{"id":328473,"date":"2016-12-19T21:45:20","date_gmt":"2016-12-19T13:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1429698"},"modified":"2016-12-19T21:45:20","modified_gmt":"2016-12-19T13:45:20","slug":"kik-adds-group-video-chat-to-its-messaging-app","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/kik-adds-group-video-chat-to-its-messaging-app\/","title":{"rendered":"Kik adds group video chat to its messaging app"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Kik, the chat\u00a0app that\u2019s hugely popular among\u00a0teens and young people in North America<\/a>, is finally adding video chat to its service<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rather than straight up person-to-person video calls like Apple\u2019s FaceTime, Facebook Messenger or the recently introduced WhatsApp feature<\/a>, Kik\u00a0has added a less intrusive video chat option for its 300 million-plus registered users, with support for groups of up to six. While some group video calling features stuff talking heads onto a screen, essentially forcing participations to either drop what they are doing to take part or get off the line,\u00a0Kik said it has carefully created an additional layer that lives above the chat conversation and\u00a0is accessible to all, even when people\u00a0are out and about\u00a0or otherwise\u00a0unable to switch their video on.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0not like calling, we wanted to make it a seamless upgrade from chat,\u201d Kik CEO and founder Ted Livingstone told TechCrunch. \u201cSo\u00a0the chat becomes a shared whitespace.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that respect, the video streams\u00a0are small and float above\u00a0the text chat unobtrusively. Interestingly, too, the interface deliberately puts a user\u2019s own video feed to the side so that people can\u2019t spend their time observing \u2014 or obsessing over \u2014 their own appearance. That way, the text conversation can continue during the video, with the option of sharing visual content like stickers, photos or videos during the video session, which is activated by flicking the video icon in the top right corner.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really want it to feel like a real face-to-face conversation,\u201d Livingston explained.<\/p>\n

Citing a Pew Internet paper<\/a>\u00a0which found that school children in the U.S. spent less time than ever with their friends in person, Livingston said he believes Kik video chat will provide a much-used\u00a0form of communication for its young userbase.<\/p>\n

\"video-chat-master\"<\/p>\n

Kik said video chat had been the number one most-requested feature from its userbase. Kik has had its head down focused on chat bots this year \u2014 it introduced its bot store in April<\/a> and claims over 20,000 bots have been created<\/a> \u2014 but now Livingston said the Canada-based startup\u00a0will \u201cspend a lot of time working on the core messaging experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t immediately clear what that means \u2014 the Kik CEO didn\u2019t elaborate further \u2014 but you can imagine more multimedia and the introduction of features like payments may be on the cards in 2017. You can expect that Kik will develop a more feature-rich product next year, taking plenty of cues from WeChat, the China-based app that pioneered mobile messaging as we know it today. That stands to reason in particular since Tencent, WeChat\u2019s parent company, invested in Kik at a $1 billion valuation<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"kik-video\" Kik, the chat app that’s hugely popular with teens and young people in North America, is finally adding video chat to its service. Video with a twist, that is. Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

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