Kik let us know that they have updated their cross platform messaging app for BlackBerry with some new features including:
- Improved the UI
- Made it even easier to invite others to join Kik
- Improved reliability
- Reduced battery usage
They have also completed the “Cross Platform” promise by bringing their iPhone messaging app out of beta. The app is going free for both the iPhone and BlackBerry at www.kik.com/s until June 22nd after which my guess is they will start charging for it. Should be interesting to see if there really is a market for a cross platform messenger beyond the regular IM clients like Google Talk. Kik is also promising to release Android and iPod Touch clients soon.
You can check out a video of Kik in action below or read more about it at www.kik.com
FOSSroxTHX Not Registered
Posted: June 16, 2010 at 9:26 PM EST
I get the feeling this app is free as in heroin. It’s free to get an installed user base then introduce some new features or a new platform then it becomes rather non-free and the free version stops working… Then the whole thing dies. Wake me if I turn out to be wrong.
I_heart_NYC Not Registered
Posted: November 2, 2010 at 8:28 PM EST
Kik has a serious privacy flaw. Kik ties in a person’s username with their email address. Kik then sorts through the person’s addressbook to find potential friends. This is considered a major privacy issue because a user may not want someone that is in their addressbook to know they have a Kik account–but they will because if they have your email address then they also have your Kik username without authorization or adding that person to your friends list. I understand the usefulness of finding other Kik users quite easily but there should be an ability to turn off the feature that allows Kik to search for other Kik users in your addressbook and SPAMMING them with a “you may know” message.
There’s a reason why Blackberry Messenger allows its users to accept/reject another user before they are able to message them, and that it doesn’t just sift through the user’s address book looking for other potential BBM users.