I text therefore I.M.
September 11, 2006 | 12:00am
Instant Messaging (IM) is a popular Internet-based communications service that lets people chat privately, in real-time. It is the PC-based counterpart of text messaging, first entering the Internet scene in 1996. It is different from email, where one doesn’t really know if a person is online to instantly read his message. All communication is just like text.
"While email is probably the No. 1 reason people go online, IM’ing is something that people do all the time to chat online, and now to text mobile buddies," says Dennis Mendiola, chief executive officer of Chikka, the largest instant messaging community in the country today.
According to Mendiola, the IM market used to be only a function of Internet penetration in the Philippines (two million users for about a three percent penetration in 2000). Indeed, to those who have Internet access, Instant Messaging would be right up there with email as popular applications.
Today, Internet penetration in the Philippines is up to nine percent (or about eight million users). And Chikka Text Messenger, from zero subscribers in 2001 has over 30 million registered users including mobile subscribers from all major Philippine operators.
"What Chikka has really done is to make this I.M. Market a function of mobile penetration as well. Thus, it has enabled great numbers of mobile subscribers, even if they hold legacy and plain SMS-enabled mobiles, to become a part of an IM community," said Mendiola.
The beauty of it is that mobile users soon also discovered that by logging on to Chikka using their mobile phone number, they can enjoy FREE instant messaging from a PC as well, and then continue to receive messages on their mobiles once they went online. Chikka IM on a PC becomes a straight extension of their mobile phones!
"Furthermore, Chikka was quickly embraced by a diverse online community that enjoyed the ease and reliability by which they now joined the sea of SMS users," added Mendiola.
Five years since their launch in 2001, Chikka today controls the Lion’s share of the Philippine mobile instant messaging market, with the rest shared between global players such as Yahoo! and MSN.
In fact, Chikka beat world players in creating the most effective mobile instant messaging application itself, one that would marry good old-fashioned SMS. Indeed, Chikka’s solution and subsequent hold on the market was such that prevented many more global players from gaining ground in the SMS Capital.
Chikka recently launched its fourth version release, the new Chikka Messenger that supports MMS messaging, and the sending of call and SMS credits from a PC to prepaid mobile subscribers. It is the fastest, most reliable and most fun Chikka yet, as it allows the delivery of content such as tones, logos and picture messages.
Added Mendiola: "With more than 30 million registering to use the service since 2001, Chikka today, next only to email, is probably the most used and viewed Internet-based communications tool by Filipinos worldwide."
Chikka has promoted wide awareness of Instant Messaging (IM) in a country where Internet penetration is still low. But it has allowed a mobile-savvy population to become part of a most vibrant IM community.
Talk was rife as early as 1999 of a killer application that would take the form of a "mobile instant messenger." At big international conferences that focused on telecommunications and the mobile Internet, a worldwide race to build the world’s first mobile instant messenger would be kicked off.
Meanwhile, quietly in the Philippines, a group involved in a small e-commerce business was thinking of ways to improve customer service for an online community. In particular, they were mulling an Internet to mobile text messaging solution.
And the more this group of young entrepreneurs thought about it, the more they became ambitious, thinking marrying instant messaging with SMS technology was the way to go, and that yes, it represented huge commercial potential. By the group’s own admission, they were also a bit daunted. After all, the little "customer-service feature" they desired, had to withstand volume in a country sending enough text messages in 2000, some 30 million daily, to claim the title Text Capital of the World.
They called the project "Chikka," the slang for "small talk" and indeed the nature of many of the text messages people all over the world exchanged daily.
And so in 2001, Chikka Text Messenger, the world’s first successful marriage of instant messaging and SMS technologies, launched, beating established world players such as AOL, Yahoo, and MSN to probably the world’s most coveted mobile messaging market.
