Few weeks back my college-going niece asked me if am on Hike, I nodded no. She quipped ‘you should, it’s cool’. A few minutes into the conversation, she shared what she likes about the Hike messenger and gave me some interesting insights on what the new generations expect in the messaging services.
Stickers – the sticking reason
I, for one hate stickers. I might be on the wrong side of the generational shift towards visual messaging. But I noticed not just youngsters but increasingly many grownups are also loving the stickers. My wife sends stickers to her colleagues at work, beat that! If it is accepted in corporate world, then obviously the youngsters would have lapped it much before. My niece finds the quirky and creative stickers on Hike a ‘cool stuff’ to share and make ‘meaningful’ conversations without having to type more. To add flavours to the stickers, there are many regional and Bollywood stickers to have fun with.
Privacy features
It has always been in our minds right? The privacy. At every stage of internet evolution, there has been concerns over privacy. My niece was particularly impressed with two of the Hike’s privacy features – Profile picture privacy and Hidden mode.
In my messaging service, I have my profile picture which everyone can see. The choice offered for me is either I can display it for everyone or my contacts or nobody. Interestingly, Hike allows the user to choose the contacts who can see the profile pictures.
And the other privacy feature that interests her is the Hidden Mode, through which one can hide Private Chats and can access them with a password. My niece says it helps her keep some of the chats away from prying the eyes of her ‘over-friendly’ roommates who fiddle with her phone.
The little bit extras goodies !
Offline messaging
Another of an innovative feature of Hike messenger in India is the offline messaging. When you run out of the data pack or at place where there is data connectivity issues, you can still receive the Hike messages via SMS. Hike detects if the receiver is offline or online and if offline, it sends the conversation to the SMS inbox, so that the conversation is not interrupted.
larger groups
Most message services has a 50-100 member cap on the groups. Hike allows for 500 members in a group chat. It allows for larger groups like in a college to send mass messages.
No wonder my niece had taken a fancy for the Hike messenger and she did have many of her friends on Hike. So how many of you use Hike messenger? Do share your favorite messenger with us.
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