The fall and rise and rise of chat networks

86 点作者 dineshp2超过 9 年前

12 条评论

CydeWeys超过 9 年前

Did it feel very weird to anyone else that some of the most important chat protocols ever to have existed were not even mentioned once in the article, in favor of various startup apps that many people have never even heard of?Any history of chat networks needs to include BBSes, IRC, ICQ, and Google Talk (now Hangouts).

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jerf超过 9 年前

Chat sure has come a long way, yes indeed. Why, once it was a console app, which all look the same, then it made the huge transition to GUI apps, which once you look past rounded corners and profession emoticons, essentially all look the same and have nearly the same features. And in the future, we are sure to witness a variety of additional chat networks with pretty much the same features.Yes, what a journey it has taken... from... console app to GUI app. What a journey indeed.

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gsibble超过 9 年前

I find it very odd how chat apps (AIM, MSN, etc.) died and gave rise to.....chat apps (WhatsApp, WeChat, FBM). I'm still not sure what caused the mass migration.

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livatlantis超过 9 年前

Okay, I have to ask: it's been years since I came across someone else who'd heard of (nevermind used) Odigo[1]. Anyone remember that?It was one of the most beautiful applications I'd used, one that mixed magical fantasy with something purely functional. It got affective design a decade before the industry started started getting interested in it gave it a name. If I remember correctly, it even had a beautiful on-boarding experience with lush imagery and sound effects. As a kid, I got to meet people from all around the world, imagined their lives (you created an avatar but everything else was just information you chose to disclose, or not) -- it was just fantastic.And then it vanished.Anyone?1: Some images to give you an idea of what it was like: <a href="https://duckduckgo.com/?q=odigo+messenger&ia=images&iax=1" rel="nofollow">https://duckduckgo.com/?q=odigo+messenger&ia=images&iax=1</a>

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firasd超过 9 年前

I was just thinking about this. In 2010 (when many people were building GroupOn clones) I don't think people thinking about tech really saw this coming: that chat apps would not just be successful at such large scale but also subsume VOIP, ecommerce... Otherwise large companies would have valued and focused on their older chat apps like BlackBerry Messenger, MSN Messenger, AIM. Even actively used apps like Google Hangouts and Skype didn't really go aggressively after the user base now held by WhatsApp, WeChat, Facebook Messenger.

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mrdrozdov超过 9 年前

Thought that it'd be interesting to compare the usage numbers of a few chat networks, since this article missed a few:IRC - 1 million users around "peak" in 2003 (I don't actually know if this was the peak, but couldn't find numbers prior to 2003) (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat</a>)<pre><code> RC usage has been declining since 2003, losing 60% of its users (from 1 million to about 400,000 in 2014) and half of its channels (from half a million in 2003). </code></pre> Slack - 1 million users as of last year (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slack_(software)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slack_(software)</a>)<pre><code> In 2015, Slack passed more than a million daily active users. </code></pre> Kik - 240 million users as of last year (<a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/02/the-fall-and-rise-and-rise-and-rise-of-chat-networks/" rel="nofollow">http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/02/the-fall-and-rise-an...</a>)<pre><code> With an updated figure of 240 million users... </code></pre> WeChat - 570 million users as of last year (<a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/02/the-fall-and-rise-and-rise-and-rise-of-chat-networks/" rel="nofollow">http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/02/the-fall-and-rise-an...</a>)<pre><code> As of September 2015 there are now more than 570 million people on WeChat’s network...</code></pre>

oxplot超过 9 年前

Ah, nostalgia. I used MSN Messenger religiously until I started college at which point had to switch to Linux (thank goodness). Lots of fond memories. At some point I figured that since MSN lists the online "buddies" in unicode order, putting a space at the start of one's display name puts them at the top of everyone's list!Also, it's interesting to see how people corrected their typos back in 80s, "Er, " instead of "*". I like the former better actually.

ritonlajoie超过 9 年前

My first contact with internet was Microsoft Chat. I didn't know, at the time, it was an IRC client. But I was like 13, and at this time it was great fun see those comics take life on the screen and react accordingly to keywords !Screenshot : <a href="http://www.mermeliz.com/files/summary/comic.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://www.mermeliz.com/files/summary/comic.jpg</a>

raddad超过 9 年前

Some stats on chats <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_messaging" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_messaging</a>Have to scroll down about 4/5 of the way.

