If you’ve followed our official Kik account (username: TruTower) you might have noticed something different over the past couple of weeks. That’s because Kik launched keyword-based promotional chats, which allow publishers like me to customize replies to users like you.

The Promoted Chats feature has spread to other brands as well, including Funny or Die. In fact, Kik says the interest in following brands has been staggering, with over 6.5 million Kik users opting in to chat with one of its brand partners and 100 million messages have been exchanged between these accounts during that time, including those from TruTower.

The new keywords-based chat lets brands provide more personal conversation

The new keywords-based chat lets brands provide more personal conversation-like replies. With TruTower, I’ve opted for a more personalized approach with links to certain content on the site coming based on what you’re looking for. I’m also working to make it more fun, integrating jokes and interesting photos into the replies. With keywords-based chat, the TruTower account is available to you 24/7!

One example of how I’m personalizing the TruTower Kik account can be seen in the screenshot above. Also, try asking the bot to tell you a joke. You’ll get more unique answers as time goes on. Another question you can ask is how to do something in Kik. I’ll be adding more tutorials and content to the mix to help you find the answers you’re looking for, day or night (and yes, it even works with certain content from our sister site 1800Pocket/PC).

To get started, add “TruTower” on your Kik, and if you have any suggestions for replies, please post them in the comments below or contact me using the link at the bottom of the site. If you’re a brand, you can find out more information about the feature itself by checking out http://kik.com/partners.

What do you think of Kik’s new Promoted Chats feature?

Kik has just announced that it has acquired Relay, a leading GIF messenger, and raised a $38.3 million Series C round of funding. The addition of Relay is Kik’s first ever acquisition and not only enhances the company’s ability to be at the forefront of communication, but also further hints at Kik Interactive, Inc. CEO Ted Livingston’s statements about the company staying independent, while other app makers sell themselves off.

Kik now has more than 185 million users. Each day, more than 50 percent of active users share content with their friends, including photos, videos and mobile websites developed specifically for Kik, TruTower included.

The company recently launched Kik Promoted Chats, enabling brands to chat and share content with Kik users in a one-to-one setting, while tracking and optimizing their results.

“the Relay acquisition coupled with the recent funding puts us in a really strong position to dominate in chat”

“Today, mobile users aren’t searching for new apps – they’re looking for richer engagement in the apps they already have,” said Ted Livingston, Kik’s CEO and founder. “Chat is at the core of the mobile era, and the Relay acquisition coupled with the recent funding puts us in a really strong position to dominate in chat.”

“After being approached with a number of acquisition offers, it was clear that Kik was the best fit for us,” stated Joe Rideout, co-founder of Relay. “We’re extremely excited to join an independent messaging company with a similar culture and a broad reach, and we look forward to sharing our visual messaging technology with Kik’s users.”

“We’re extremely excited to join an independent messaging company”

As part of the acquisition, Relay founders Jon McGee and Joe Rideout will take key roles at Kik. Relay will discontinue its service on Dec. 15, 2014.

Separate from the acquisition, Kik has also disclosed a Series C funding round of $38.3 million led by Valiant Capital Partners with participation from new investors Millennium Technology Value Partners and SV Angel, and existing investors Foundation Capital, RRE Ventures, Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures. This round brings total funding to $70.5 million to date.

Kik says it will use the Series C to invest in product development and further grow the company’s engineering and business development teams. As part of the Series C and in keeping with its philosophy of sharing rewards with all of its team members, Kik negotiated a secondary offering for all past and current employees.

Kik Messenger is available for all major mobile platforms.

Kik Messenger continues to be one of the most popular applications among teens and early 20’s users and it experienced a difference in usage over the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States.

Kik revealed data today that showed high usage during two points of a normal day (in this case, November 4, 2014): when users were waking up and checking in with friends and higher usage as people were settling down for the day and saying “goodnight.” The other times in the day were spent by a majority of users in school.

