The messaging and calling app space is one that is extremely competitive. New apps launch every day, hoping to see the same kind of success that WhatsApp Messenger and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) have. Other notable competitors include Snapchat, Viber, and Kik Messenger, all of which make up the top messaging apps in the world behind Skype.

A new survey from Distimo [via] shows just how competitive the space actually is, and how it differs across a number of different markets around the world.

First off, we can’t really talk about competitive without talking about BBM. During the first month of availability, BBM managed to add 20 million users to the app’s user base and was the most downloaded messaging app in UK and India in the first month. In overall downloads, it also managed to beat out WhatsApp, Kik, and Viber in the US market, losing only to Snapchat.

During its first month cross-platform, BBM managed to add 20 million users and was the most downloaded messaging app in UK and India.

Speaking of Snapchat, it’s clearly having no problem in the US in regard to popularity with 32 percent of the download volume, but it’s currently struggling to gain any ground in emerging markets such as India and South Africa, where BBM and WhatsApp are kings. The two apps were also shown to outperform Facebook Messenger earlier this month.

Strangely, WhatsApp only managed to secure 17 percent of the download share in the US, behind all other apps except for Viber, which was a remarkably distant 10 percent. These are markets where both apps were thought to have been more popular, but even Kik showed itself to be secure more downloads than WhatsApp, coming in at 18 percent.

Of course, Kik is really struggling in every other market in the survey, with single digit percentages in all of the other markets. While this is a limited representation of the popularity of these apps, it nevertheless shows that while Kik is indeed growing, it’s being outpaced by the competition on Apple platforms.

Then there’s Viber. While it didn’t have the massive download numbers of BBM and WhatsApp, it’s clear from looking at its position that it’s at least stable and experiencing a still healthy state of growth. Viber recently launched a sticker store across the major mobile platforms to monetize itself, so there’s also plenty of room for expansion.

As mentioned this survey represents a fraction of the picture, covering only the iOS platform in ten days and in a limited number of countries. If the survey covered Asia, behemoths like LINE and WeChat would surely be present in the results. Also, a survey that covers Android and Windows Phone would provide us with an even more accurate look at how each app is performing, but the findings of this particular survey do show some interesting stats for the world’s top messaging applications.

The popularity of messaging apps continues to explode and there’s no better representation of that than by the announcement of a new milestone reached. Today Kik Interactive announced that it has reached 100 million registered users, up from 80 million users in late August and double what it had in April.

In the past year Kik has more than tripled its user base – shooting from 30 million users in November 2012 to over 100 million today. The growth only continues to accelerate as Kik adds over 200,000 new users every day. It should, of course be noted that these are registered users and not necessarily active users.

Kik adds over 200,000 new users every day.

Much of this growth has been fueled by the popularity of Kik Cards, which add engaging functionality and web experiences to the native application on Android and iOS. To date, Kik users have added more than 145 million Kik Cards to their messaging experience according to the company since the Cards launched last November. 83 percent of Cards are discovered when one Kik user sends a Card to a friend within the app.

“We couldn’t be more excited to pass the 100 million user mark and to see so many people in our community engaging with Kik Cards,” said Kik CEO Ted Livingston. “As we continue innovating on the Kik platform, we’re looking forward to delivering more compelling Card experiences to our growing user base.”

Costume Party on the Kik platform reached 1 million users in just 22 hours.

After launching its HTML5 platform a year ago, Kik Cards have taken off to rapid success. Mobile app developer Koa.la recently launched a game called Costume Party on the Kik platform that reached 1 million users in just 22 hours. The company also recently worked with IPG Media Labs to launch a Card in partnership with UK-based band One Direction in support of the launch of their album Midnight Memories.

Kik says it plans to continue working with other developers and brands to help them achieve rapid traction on the platform.

According to a recent survey by Distimo, Kik is bigger than WhatsApp Messenger in the United States, where Kik experiences a faster rate of growth than WhatsApp overall. According to that same survey, only Snapchat and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) are bigger than Kik in the U.S.

Got Kindle Fire? If you said “yes” then you also now have the ability to download Kik Messenger onto your Kindle device.