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MichaelBurge超过 9 年前

Most people I know use Skype for the same purpose that I used MSN Messenger for back in 2000. I think I pay $6 a month for a telephone number through Skype.The idea of valuing a cell phone chat app at billions of dollars seems silly, because if the cell phone companies made text messages free there would be no reason for the chat apps to exist.

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niftich超过 9 年前

I got curious and researched the history of IM, the decline of the old networks, and the rise of the new.Anecdotally, I got into college (in the US) right as Facebook and Gmail opened up to everyone, and my peer group created a "professional presence" of Facebook and Gmail for our college lives, slowly leaving our myspace/AIM/WLM lives with the crazy hair and skinny jeans behind. My experience was not unique; this phenomenon has been researched by others [1][2][3][4]. Soon, Facebook and Google introduced chat, and nearly everyone I wanted to talk to was on one or both of those networks.During my research, I was surprised to learn that AIM was in fact present at the iOS appstore's launch, but I suppose there wasn't much overlap between a typical AIM user and a typical iOS user at the time.I also found an infographic from 2014 that charts some of these dates and compares the active user counts of the IM networks over the years [5].Here's a chronological timeline of selected milestones in the IM/social space:2005-09 - Meebo launches offering web access to AIM, WLM, Yahoo2006-02-07 - Google Talk integration inside Gmail goes live2006-03 - Nielsen/Netratings survey for active users: AIM 53M, WLM 27M, Yahoo 22M2006-07-12 - seamless interop starts between Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger2006-09 - Facebook opens up to everyone (not just colleges)2007-07-07 - Gmail opens up to everyone (not just invite-only)2007-05-09 - Windows Live Messenger released for Xbox 360 (with dashboard update)2007-12-06 - Google Talk gets limited AIM interop2008-04 - Facebook chat goes live2008-04-19 - Facebook overtakes Myspace in Alexa ranking2008-07-11 - iOS App Store launches, AIM for iOS released2008-08-26 - Facebook hits 100 million active users2008-09-23 - Android 1.0 launches2008-11-11 - Google Talk introduces voice and video calling2008-12-22 - Meebo integrates with Facebook chat and Myspace IM2009-03-31 - Skype released for iOS, Skype network has 42 million active users2009-04-08 - Facebook hits 200 million active users2009-06 - iOS gets push notifications2009-09-15 - Facebook hits 300 million active users2009-11 - WhatsApp released for iOS2010-01 - WhatsApp released for BlackBerry2010-02-05 - Facebook hits 400 million active users2010-05 - WhatsApp released for Symbian2010-05-20 - Android gets push notifications2010-06-21 - FaceTime released with iOS 42010-06-21 - Windows Live Messenger released for iOS2010-07-21 - Facebook hits 500 million active users2010-08 - WhatsApp released for Android2010-09-30 - Windows Live Messenger starts interop with Facebook Chat2010-10 - Kik released2010-12-02 - Viber released for iOS2011-01-05 - Facebook hits 600 million active users2011-01 - WeChat released2011-01 - Skype for iOS introduces video calling2011-04 - Facebook introduces voice calling2011-05 - Viber released for Android2011-05-30 - Facebook hits 700 million active users2011-06 - LINE released2011-07 - Facebook introduces video calling2011-07 - Snapchat released for iOS2011-09-22 - Facebook hits 800 million active users2011-10-12 - iMessage released with iOS 52011-10-13 - Microsoft finishes acquiring Skype2012-04-24 - Facebook hits 900 million active users2012-07-11 - Meebo is acquired by Google and shut down2012-10-29 - Snapchat released for AndroidWhile it's tempting to accuse AIM, MSN, and Yahoo for being incompetent and not catching up to the "mobile era", they in fact did pursue this market as much as they were able. In truth, early iOS and Android were inferior platforms for a chat app. Push notifications were absent, data rates were expensive, and the average smartphone user at this time was not very likely to use those networks anyway.Based on this