This data becomes noticeably skewed on Thanksgiving: as can be seen in the following graph:

Says Kik:

“When we looked at data from across the country by time zone, we found that people in Nebraska, Rhode Island, and Tennessee were the first to start their Thanksgiving festivities, while those in Washington, D.C., Michigan, California, and Florida started later in the day.

This can be seen in the following Tableau chart:

So what does this mean? Well for users, it means turkey and ham was more important than engaging with their friends on Kik. For brands, it gives a little insight into the best times to engage with their users, particularly during the high usage points in the evenings.

Kik is available on Android, Windows Phone, and iOS.

Kik Messenger is evolving much like many other messengers are, becoming full entertainment platforms that offer more than just a way to communicate. Kik Cards were one step in this evolutionary process and now Kik is introducing another in the form of Kik Points.

Kik Points, announced today, allow you to earn rewards from inside the Kik application and redeem them for in-app items. These items include only limited edition emoticons / smileys for now, but Kik says that more redeemable items will be added as the new year begins.

more redeemable items will be added as the new year begins

You can earn Kik Points by completing special Kik Points offers that change on a daily basis and range from visiting websites, taking surveys, playing games, or checking out one of Kik’s parters’ services. This type of system is very similar to one used by social networks such as MeetMe. The bigger the offer, the more points you’ll earn.

You’ll also get the chance to play a daily spin-to-win game that could net you some free Kik Points or smileys. You can access the Smiley Shop by tapping the “:)” emoticon in a chat and then tapping the plus “+” icon in the bottom right corner.

Unfortunately, Windows Phone users have to miss out on the Smileys and Kik Points, as Kik hasn’t updated that app since 2011. However, great alternatives that do have full emoticon, sticker, and feature support on that platform include BBM, Viber, and LINE.

After launching Kik Points as a way to earn freebies, Kik Interactive, Inc. is showing no signs of letting up when it comes to new feature launches. The company has just announced the availability of hashtags for group chats.

According to Kik, group chats are one of the app’s most popular features:

More than 40 percent of Kik users chat in groups, and with 300,000 new groups created every day, it’s safe to say that this feature is super important for our users! That’s not a huge surprise, since groups on Kik let you chat and share with different sets of friends on a topic or interest, just like you can on social media sites.

To enhance the ability to engage in group chats, the hashtags feature, launched today, will allows users to create “mini social networks” in order to stay connected to what interests them most and what topics they would like to discuss.

“At Kik, we’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be social,” said Kik CEO Ted Livingston. “We believe that one of the key things is being able to play different roles with different groups of friends. That’s just fundamental to our way of life.”

He added:

“Hashtags on Kik allow you to spin up your own chat rooms in a matter of seconds. Want to create a mobile chat room for your family? #livingstonfamilychat. Want to create a chat room for your work friends? #kikemployees. Want to create a chat room for your dodgeball team? #waterloododgeball. You no longer have to manually add everyone to a group chat?—?you just yell out a hashtag and people can add themselves.”

To try out the hashtags feature for yourself, make sure you’ve updated to the latest version of Kik. What do you think of the new feature?

Canada-based Kik Messenger has just announced that it has reached 200 million registered users, which are spread out among Android, iOS, and Windows Phone platforms. This is a growth of 100 million users since December 2013.

“Thinking about how much we’ve grown is pretty wild, and without the help of our incredible users we wouldn’t be where we are today. You’re the reason we keep doing what we’re doing, and from the bottom of our hearts, we’d like to say thank you.”

This is quite a milestone, though it still pales in comparison to WhatsApp’s 600 million active users and WeChat’s nearly 500 million active user count. More recently, Viber surpassed 209 million active users. Other heavy hitters include Skype and Tango.

“We recently commissioned a study that showed Kik users spend 35 minutes per session in our app,” said Kik CEO Ted Livingston. “That compares to 37 minutes for Facebook, 27 minutes for Instagram, and 21 minutes for Snapchat. According to BI Intelligence, Kik users spend 97 minutes a week in the app, ahead of Snapchat (42 minutes), Viber (40 minutes), and Facebook Messenger (21 minutes). Those are the sorts of numbers that get us excited.”