Kik had apparently received a lot of requests from users to get its messaging app onto the platform and finally decided to bend to user demands.

Kik Cards arrive alongside the messaging application for Kindle Fire.

Kindle Fire tablets use the Android operating system, so naturally Kik has ported a version of its current Android app to the Amazon App Store. This, of course, includes the popular Kik Cards — and therefore all the Kik Games that come with it — and the ability to “instantly explore content, play games, create funny memes and more” without having to close out of your messaging client.

Kik recently surpassed 100 million users, up from 80 million in August and is currently growing faster than WhatsApp, one of its largest messaging rivals in the United States.

If you’re ready to light up your Kindle Fire with Kik, you can find the messaging app in the Amazon App Store.

With over 100 million registered users, there’s no doubt that Kik Messenger is one of the world’s heavyweight messaging applications when it comes to popularity. Kik’s Webkit-based Cards that add downloadable games and features to the application can be attributed to some of this popularity.

Kik users can access any website and share it with their friends

Not content to simply stop there, Kik Interactive is launching a URL and search bar within its native app to become the first smartphone messenger with a built-in browser. The new in-app browser allows Kik users to access any website on the Internet and instantly share it with their Kik friends.

The app also includes a new search feature, which utilizes the built-in browser to help users find and share anything on the Web without ever having to leave the messaging app. Searching for “games” will even present users with a prioritized list of games that have been optimized for Kik and for the mobile Web.

Of course, Kik also provides developers with the HTML5 tools and libraries necessary to insure that their website is optimized for the mobile web and the Kik Messenger app. Kik also helps developers and brands promote their content to Kik’s global community.

“The launch of the Kik Browser … proves our commitment to developers and the mobile web”

“The launch of the Kik Browser marks a huge milestone for Kik, and really proves our commitment to developers and the mobile Web,” said Kik CEO Ted Livingston. “This is why we’ve built our device, social and distribution APIs and are making them available to any developer, to make it as easy as possible for them to optimize their web pages for mobile.”

This past fall, Kik helped new mobile app developer Koa.la to launch an HTML5 game called Costume Party on the Kik platform, which reached 1 million users in just 22 hours. The company hopes to work with even more brands to provide users with additional fun experiences on its messaging platform.

If you’re already loving Kik Messenger on iOS, you’ll love it even more thanks to version 7.2.0. The new version, released today, makes some notable (and quite handy) improvements to the existing application, especially when it comes to handling new people and their messages.

You can now more easily manage your conversations with a separate section for messages from new people, keeping your existing friends and some possible new friends separated and allowing you to keep track of conversations a little easier. In addition, for those who are annoyed by random new picture messages from people you don’t know, the content will now be blurred from the new people until you choose to see it.

You can now block and report from the conversation instead of going into the user’s profile to do so, making things a lot quicker here as well.

Speaking of quicker, you’re also now able to send stickers faster (and easier) with the new version.

Download the new Kik for iOS right here and don’t forget to add and share our official TruTower Kik Card (search for “TruTower” in the “More” menu).

Update: The Kik update has also been rolled out to Android devices. The article title has been updated to reflect this change.

Cards from Kik are a way for people to follow the latest updates on celebrities or news and can also include games or Kik Messenger social features. There are a growing number of these HTML5 cards available (including our own, accessible by searching Kik for “TruTower”) so it’s important to keep your favorites within easy access.

One way to do this is by adding them to your Favorites. When you first access the side menu in Kik by utilizing the slider you’re presented with a screen much like the one you see in the screenshot at left (of course, you’ll want to make sure you’ve got the latest version of Kik on your device). You’ll then see two gray labels at the top: Favorites and Edit.

Obviously, the Favorites option won’t do anything when it’s tapped, but tapping the Edit option will result in a screen like the one on the right, allowing you to move Cards between the Recent and Favorites sections.

When you’re at this screen, simply tap and hold on the hamburger symbol (the three horizontal lines on the right next to the “X” button) and then drag it up to Favorites. Finally, simply tap Done at the top of the screen. In the screenshot below, you can see that TruTower Mini has been added to our Favorites by using this method.