info, I reason that it was truly Facebook that killed incumbent IM networks, at least in the US. Between the release of the iOS App Store and the introduction of push notifications for Android, Facebook grew by more than 300 million active users. This coincided with exodus of users from Myspace to Facebook; many of those users likely having used AIM, MSN, or Yahoo messenger in the past, now found themselves in a much larger network that also offered chat. Since Facebook largely subsumed everyone a person knew in real life, these users only had to go back to the old IM networks to chat with people they didn't know in real life, setting the stage for the weakening of connections and these networks' decline.By 2010, Facebook, or at least awareness of it, was mainstream. At the end of 2008, the Webster's New World Dictionary named "overshare" as the word of the year [6], while in 2009, the New Oxford American Dictionary chose "unfriend" [7]. For people new to the IM landscape, the old networks were dying and full of "old people" now in their 20s and 30s, so new networks surfacing around this time were appealing. This contributed to the grown of Kik and Snapchat, while people for cheaper alternatives to texting and voice calls drove the adoption of Viber, WhatsApp, and Skype. iMessage went live in late 2011, offering with FaceTime a built-in rich chat on iOS, successfully capturing an audience that would've surely gotten a third-party app otherwise. Later, Hangouts on Android emulated this strategy.Skype is a remarkable special case. Microsoft managed to squander the popularity of MSN/WLM with its confusing product strategy, then it acquired a VOIP product that targeted a different customer base. Not content with running the two products separately, they deprecated WLM and encouraged everyone to migrate to Skype, which didn't happen. Later, they leveraged Skype as the built-in IM for their OS, while still committed to keeping it cross-platform. It could very well be a trojan-horse into the Microsoft ecosystem, but it's essentially entirely separate, completely unlike Google Hangouts.So now we're living in a time when smartphones come with IM out of the box, nearly every social network is gaining IM functionality (Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.), and the new wave of circa-2011 chat apps are diversifying into social networks (Snapchat) or platforms themselves (Kik, Viber, WeChat, LINE). You actively use more than product capable of IM, but rarely by choice and mostly by acclimation. Ironically, this situation benefits platforms the more closed they are, an intuition that's made clear by complete decline of interoperability between platforms in the past. IM is ubiquitious, leaving old "IM only" networks owned by corporations who can't figure out what they're doing (AOL, Yahoo) utterly irrelevant.Sources:[1] 2012 <a href="http://socialtext.dukejournals.org/content/30/2_111/99.full.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://socialtext.dukejournals.org/content/30/2_111/99.full....</a>[2] 2011-06-22 <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/magazine/content/11_27/b4235053917570.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/magazine/content/11_27/b42350539...</a>[3] 2007-07-11 <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/19717700/" rel="nofollow">http://www.nbcnews.com/id/19717700/</a>[4] 2009-03-16 <a href="http://www.newsfactor.com/news/Facebook-Traffic-More-Than-Doubles/story.xhtml?story_id=10000BCLMR0W&full_skip=1" rel="nofollow">http://www.newsfactor.com/news/Facebook-Traffic-More-Than-Do...</a>[5] 2014-10-22 <a href="http://www.whoishostingthis.com/blog/2014/10/22/instant-messengers/" rel="nofollow">http://www.whoishostingthis.com/blog/2014/10/22/instant-mess...</a>[6] 2008-12-01 <a href="https://wordoftheyear.wordpress.com/tag/websters-new-world/" rel="nofollow">https://wordoftheyear.wordpress.com/tag/websters-new-world/</a>[7] 2009-11-16 <a href="http://blog.oup.com/2009/11/unfriend/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.oup.com/2009/11/unfriend/</a>

jsilence超过 9 年前

Not a single word about lacking interoperability and encryption? What a crappy article.