Tag: messaging
Sasai rolling out new “Moments” feature
Sasai’s latest update brings with it a new feature dubbed “Moments”. Moments has it’s own tab within the application and the best way I can describe it is as a social hub where users can upload posts, pictures, videos and audio notes. In the press material shared with us by Cassava representatives, the vision within […]
UK, US & Other Governments Considering WhatsApp Backdoors To Combat Terrorism
Encryption has been a pretty big deal over the past few years and messaging services that launch without it, might as well forget making a global push. Unfortunately, encryption has also meant multiple government’s counter-terrorism efforts are stifled and therein lies the problem. Recently, government officials from the UK, US, New Zealand, Canada and Australia […]
Cassava (Econet) Launching Sasai, A Chat And Payments App Seeking To Challenge WhatsApp Dominance In Africa
Cassava Fintech International, the Econet Global owned company is launching a chat app targeted at the African continent next week. We first talked about the app, Sasai several weeks ago when Cassava let it slip on their website. Sasai will of course seek to challenge or perhaps dislodge WhatsApp, the Facebook owned chat app that […]
Users Training WeChat’s Image Recognition System Without Knowing
Some research published has brought to light the fact that WeChat users are unknowingly contributing to a database of blacklisted images as part of Chinese efforts to censor the internet. Due to the fact that Chinese companies have to monitor content on their platforms to avoid getting in the government’s bad books, once you consider […]
Trump Administration Wants To Do Away With End-To-End Encryption
Donald Trump isn’t a stranger to controversy and in keeping with that fashion it’s been reported that senior officials in his administration would rather do away with end-to-end encryption if they had their way. End-to-end encryption is a feature that ensures that your chats in popular messaging apps like WhatsApp, Telegram and iMessage can’t be […]
Cassava Smartech Working On Messaging Platform Similar To WeChat?
If a service listing on the Cassava Smartech website is anything to go by, it seems the local tech company is working on a social payment chat application. Something similar to WeChat. The social payments webpage doesn’t state the name of the product but it does make clear it’s a chat application as the page […]
Ads Coming To WhatsApp Statuses In 2020
When Facebook bought WhatsApp for 19 billion back in 2014 a lot of people were baffled as to why Facebook would spend so much money on an app that had no business model. Though WhatsApp didn’t have a clear business model, they had a bucket load of users and it seems like Facebook might reap […]
WhatsApp almost half of all mobile data traffic in Zimbabwe
Last year, Techzim wrote an article titled “WhatsApp IS the internet in Zimbabwe, accounts for 34% of mobile internet traffic“. It was after the local telecoms regulator in the country, POTRAZ, had provided statistics showing the apps dominance. That dominance is only increasing. This week POTRAZ released some new numbers that show that WhatsApp now […]
WhatsApp to enable payments service
That WhatsApp was working on business features to be launched in the future has been clear for a while now. People just didn’t know when. That has just changed. Facebook recently advertised the job, Digital Transactions Lead in India, and as one of the job responsibilities, the advert says the person will work cross-functionally with other teams supporting […]
The WhatsApp news feed is more relevant & engaging than the Facebook one
Recently, I realised I don’t use Facebook that much anymore. I use Messenger everyday yes, but the main Facebook, the newsfeed, I just find too noisy and full of content that’s not helpful to me. Of course this noise is a result I caused myself by careless adding and accepting friends that are not friends and ‘liking’ pages with […]
WeChat introduces a VoIP service as standalone app
Messaging is pretty much in WhatsApp’s hands now, Mxit COO is also acknowledging it, and 600 million is just the start. So what else is there to do, are there any chances this can be taken to the next level? Maybe with VoIP. Although VoIP (voice over IP) is not new, it seemed most top […]
Ghanaian mobile messaging startup, Saya, acquired by US company
You probably remember Saya Mobile, as one of the few African founded startups that have made it to TechCrunch Disrupt. Yesterday the Ghanaian startup just added one more unique achievement; they got acquired. By US based company called Kirusa which provides voice messaging and social media mobile apps in emerging markets. The announcement was made by Kirusa on its […]
Skype ceasing support for older Android devices, permanently
With technology developing faster than ever, you kind of expect older technologies to wane out into the abyss, making way for newer, better technologies. Skype is stepping it up by ceasing support for older devices running Android 2.2 (Froyo, short for frozen yoghurt) and below. The OS in question dates back to May 2010 when […]
WeChat and Telegram were supposed to replace WhatsApp. What happened?
