SoftBank-Backed WhatsApp Rival Hike Goes Off the Air in India (bloomberg.com) 6
Hike, the messaging app backed by SoftBank Group that aimed to compete against WhatsApp in the world's second-most populous country, shut down and vanished from app stores Monday. From a report: The startup valued at $1.4 billion in a 2016 funding round announced its app was going off the air earlier this month without explanation. The app started by billionaire-family scion Kavin Bharti Mittal has failed over several years to displace Facebook's rival app as India's go-to venue for social media and mobile communications. The country remains WhatsApp's largest market globally. Hike, backed also by Chinese WeChat-operator Tencent Holdings, has in recent years ventured into adjacent areas such as no-frills phones and expanded even into spheres such as mobile entertainment. On Jan. 6, Mittal -- son of Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of India's No. 2 telecom carrier, Bharti Airtel Ltd. -- announced the closure of Hike StickerChat.
it (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re: (Score:2)
YEEEAAHH!!
We need open standards for secure messaging (Score:2)
Remember that glorious few years where Pidgin could talk to every messenger?
Signal is the obvious protocol to use as it's already there and proven. WhatsApp uses a variation of it. There is actually a plugin for Pidgin to talk to WhatsApp but it's been abandoned for 5 years.
SoftBank... (Score:2)
I think it is a clear pattern now. Whatever gets lots of SoftBank money, is guaranteed to be a bad idea and lose a lot of money. They have a special talent picking the wrong horse again and again...
Re: (Score:1)
One thing SoftBank HAS figured out is how to keep finding money for the next investment, I wish I could understand it...