Chikka Text Messenger was ingenious. Patented technologies made it second nature for mobile users to reply to messages zipping thru the Internet and into their mobiles. "Traditional" instant messaging functionalities such as presence detection (knowing which of your buddies are online) were made possible even on legacy SMS-enabled mobile phones. Network operators were assured of anti-spam and privacy features. Limited PC messaging credits were replenished with every mobile reply, giving carriers more to rest easy about, but more importantly making the service highly sustainable increasing mobile messaging traffic, prompted by a new online community.
"While email is probably the No. 1 reason people go online, IM’ing is something that people do all the time to chat online, and now to text mobile buddies," says Dennis Mendiola, chief executive officer of Chikka, the largest instant messaging community in the country today.
According to Mendiola, the IM market used to be only a function of Internet penetration in the Philippines (two million users for about a three percent penetration in 2000). Indeed, to those who have Internet access, Instant Messaging would be right up there with email as popular applications.
Today, Internet penetration in the Philippines is up to nine percent (or about eight million users). And Chikka Text Messenger, from zero subscribers in 2001 has over 30 million registered users including mobile subscribers from all major Philippine operators.
The beauty of it is that mobile users soon also discovered that by logging on to Chikka using their mobile phone number, they can enjoy FREE instant messaging from a PC as well, and then continue to receive messages on their mobiles once they went online. Chikka IM on a PC becomes a straight extension of their mobile phones!
"Furthermore, Chikka was quickly embraced by a diverse online community that enjoyed the ease and reliability by which they now joined the sea of SMS users," added Mendiola.
Five years since their launch in 2001, Chikka today controls the Lion’s share of the Philippine mobile instant messaging market, with the rest shared between global players such as Yahoo! and MSN.
In fact, Chikka beat world players in creating the most effective mobile instant messaging application itself, one that would marry good old-fashioned SMS. Indeed, Chikka’s solution and subsequent hold on the market was such that prevented many more global players from gaining ground in the SMS Capital.
Chikka recently launched its fourth version release, the new Chikka Messenger that supports MMS messaging, and the sending of call and SMS credits from a PC to prepaid mobile subscribers. It is the fastest, most reliable and most fun Chikka yet, as it allows the delivery of content such as tones, logos and picture messages.
Added Mendiola: "With more than 30 million registering to use the service since 2001, Chikka today, next only to email, is probably the most used and viewed Internet-based communications tool by Filipinos worldwide."
Chikka has promoted wide awareness of Instant Messaging (IM) in a country where Internet penetration is still low. But it has allowed a mobile-savvy population to become part of a most vibrant IM community.
Meanwhile, quietly in the Philippines, a group involved in a small e-commerce business was thinking of ways to improve customer service for an online community. In particular, they were mulling an Internet to mobile text messaging solution.
And the more this group of young entrepreneurs thought about it, the more they became ambitious, thinking marrying instant messaging with SMS technology was the way to go, and that yes, it represented huge commercial potential. By the group’s own admission, they were also a bit daunted. After all, the little "customer-service feature" they desired, had to withstand volume in a country sending enough text messages in 2000, some 30 million daily, to claim the title Text Capital of the World.
They called the project "Chikka," the slang for "small talk" and indeed the nature of many of the text messages people all over the world exchanged daily.
And so in 2001, Chikka Text Messenger, the world’s first successful marriage of instant messaging and SMS technologies, launched, beating established world players such as AOL, Yahoo, and MSN to probably the world’s most coveted mobile messaging market.
Chikka Text Messenger was ingenious. Patented technologies made it second nature for mobile users to reply to messages zipping thru the Internet and into their mobiles. "Traditional" instant messaging functionalities such as presence detection (knowing which of your buddies are online) were made possible even on legacy SMS-enabled mobile phones. Network operators were assured of anti-spam and privacy features. Limited PC messaging credits were replenished with every mobile reply, giving carriers more to rest easy about, but more importantly making the service highly sustainable increasing mobile messaging traffic, prompted by a new online community.
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