Adding Cards to your Favorites also ensures that they’ll still be there the next time you perform a Kik app update, restore your device to factory settings, or change devices.

From this menu, you can also easily share the Cards with your friends. Tapping and holding on a Kik Card will result in two options: Share via Kik and Delete, as shown in the screenshot on the right. The first will allow you to share the Card with any of your Kik friends so that they, too, can enjoy its contents. The other permanently deletes it from your Favorites and Recent menus.

Other ways to share include in-app share buttons, like the one in TruTower Mini as shown above, or by clicking the “Forward” option in any Kik conversation in which you’ve had a Card shared with you. Either way you choose to do it, you’re ensuring that Kik Cards will continue to be a bigger part of the messaging experience for you and your Kik friends. And, when you’re ready for more fun, be sure to add even more friends to your list!

We’re always hearing about the “messaging bubble” that’s always about to burst. Many so-called experts believe that messaging is at its height when in reality, there are still so many opportunities for growth in the sector. Billions of potential future smartphone owners are still on feature phones. Most people use multiple messaging apps to stay in touch with all of their friends and family.

We’ve been in a similar situation before

Kik Messenger, it seems, agrees, and has stated that it will not sell itself despite pressures to do so. We’ve been in a similar situation before, with Skype, Windows Live Messenger, AOL, and others taking up the VoIP and instant messaging scene. And yet, the industry is now bigger and more vibrant than ever, not experiencing the struggles that many predicted it would.

“[W]e believe the opportunity is just so much bigger”

“[W}e believe the opportunity is just so much bigger,” Kik CEO Ted Livingston said in a blog post. “We want to be the network that connects the world, and the platform that enables all communication, content, and commerce to flow through it. Not just a chat app, but a chat network. So, once again, we are choosing not to sell.”

Kik isn’t the only one. Snapchat has taken a similar stance, and it says a lot for the survival of the industry when there are so many popular players in the field and more entering every day. Do you think there’s a messaging bubble?

Kik Messenger’s Cards offer content that extends beyond the Kik app‘s messaging roots and allow you to share often extensive engaging moments with friends. The latest of these — Funny Or Die — just launched on the platform and brings a unique blend of social and comedy to iOS and Android.

Users looking at the app’s content can vote “Funny” on anything they find amusing within the content, or “Die” if the opposite is true. The content includes GIFs and other images. After you’re through voting on the content, you can go even further and share the content with your friends on Kik so that they, too, can share in the laughter.

“funny content and sharing go together”

“Our Kik integration is a great example of how well funny content and sharing go together,” said Mitch Galbraith, COO and President of Digital for Funny Or Die. “We’re excited to offer Kik users a Funny Or Die experience tailored for the Kik environment.”

“We love bringing fun, entertaining content like this to our users,” said Ted Livingston, CEO of Kik Interactive, Inc. “Funny or Die’s humorous, bite-sized content fits perfectly into the conversations that users have on Kik.”

The Funny or Die project was developed by Secret Location, which is known for its unique, forward-thinking approach to the integration of entertainment properties into online platforms. Funny Or Die provides Kik users with a broad range of mobile-optimized content to share with their friends and allows them to save and access all the content they tag as ‘Funny’ for future messages. The brand is well known on other social networks as well, and its Kik Card looks to be every bit as extensive and popular as it is elsewhere.

“Funny or Die’s humorous, bite-sized content fits perfectly into [Kik conversations]“

Like other Kik Cards on the platform, Funny or Die can be found by utilizing the Kik application’s built-in search feature, or by selecting Top Sites and checking the Popular section. As of this writing, Funny or Die stands at 36th among the top Cards and websites enhanced for the platform.

Tell us in the comments below or in the forums how much you enjoy this application. Also, don’t forget to stay up to date on Kik Cards such as this by adding our own Kik Card.

We’re all familiar with how fun, usable, and informative Kik Cards can be, so it’s always good to see more options grace our iOS and Android screens.

The first of two new Kik Cards this week is Dr. Atom & Quark: Bubble Fever from BoosterMedia. Bubble Fever for Kik is BoosterMedia’s first-ever Kik game. The publisher has hundreds of HTML5 games available on its platform from both in-house and licensed developers, with new games added every week. Games are available from most any category for iOS and Android smartphones or tablets, Windows Phone 8 and even desktop PC.

