The future of messaging

Yesterday I was excited and humbled to hear that Forbes had picked huggg as a ‘Start up to watch in 2019’. As well as recognising huggg’s potential, I think this recognition also shows that the messaging industry as a whole is ‘one-to-watch in 2019’.

I predict that this year we will see a step-up change in messaging; from the features it offers, to the uses in business, the competitive landscape and the technologies involved.

I presented my predictions on the future of messaging at a Glug Bristol event at the end of last year, and now I'd like to share them with you.

The History of Messaging

To understand why messaging is increasingly important, it helps to know where it’s come from. So to save you the leg work, you can read my thoughts on the ‘evolution of messaging,’ which looks at the history of messaging, how popular messaging is, what makes messaging so important and how messaging has overtaken social.

My predictions for messaging

With 100 billion messages sent worldwide everyday, it is clear that messaging is an important and evolving technology. Over the next year or so, we can expect to see the adoption of messaging in businesses grow, which will increase competition for providers, chatbots, sentiment analysis and even skilled copy writers! The new messaging features we can expect to see will help monetise messaging and work towards narrowing the emotion gap.

1) The new frontier for business interactions

Increased adoption

Unsurprisingly, given the popularity of messaging in our everyday lives, 89% of consumers would like to communicate with businesses through messaging. However, only 48% of businesses are equipped to connect with customers through messaging, as most businesses continue to reach people over phone and email. This creates a huge opportunity for innovative businesses.

Source: Twilio

Competition in providers

Business messaging will be big business! Competition will come from Intercom, Facebook’s messenger business, WhatsApp for business and eko. Chat platforms such as Intercom that enable messaging on websites, (including huggg’s chat) will increase in importance and number. WhatsApp has announced its first monetization option is going to be in WhatsApp for business, where it will charge businesses for replying to customer queries in WhatsApp.

More relaxed language & emoji

Messages are more interactive than traditional comms, and therefore informal language has more of a place in this channel. Businesses need to start sounding like real people again! We may see that the skilled copy writers will become more influential to company branding, than the designers.

Smart chatbots

Businesses with large numbers of customers and enquiries will need to increase their use of chatbox, as they will be inundated with messages.

Sentiment analysis & other AI

7% of communication is done through words, the rest is lost. Technology in chatbots will need to do what humans do naturally, and recognize sad, angry and happy emotions.

2) Competition in providers

Google’s RCS system

The Android platform powers 80% of the world’s smartphones, but currently it doesn’t have a single common messaging platform like iMessage. So, Google is hitting back. It is building RCS – Rich Communication Services – which will be native in all Android phones. It will be homogenous across all phones so it has the potential to be better than all the current messaging platforms. Google just need to get all carriers on board and they’re only part way through that. RCS is a massive structural threat to the messaging world.

WeChat could enter the West

Whether this will happen or not, I don’t know, but it is probably Facebook’s biggest fear. It is ahead of the curve in terms of technological features, integrations and UX, so it could threaten Facebook’s global dominance.

App stores disrupt OS

The iPhone enables developers to deploy apps on to smartphones. Now some messaging apps have their own app stores, which could disrupt the app store itself. One example of this, is Apple’s own iMessage, which has a number of apps available. huggg is an example of an app available on iMessage. If you haven’t tried sending hugggs on iMessage yet – it’s worth trying. It’s simple and fast, and therefore my favourite way to send hugggs.

Non-data revenue

In the same way that WhatsApp is monetising, we will increasingly see messaging platforms find new ways to grow revenue other than just selling advertising and user data. Some will look to monetise by increasing competition against intercom. huggg is another example of an app monetising messaging. Our users buy treats and rewards, such as coffee, cakes and cinema tickets, which they then message to friends, family and colleagues to redeem at one of our partner locations.

3) More features

As for the snazzy new features we can expect? Look out for introductions and improvements in:

• Payments, wallets, crypto
• More commerce in messaging. Eg huggg
• Location sharing
• Chatbot services
• General business interactions
• Messages will become shoppable
• AI will be more predictive.

4) The emotion gap

Only 7% of communication is done through words. So, there is still an emotion gap that hasn’t been solved in messaging. Messaging will evolve to address this need:

avatars and augmented reality

One of most successful acquisitions in messaging history was Snapchat’s acquisition of Bitmoji. Snapchat paid around $100million, but it has been its biggest money spinner, as you can now put your own Avatar image in snapchat.

3D touch

Allows users to seemingly touch using haptics.

Online to offline interaction

There is a general backlash against technology encouraging more screen time and more of a movement towards using technology to create real world interactions. Just as huggg facilitates a user trying out new independent coffee shops nearby or a trip to the cinema (OK it’s another screen but it can be sociable!).

huggg plans to disrupt the messaging industry

At huggg we plan to be part of next wave of messaging evolution and disrupt the 250+ billion dollar messaging industry by adding real products into everyday communications. With huggg, you can now attach a coffee, cake or cinema ticket to a message, which means you just paid for your employee, customer or friend to walk next door and enjoy the real thing.

Download the huggg app now and send 5 of your friends or colleagues a coffee, cake or croissant emoji, on us!