Over the last few months I’ve become a user of multiple private messaging apps on my Android and iPhone.
So far, I’ve got friends & family on GroupMe, Kik, and Beluga.
While its easy to say they are all in the messaging app world, I appreciate the different approaches, e.g. 1 on 1 vs group, sms vs app, features vs simplicity.
I like that all of these apps allow messaging across iphone and Android. That’s important to me.
But now I have ‘buddy’ lists and groups on multiple networks.
For the most part I like when I have contacts on different services. For example, I want my Foursquare friends to be distinct from the folks I follow on Instagram or Tumblr or Twitter. These are different experiences and should be treated as such.
Yet I wonder if messaging should be treated differently. The one thing I always hated about Blackberry Messenger (BBM) is that it only worked with other BBM users. Kik tried to change that and build a bridge to BBM but RIM shut that down.
I’d love an app that lets me to push my messages to my friends regardless of their network. Maybe this already exists. If so please share.