Interestingly, like TruTower‘s own Kik Card and other Booster Media games, Bubble Fever is written fully in HTML 5, so also works on Windows Phone, albeit not inside the Kik browser, which does not exist in the Kik app on that platform yet, and without the ability to compete with Kik friends. Instead the game will open in Internet Explorer as you can see in the screenshot at left.

And then there’s Red Note, which allows players to express themselves by adding music and emotion to their messages. You can browse moods and select music clips associated with them. You can listen and share these tunes with your Kik friends. This should open up a new world of musical messaging fun on iOS and Android. If you enjoy injecting a little musical expression into your messages, you’ll want to give Red Note a try.

As always, though, in order to ensure you’re getting the best possible experience with these and other Kik Cards, you’ll want to make sure you have the most recent version of Kik downloaded on your device.

What to you think of these new Kik Cards? Are you going to be taking them for a spin? Let us know in the comments or join the discussion in the Forums!

It’s been a couple of months since we’ve received a major update to Kik Messenger, but today, we received an update for both iOS and Android versions of the app.

On Android only (the iOS update was released earlier), circular profile pictures have made a jump from Apple to Android per user requests. This change, while seemingly minor, gives the app a nicer overall look than the previous square pictures could provide.

you can now share your Kik profile on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter

On both iOS and Android, you can now easily share your Kik profile on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter rather than having to take a screenshot or manually share your username another way.

Finally, and again on both operating systems, you can chat with your favorite brands on the application similar to Tango’s recently launched channels as well as BBM’s Channels feature.

The new update is now available in Google Play and iTunes.

Like ChatOn and BBM before it, Kik Messenger has partnered with popular location-tracking service Glympse to give its users real-time location sharing. The partnership will allow Kik’s 120 million users to share their location, or request a friend to share their location using Glympse directly from a Kik conversation.

The Glympse service also includes a map viewable inside the Kik Messenger app that can update the shared location.

Kik allows users to limit how long a friend will be able to view live locations

“Location and messaging are tailor made for each other. Texting has become a primary form of communication for many, and many times the conversation includes the question, ‘where are you?’” said Darren Austin, vice president of product, Glympse. “By incorporating location technology within the Kik application, users now have an engaging, dynamic way to interact. With this latest integration, we are continuing to push forward with a new wave of messaging that does more than just static text.”

In addition to allowing users to share locations with one another, Kik also allows users to limit how long a friend will be able to view live location data, which should help to ease some concerns for privacy advocates and parents.

The Glympse integration is available on iOS and Android powered devices. Since Kik doesn’t yet support Windows Phone with its Cards feature, WP users will have to wait this one out until a future update is released that includes this support.

Download the latest version of Kik here.

Update: Added quote

We’ve seen a number of cool marketing campaigns involving messaging apps over the past year or so. In June 2013, we saw a World War Z film campaign involving ooVoo, we saw a One Direction album promotion via Kik, and we’ve seen the Critics Choice Awards make its appearance on LINE.

There are also various local promotions in Asia involving LINE, KakaoTalk, and WeChat to consider as well.

Now, Kik has started its very first movie-based ad campaign this week with the release of The Weinstein Company’s “The Giver” Card on iOS and Android devices. The film, based on a 1993 novel by Lois Lowry, is set to debut in theaters on August 15, and a massive ad campaign promoting the film is underway, a campaign that includes the Kik Card.

The Kik Card consists of a trailer of the film as well as some trivia and shareable stickers that you can share with friends. As the first film-based Card debut on the platform, both Kik and The Weinsten Company are truly sailing unknown waters.

“I look forward to seeing the results,” Heather Galt, Kik’s VP of marketing told Ad Age. “I think the integrated campaign that Weinstein’s looking at is the kind of thing we’re looking to see going forward.”

Integration with Kik will allow developers and advertisers a way to develop more effective advertising campaigns in the future.

You can find the Card for the movie by searching Kik for “The Giver” and allowing it to link to your Kik account. To stay up to date on Kik Cards such as these, you can also find the TruTower Kik Card by searching for “TruTower” in the platform’s search box.

