has learned from others mistake.

   WeChat tried to create lot of buzz on Indian shores by lots of celebrity endorsements right from high paid Movie stars to Sportsperson but it couldn't bulge Whatsapp. Hike Team realized, its not endorsements but a kick ass product which will seal the deal for them.

3. Hike has better privacy features.

   This is very high on users agenda when they get on online messengers.
Users do care who sees or stalks them, if its their last seen or their profile pictures. Whatsapp was ignoring this suggestion from a long time. It has improved its privacy but not close to what Hike does.
Hike lets you manage privacy at a granular level. You can choose who sees your last seen on every user level eg: Tom sees my last seen but Jack doesn't.



4. Hike is launched across wide range of Platforms.

   This is impressive. It supports Symbian 40 and Symbian 60 phones in today's Android dominated world. Also BlackBerry is taken care of. That's good and gives very confident vibe about the app.
hike-platforms

Platforms supported by Hike.

 

5. Hike sets the right atmosphere for a chat.

Remember setting a universal wallpaper for your whatsapp chats. It was like me storing a pic of me and my Girl and the same pic shows in the background when I am chatting with my Boss. That was a turn off. Hike lets you customize Backgrounds for every contact in your contact list. This was needed.

6. Smileys & more Big fat Smiley's( Stickers).

    Anyone who has ever used a chat app, knows the use of smileys.Then came bigger ones, the emoticons.This smileys were to stay. Whatsapp was lazing around with and still is, with its old set of smileys and no new additions.( there were very few additions...hardly noticeable)

hike-stickers

 

7. You can send some seriously big files.

    No need to open mailbox, this is a serious mailbox hurting feature.For casual file sharing this is a nice feature. songs, pdf , word docs, college project in a zip file. Hike does it all. With a generous limit of 100MB per file. Now that's a strong feature for a chat app.

 

8. The 'R' Read notifications.

   Whatsapp had 2 notifications. one Tick for MSG delivered to whatsapp server, 2 for received by end user. But Hike goes the extra mile to mark a R to say the MSG has been read by the end user. That is great. It also goes out of its way to give Read notifications of all group members of a group who has read your MSG. That spoiling us. :)

hike-read-notification

 

9. You can password protect a particular chat.

   Ever wondered when some elder person handles your mobile, and you are worried about your chats or why didn't you password protect the whole app( lot of people do the latter part). Hike does that with an in house feature. Password for your secret chats.

 

10. Offline chat via SMS. 

  This is a feature which will help continue the chat experience when there is no Internet availability. Hike will convert your hike MSG to sms and deliver it to your offline recipient and vice-versa.

This is a huge list with the latter points about key features of Hike which Whatsapp lacks or are not even keen to work on.
Hike shows that they are trying every bit to make a difference & guys at Whatsapp or even FB, you need to watch this one.
Hike is taking the right as well as concrete steps.
Its surely a Threat to its competition.

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