Re:Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app
by bemmu on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @01:52AM
(#12545736)
Stickers? At least LINE is doing something like $268M in Sticker sales with 218M active users: http://qz.com/704768/line-sold-268-million-worth-of-stickers...
Re:Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app
by Freak_NL on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @07:20AM
(#12547115)
I find it hard to find any explanation for this behaviour that fits except for the rather bleak suspicion that right now all that matters is gaining market share and locking people into your walled garden. Perhaps they are getting some return on investment now by creating ever more detailed advertising profiles on their users, but that doesn't seem sustainable — it strikes me as rather bubblish.
I wonder what the long term vision is. More data harvesting for advertising? Become the de facto platform for services offered through your chat network? The latter reminds of how every company needed a presence in Second Life to engage with customers and leads…
The market is incredibly saturated in the chat space. Google keeps creating new things with new names (which they will eventually kill off) and the rest of the market is just completely saturated. WeChat, WhatsApp, Skype, FaceTime, Messenger, SnapChat, HangOuts; and that's the short list. It's getting out of hand.
The chat model is incredibly difficult to monetize too. None that don't have other vertical product lines have shown an ability to properly monetize in a way to turn a profit. Eventually that will matter, but for now money grows on trees in the Valley so no one cares.
I almost feel like the sort of joke that "we can't just keep selling each other insurance" as a criticism of the of banking sector could easily be rewritten with chat apps and the Valley.