The first time I heard about WhatsApp, I couldn’t help but ask, “so, what’s the point? Why don’t you just text me?” I didn’t get it. I couldn’t see how it would improve my life, so to be perfectly honest, I didn’t bother downloading it.
That was 8 years ago.
Now, I (and 2.5 billion people around the world) can’t imagine living without messenger apps. Every day I use WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger with my friends and family, alongside Slack and Telegram within my business. Having lived and traveled abroad for years, they’ve become the best way to stay in touch with people all over the world, and I’d go as far as to say they’ve improved the productivity and team spirit in our workplace as well.
In just a few years, messenger apps have reached every corner of the globe, and revolutionized the way that we communicate with each other. The expansion has reached the point that almost half of humanity will be using them within the next couple of years, with each person spending an average of 200 minutes a week tapping out messages or hunting for emojis.
But truth be told, this mass adoption of the new technology is just the beginning. We’ve seen a huge amount of consolidation already in this maturing goliath of an industry, but there’s a lot more to come. The next evolutionary stage will see heightened levels of both innovation and integration that take messenger apps beyond simply a platform for chatting with friends and colleagues, and into every space where communication has a part to play.
Messenger apps will no longer simply act as a blunt tool for managing your relationships with friends and family, but a swiss army knife for managing almost every social interaction imaginable.
That’s not to say that every app will try to be a one-stop shop like WeChat is for its one billion Chinese users, nor do they need to be. Of course, it’s wonderful to be able to send money, split a bill, order a pizza, broadcast a location, video chat, play games, or even use augmented reality all within the same app, but these services needn’t be proprietary, they are just as likely to happen off, or indeed across, platform.
Messenger apps are constantly pushing the envelope by partnering with other popular services to enhance their ecosystem. As the CEO of a tech company, I’ve been particularly impressed by the recent integrations of Asana and Google Drive into Slack, so teams can manage their to-do lists, and share progress on documents, all without jumping back and forth between applications.
Telegram has been just as impressive. The new kid on the block already has over 100 million users, and is now creating a dedicated blockchain platform for third parties to develop specialized dapps, that promise to change the way we interact with one another; all based on an entirely new form of network.
But where things get really exciting for me, is in the realm of travel and tourism, where my company KeyoCoin is currently developing a number of technologies aimed at helping people get the most out of their travel experiences.
I’m not talking about allowing hotel guests to request services with emojis. Need an extra pillow? 💤 need a laundry pickup? 👗 No I’m referring to leaps forward in connectivity and communication, regardless of where you are in the world, or whether you have roaming charges turned on or off.
One feature we’ve been developing as part of our digital concierge service KeyoPass, is a live messenger app with inbuilt live translation. By offering real-time, natural, hyper-local language translations, it’s designed to save travelers from the awkward and often embarassing game of charades when looking for the bathroom or asking for a wake up call in a foreign country.
So when, upon arriving at the airport, you’re bombarded by transport options, you don’t have to run the gauntlet of taxi firms, hoping that you’re not being ripped off. It’s simply a matter of messaging your digital concierge in your own language, and having them either give you advice, or better yet - book you a reasonable ride, all within the same app.
This is the sort of situation where chatbots, like the one Facebook is integrating to its own platform, really come into their own. Basic or routine questions can be automated, so your hotel or travel provider need spend less time managing these conversations directly, and travellers can still sit back and enjoy the ride, safe in the knowledge that their host has helped them reach their destination.
It won’t be long now until we’re using messenger apps to manage our travel budgets, tip tour guides, ask for local recommendations, pay for that poolside cocktail, tell the restaurant you’re running late, or simply update your social feeds with those jealousy inducing travel snaps.
But while much of this is already possible, it’s going to take a few years until these different platforms are communicating with one another seamlessly, in the way that Google Maps can tell you how much an Uber will cost without having to leave the app. This is important. People don’t want to download five different apps when arriving in a country, only to delete them a week later, nor do they want to have to fiddle around copy/pasting addresses and phone numbers when jumping between apps.
If they’re really going to work seamlessly, and create happy, friction free, travel experiences, all these moving parts need to work together, in harmony, exactly where they’re needed most.
Over at KeyoCoin we’ve already started this journey, creating apps and blockchain-based Dapps to help drive integration and innovation in the travel and technology space. We’re combining on-the-fly language translation with messenger services to solve global language barriers while traveling, but also doing so much more to make travel more rewarding.
Head over KeyoCoin, or join us on Telegram, to find out how we are shaking up the travel experience, and striving to put travelers on the perfect trip.