Not too long ago, Kik Messenger users got their first taste of digital comedy with the release of Funny or Die’s Kik Card.

The company, which was co-founded by comedy genius Will Ferrell, revealed that 10 percent of Kik users click on videos in the application, which says quite a bit about the value of advertising via Kik and other messaging platforms.

To put that number into perspective, Funny or Die has more than a million followers on Kik, so a little math tells us that more than 100,000 clicks are taking place, a number that Patrick Starzen, Funny or Die’s VP of Marketing and Business Development, says he’s “never seen” before.

Promoted Chats launched in July and have garnered nearly 3 million views

Funny or Die is one of six brands to have tested the platforms new Promoted Chats according to Kik’s VP of Marketing Heather Galt. The Promoted Chats launched in July and have garnered nearly 3 million views since then.

Funny or Die’s Kik Card can be found by using the Kik app’s built-in search function. You can also find TruTower‘s own Kik Card. Don’t forget to add both to your favorites so you can always keep the laughs (and the news) coming.

If you’ve ever wanted an easier way to manage all of those messages you’ve been racking up, PPLCONNECT may just have the solution for you.

The company, which announced closing a seed round of funding with lead investor Sherbrooke Street Capital, Inc. and the latest release of its award-winning mobile solution today, offers what it calls an “integrated communications solution for the multi-device environment we live in today.”

“Our goal is to make it easier … to receive all their messages in 1 place cross-device”

In short, the application, which was first launched at SXSW 2014, offers a unified inbox for all of your favorite messaging apps, including Facebook Messenger, Skype, WhatsApp, Viber, Snapchat, LINE, WeChat, Kik Messenger, and many others. PPLConnect users receive all of these notifications live on their computer or their tablet when they’re logged in to PPLCONNECT, and there is no software installation required beyond the Android app.

“We know people use multiple messaging apps to communicate with all their contacts,” PPLCONNECT Co-Founder Jenviev Azzolin explains. “Our goal is to make it easier for them to receive all their messages in 1 place cross-device. We believe PPLCONNECT is the desktop dashboard for your phone.”

The previous beta release of PPLCONNECT integrated traditional SMS and calling with free messaging service, available simultaneously between PC and device. This is still present in the new version with the unified messaging inbox worked in.

PPLCONNECT was nominated as one of the top 8 new mobile startups that will change the world.The app is available to North American users via Google Play

Kik Messenger has really been changing its look on Android lately. Back in July iOS-inspired circular profile pics made their rounds with an update, and now another part of the UI is getting a little tweaking today.

In particular, as you can see in the above screenshots, the new update tweaks how photos sent (and received) look to you and your friends. On the left, you see the old UI prior to today’s update. On the right, you see the new look and feel, which makes the application look a little sleeker and more modern.

the new tweaks make the application look sleek and modern

The new update also includes the usual round of bug fixes and performance improvements, but as is usually the case, these weren’t broken down individually, so were probably very minor.

Lately, Kik has been expanding beyond messaging into content via its Kik Cards, much like WeChat, Tango, and others have been. Most recently, the company launched a Kik Card for The Giver. The company also partnered with Glympse to provide its users with location-sharing features.

The new Kik update can be obtained via Google Play Store.

University of New Haven researchers have uncovered a pretty sizable number of calling and messaging apps that have data-leakage problems on Android. These problems include storing images and videos in unencrypted form on the web, as well as chat logs and passwords being stored and sent in plain text on the device. TextPlus even stores screenshots on the device that the user does not take.

According to CNET, the researchers will be detailing their findings in videos posted on the university’s Cyber Forensics Research and Education Group’s YouTube channel this week.

These issues could affect 968 million people who use these apps. The problems include:

• Tango and MessageMe left videos on a server, also unencrypted. TextMe and Nimbuzz stored passwords in plaintext on the device.
• Calling and messaging apps that sent text, images, location maps, music and video unencrypted over the network consist of ooVoo, Tango, Kik, Nimbuzz, MessageMe, TextMe, HeyWire, Hike and TextPlus. (Not all of them sent all forms unencrypted.)
• Several apps also stored chat logs unencrypted on the device. That includes TextPlus, Nimbuzz, TextMe, Kik, ooVoo, HeyWire, Hike, MyChat, WeChat, GroupMe, Whisper, LINE, and Voxer

It’s important to note that we’re just listing the messaging apps above. Other apps are also included in the problems and the full list of apps can be seen at the link above.