Kik has not updated its Windows Phone app since 2012

One glaring issue with Kik that’s become intimately familiar with nearly 100 million potential users is the fact that Kik has not updated its Windows Phone app since 2012 and as far as we know it has no plans to do so. Meanwhile, both WeChat and WhatsApp have continued to deliver updates to their apps on the platform, which could arguably explain at least in part why they are currently more popular overall as many users get frustrated with the lack of updates.

For those on iOS and Android, Kik can deliver oodles of features with its webkit-based Cards system. Kik can be downloaded using these QR codes.

There’s no debating the popularity of messaging apps. The top dogs are WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Skype, LINE, and Viber. Depending on which part of the world you’re in, some messaging platforms are more popular than others.

For instance, in the U.S., Snapchat has proven to be a popular app.

messaging app growth has slowed in the U.S.

Another popular app, Kik is also popular in North America, with over 200 million registered users as of this week.

However, recent Comscore data shows that Kik and other messaging apps have slowed as far as growth in the U.S., largely due to the flatlining growth of smartphones. Kik CEO Ted Livingston told GigaOM that this was actually viewed as a sign of relief according to Kik:

“I can tell you from Kik’s perspective, we’re not growing as fast in the U.S. as we were in the past. I can tell you it’s not bullshit. We were very relieved to see [the Comscore data]. We were thinking maybe there’s something wrong with just us, but it’s everyone. Hey internet are you listening? Messaging has peaked!”

a ticket to the rest of the demographic

The CEO also pointed out that while Snapchat continues to pursue a “broadcast platform” with news and information, Kik pursues a WeChat- or LINE-like platform with its Kik Cards to attract users of all ages to its messaging platform:

“For us that’s where the [WeChat-like] platform play starts making sense. One you have critical density among youth and you have these non-commodity services on top of chat, teens will bring in everyone else they know. They’ll bring in parents because they need to buy something for them, or a friend because they need them to plan events. The platform may become a ticket to the rest of the demographic.”

Check out the full interview over at GigaOM. What do you think? Has messaging popularity peaked?

If you’ve been using Kik and looking at Snapchat users in envy for their ability to share video, no longer; Kik has launched native video onto its application this week.

With Kik’s built-in solution, available on iOS and Android, you can now record and send videos of up to 15 seconds. While this isn’t nearly as long as videos you can send and receive in Kik Cards like Video for Kik, or apps such as K*Tok or recorder for Kik, it nevertheless represents a major step forward for the messaging app, which up until now has been limited to text and picture messaging.

The most recent user count for Kik places the messaging platform at 200 million users. These users represent all those who have registered for the app, and don’t necessarily mean these users are active. By comparison, WhatsApp has over 700 million active users while WeChat boasts over 500 million.

Kik is available for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.

Kik has been taking a different road than most of its many competitors. The company has embraced independence rather than acquisition, while apps like Viber and WhatsApp allowed themselves to be swallowed by the highest bidder.

This week, Kik brought native video into its core feature set, and now it’s bringing something to brands who choose to embrace its promoted chats feature: targeting.

Targeting fits alongside Kik’s Keywords feature launched last year, allowing brands to have more control over who, how, and now where users engage with them. Brands can target bot gender and geography (USA, UK, Australia, or Canada) and even operating system, so if you use iOS, Android, or Windows Phone and you’re following a particular brand, get ready for more personalized chats.

“When we launched Kik Promoted Chats in August 2014, we wanted brands to connect with users on a personal, one-to-one level, Kik said in a blog post. Success stories from brands like Cheezburger show us that Promoted Chats is the right way to engage users in a one-to-one chat setting. And since the launch of the program, more than 60 brands, including Funny or Die, Seventeen Magazine, Skullcandy and Vans, are seeing high engagement levels, with organic reach of 75-80% of Kik users. More than 10 million users have opted into a conversation with a brand, over 250 million total messages have been exchanged, and users are now sending an average of 9.4 messages to brands they’re chatting with.”

Kik says the new targeting is the “first of many future improvements” to come for Promoted Chats, and also includes a new and improved dashboard.

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.