Battle Of The Inboxes: Freedom of Connectivity

The future of messaging is upon us as three entities race to the finish line to own the marketplace. What I am talking about is the luxury of texting anybody, on any platform without having to switch programs could actually become the norm, if big tech companies unite. I’ll be highlighting how the future of messaging involves standardizing Rich Communication Services (RCS) among telecoms (Verizon, AT&T, Google) and Over-The-Top (OTT) platforms (WhatsApp, We Chat, Facebook) so that consumers like us can enjoy a better user experience.

Today most people communicate within the realm of the green bubble and blue bubble SMS communication signals. If you’re on a blue bubble, you’re most likely sending a message from an iOs/Apple system, and are exposed to the many privileges of having a technologically-savvy phone that is only less than 15% of the world’s usage. However, with over 80% of the market share, Android is the dominant smartphone when it comes to the penetration rate, as well as the cost of the technology. According to Es Lee, the founder of the Mei App, a messaging app will likely be the most valuable piece of technology in the world within the next decade. The winner takes all approach will dictate how freely people will be able to communicate.

Battle of the Inboxes

In the US, over six billion texts are sent on a daily basis. In the UK a total of 217 million texts are sent, add another 100K texts that I send a month, and we’re talking a huge volume of data that is waiting to be monetized.

Depending on your age and region, Facebook may be your primary source of communication. Gen Zers communicate on TikTok and Snapchat. Then there’s Instagram and WhatsApp which is a popular choice for Millennials and new-age digital-first business owners. I was talking with a boutique owner in Cape May, New Jersey about how Facebook is the primary method of communication. “They don’t have a website or Instagram, but they have 5,000 reviews on Facebook.” the carpenter by trade commented.

No matter how many messaging inboxes we are checking a day, the user experience sucks. Now that we are living in a virtual-first world, the freedom to connect online will become an even greater challenge because Google, the Telecoms, Apple, and Facebook refuse to unite and pick a standard of technology. Here’s the deal: 85% of the world is powered by Android, but Facebook still had skin in the game with their two billion accounts. In efforts to keep users on the platform, they’ll integrate and acquire advanced communications methods that will change and alter everything. Recently, Facebook announced “cross-app messaging” which makes it convenient to message people on Facebook and Instagram, as long as your accounts are merged. Mark Zuckerberg outlined his manifesto for the future of the internet and communicating privately last year and it’s already being integrated on the platform.

On the flip side, cross-messaging may be new to Facebook’s platform but the idea is similar to the RCS Steering Committee. The committee consists of Google, Verizon, AT&T, etc who want to make phone messaging and phone service more accessible without having to add anything from an app store or carrier download section. This would also eliminate the need for multiple devices. Essentially, if your phone provider and apps adopt RCS, they would conform on the backend and make it easier for people who want to video call Android users with an Apple phone.

Our current system is not this fluid. As a result, people started moving away from SMS when the modern technology of photo-sharing became the king of content and primary attraction to other platforms. Still, RCS was able to adapt even when smartphones took over the marketplace in the early 2000s and the demand increased and so did functionalities of what smartphone users expect.

The disagreement is costing us but there are huge capital gains for the winning entity.

OTT social messaging platforms and Apple do not follow RCS guidelines because RCS companies do not guarantee end-to-end encryption. Your phone number and the activity you garner on it is still accessible to traditional phone carriers. Google says it will delete the message once it's delivered but attachments are stored until all parties download the message. Phone carriers can access your phone records. This is the reason why Facebook does not want to join the RCS bandwagon. Not providing end-to-end encryption is probably an oversight in policy or maybe it has something to do with the Communications Decency Act, Section 230 when essentially the government updated the laws to mandate eavesdropping on our phone conversations in efforts to beef up national security and prevent terrorist attacks. This is interesting because Verizon, T. Mobile, and Google are not responsible for the de facto Russian interference of the 2016 Presidential Election. Facebook is!

Right now, the world is divided into three entities: Apple ( the blue bubble squad), OTT ( Facebook/Messenger, Instagram, TikTok), and Google and the Telecom clan (green bubble squad). They all want to be the leading SMS messaging empire because there are so many text messages sent on a daily basis. The key to aggregating messaging and the way people use and interact with it on these platforms will define the next frontier in monetization.

But I digress, wouldn’t it be nice to connect freely from Google Hangouts to Apple Facetime to WhatsApp without having to log in to several platforms or be using the same platform? In a perfect world, communication companies would adopt the same standard. Only time will tell if technology tycoons will work together. After all, messaging is the #1 activity on a phone. Until then, we’ll be lobbying for more RCS unity.

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