For these apps, according to Ibrahim Baggili, director of the university’s Cyber Forensics Research and Education Group and editor in chief of the Journal of Digital Forensics, Security, and Law, “Security is an afterthought.”

We’ll update this article if any new information surfaces.

Have you always felt safe sending and receiving messages using apps on Android? Let us know in the comments below.

While WhatsApp continues to rank as the top messaging platform in the world, Tencent’s WeChat ranks as a close second. In fact, GlobalWebIndex says 35% of the global mobile audience aged 16-64 are using it each month.

This puts it ahead of WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Skype, but this is largely due to China, which isn’t really a shocker considering most WeChat’s users reside there. Over 80% of the country’s mobile users engage with WeChat each month, giving it a vast national following.

In other markets, WeChat still struggles in the vastly growing messaging space. WhatsApp ranks in first place outside China with 39 percent, while Facebook’s Messenger now stands at 38 percent.

Despite its growth and strides lately, being used by over half of teens in the UK and Canada, as well as its seemingly never-ending headline coverage, Snapchat is still a relatively minor force globally: just 5 percent of the global mobile audience are using it each month, according to GWI. This is slightly below Viber, which has 8 percent.

We knew it wouldn’t be too long, and sure enough, Kik Messenger has rolled out iOS 8 compatibility in its latest update for Apple’s latest mobile OS, and is also giving users a wider array of themed smileys to choose from to boot.

The themed sileys are just the latest of a number of things Kik has been doing to improve the overall experience of its app for users. The company gave its Android version a new look while also continuing the expansion of its popular Kik Cards feature. TruTower‘s own Kik Card can be found by searching for “TruTower” using the search function in your Kik app.

That’s not all Kik has added to the new update, however. In addition to the aforementioned new themed smileys and the iOS 8 compatbility, some additional bug fixes and stability improvements promise to give you an uninterrupted conversation hopefully every time.

You can download the new app via the Apple iTunes App Store using this QR code. Be sure to share your thoughts on the new update and compatiblity in the comments below.

After rolling out themed smileys to iOS users yesterday, Kik didn’t wait to long to do the same for users of its popular messaging app on Android devices.

The new themed smileys give you a little more self expression while using Kik and can be seen as somewhat of an answer to the wide array of stickers that have been rolled out for other messaging apps over the past year or so.

Kik also released the circular profile pics in a July update for Android that brought it up to speed with the app on iPhone and iPad, which had the circular pics months before Android, so seeing an update for Google’s OS so soon after Apple’s is a sight that will undoubtedly be welcomed with open arms by the Androids of the world.

You can download the new Kik Messenger update via this QR code. Post your thoughts on the new Kik update in the comments below or in the Forums.

Remember the Kik partnership with Columbia Records and One Direction? Well it’s just earned the popular messaging company a Smarties Award from the Mobile Marketing Association, the company’s first-ever time receiving the award.

The Smarties Awards recognize the most effective mobile marketing campaigns around the world, and the aforementioned campaign included a Kik Card that, in addition to connecting fans with the band, gave One Direction a 24/7/365 presence on Kik and a new channel to drive engagement. It also provided fans on Kik with exclusive unlockable content.

“we’re super excited to be working with tons of new partners to create cool content”

“We’re so grateful for the recognition, and we’re super excited to be working with tons of new partners to create cool content to share with our awesome users,” the company said of the win.

The Kik Cards continue to be an effective means for brands to make their presence known on Kik. In fact, you can also find TruTower‘s own Kik Card by using the app’s built in search function on iOS and Android and searching for “TruTower Mini.”

Congratulations to the Kik team for the win, and if you haven’t already, you can download Kik Messenger on Android, iOS, and Windows Phone to experience the free messaging phenomenon for yourself.