With 100 million users in its bag, a Chinese messaging app called Weixen decided to change its name to WeChat. A globally recognisable English name, an already globally recognisable look and feel, and a globally popular footballer as brand ambassador were going to do it. Not only was WeChat a WhatsApp, it was more. Much much more! Ads went […]
The decline of Mxit: App loses 25% users in South Africa
I have never really been a user of Mxit. But I have always known that to be more about my age than Mxit’s actual usefulness. School & college going users of the app have clearly had (or now it appears it’s ‘used to have’ ) good use for it for some time. Still, I used to encounter the Mxit […]
WeChat is now a mobile money transfer app as well, but in China only for now
WeChat is many things already. So much more than WhatsApp, the app it started as a clone off. It’s so much more this anti-WhatsApp strength has actually been cited as a biggest weakness. But that’s not stopping the Chinese based messaging startup from becoming even more. The latest is that Chinese users of the app can now use it […]
Now we’re chatting: Econet introduces WhatsApp bundles!
Apart from the free dumb phone, there’s one other thing that Econet did these past several months that really impressed me; the Facebook Bundles. But you and I know Facebook is only but half of our social life on the internet. WhatsApp fills the other half. Ok, there’s Twitter, Google Hangouts, WeChat, Pinterest and the […]
Is WhatsApp making a big emerging market mistake with the no frills strategy?
You may have heard over last week that WhatsApp now has about 430 Million active users. Active, not just registered. But that wasn’t the big announcement they made. The more significant statement, a strategy one, was that their founding belief in a no-ads, and no frills – basically a pure messaging platform – ecosystem remains […]
Now with games added, is WeChat getting more interesting or just bloated?
If you have been using WeChat lately, you probably noticed that the social messaging platform has added games. For some regions and countries at least. If you are in Zimbabwe for example you will notice there are at least 3 games now: one galactica kind of game called Pencil Pilot (which i really liked), 2Day’s […]
Telecel introduces a too-many SMSs promo to encourage people to text more
One day in the future, that we ever paid 9 cents to send 160 characters of SMS text will just be a total joke. SMS needs to die. Has needed to for a while now but refuses to yield somehow. Thanks to WhatsApp, WeChat, Facebook, BBM and other such internet apps though, millions of people […]
Press release: biNu receives United Nations Innovation Award
biNu, the mobile app platform that brings a high speed, data-lite iPhone-like experience to low-end smartphones and feature phones, was today recognized by the United Nations for its innovation. biNu received the United Nations MY World Innovation Award, presented at the UN General Assembly today, for it’s work in bringing fast, affordable mobile internet services […]
Samsung says BBM will be on Galaxy devices in Africa ‘soon’
Yesterday, the news of BBM coming soon to your Android device came from a unlikely source, well likely actually for the marketing machine that Samsung is.
WhatsApp hits new usage record: 27 billion messages a day!
Messaging app company, WhatsApp Inc, announced yesterday that its globally popular app now processes an impressive 27 billion messages a day! The announcement was made on twitter by the company’s official account:
Android & iPhone users: BBM to come to a device near you
Apparently BlackBerry is just discovering now that if they could have looked beyond just inside their ecosystem 1for the growth of its much loved BlackBerry Messenger, they could have made it to the top messaging position WhatsApp occupies today.
BiNu hires former ForgetMeNot Africa CEO to grow biNu in Africa
BiNu, the smartphone in the cloud company has hired former ForgetMeNot Africa CEO, Jeremy George, to help grow biNu users and usage in Africa. We met with George last week in Harare and he discussed their strategy on the continent going forward, the sum of which is to grow content and users.
Someone should make a platform independent message search tool
I’m as excited about the potential of Facebook’s Graph Search as I’m sure most people are, so I’ve signed up and await my turn in the queue. And like most people, even with its blatant bias, I hoped Google’s Search plus your World would result in better overall search results.
biNu adds EcoCash to its credits payment options
In a story title “More problems for regular SMS: biNu credits now available locally” that we posted here a few weeks ago, we expressed our delight that biNu credits were now available locally. The Australian based company (which now has representatives locally) had just announced that its 200,000 Zimbabwean users could now buy its platform’s currency at Easi and YoTime
More problems for regular SMS: biNu credits now available locally
SMS as we know it today, or rather as mobile network operators abuse it today, needs to go away. It’s so damn expensive. US 9 cents just to send 140 characters is undoubtedly the most costly means to communicate electronically today. And thankfully it is going away.
Are you using WhatsApp to communicate with customers
Once only used as a person to person (well, small groups as well), communication tool, WhatsApp is clearly becoming more. We’ve heard from a number of companies locally that they are adding WhatsApp to their options of communication with customers. It’s an interesting business use of the tool which we’re sure WhatsApp never planned or predicted.
Viber comes to Nokia S40, Symbian & Samsung Bada (update)
Viber, the mobile communications platform offering free voip calls, text and photo messages, announced that it has surpassed the 100 million users milestone across the multiple phone platforms that it supports. Additionally, the company unveiled that it is simultaneously releasing three new messaging versions of its application for popular phone platforms: Nokia’s Series 40 feature […]