The rapid change in technologies and social media networks, make us wonder where messaging apps lie and what is their importance. After thorough research, it was observed that these messaging apps offer the best way of communication among people.
They can easily communicate with their friends and families irrespective of their distance. Using these apps, they can also enhance their business. For this purpose, there are many messaging apps and among them, Whatsapp and Viber got a prominent position.
Important Features that should be used in the Messaging App
First of all, before developing any messaging app you should be familiar with their important features. These features prove to be essential for the developers and as well as for their users. Some of the important features include the following:
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Registration Process
Before using any of the messaging apps their registration is very much important. Their registration can take place through your phone number, email or via your social media profiles. The messaging app like e.g. WhatsApp or Viber will then send you a confirmation code through SMS for the sake of some security issues. After the completion of the registration process, users can easily make their profile. And on that profile, they can add some of their personal information and their profile photo as well.
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Profile Creation
Customizing or profile creation helps their users to easily express their personality. Having this feature users can easily make certain changes in their profile like their names, color schemes, designs and other such customization options. Users can also update their photos from their camera roll or can also take a picture immediately. Users can also see the status of other users when they are online and when they are typing.
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Messaging Feature
Immediate messaging feature will allow their users to communicate with other users. In the case when they are offline they receive messages on an instant basis when they get online. These messages also contain certain kinds of statuses like delivered, seen, failed or edited. This messaging feature is marked to be the standard feature in most of the messaging apps, through which the users can check the current status of messages.
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Call System
These apps allow two types of calls including voice or video calls. This call system will make these apps more cooperative. There are no limits to these calls like time frame or minutes and make communication easy and easily accessible anywhere anytime.
Voice calling will allow users to contact their friends without any cost. This calling system will decrease the distance between the two users. With this feature of voice calling system, you can only speak but not able to see each other.
Video calling will allow visual communication between two users. In video calling connection with internet and VoIP, WebRTC (Voice over Internet Protocol) is necessary that contains the video of the user who makes the call. This helpful feature helps the person to easily connect with their family even when they are far from them.
These messaging apps also include a group call system. By this feature, the user can also do group conversation by the means of both voice and video call.
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Transmissions of Media Files
Having this feature the users can share their photos, videos and also GIFs along with the text. Stickers present in these apps are considered to be the great monetization choice for the messaging app like Whatsapp and Viber.
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Notification System
Notification system should be used in any of the messaging apps while making the MVP. This feature serves as the direct source of communication among the user and the messenger. This notification system will make the user activity and make them informed about new messages or the online status of other users.
Method to Develop Messaging App
Here are some of the important points by which one can easily make the messaging app:
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Authentication System
For the progress of any mobile or messaging app the process of identifying users is very much important. The authentication system should be included in the messaging apps so that the users can protect themselves from any kind of spam or fraud. Regularly, this process takes place through API. In the case when your messaging app will support the process of authentication with the email address or accounts of social media you can easily use the various tools like Facebook SDK and also Twitter Kit.
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Chat System
A messaging or chat app includes thousands of unending messages. To send thousands of messages immediately, Web Socket can be used. This tool will make a solid kind of connection between the server and the mobile application. The main function of this Web Socket is to transfer the data directly by providing and fast and persistent kind of communication between the mobile application and the server.
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Storage
User data in the form of text messages, images and files are included in any of the messaging apps. Backend logic is important to store all this kind of data. In the developing of any messaging app, the involvement of databases like PostgreSQL, services about the file storage like Amazon S3, and also web servers like Nginx are very much important.
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Notification System
Notification system is very much important to retain your users and make them active in the application. For the development of any of the Android messaging app, you can simply use the Firebase Cloud Messaging system. And on the other hand for the iOS chatting app you can use both of the Firebase and Apple push kinds of notifications which are considered to be native to the iOS platform.
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Calling System
To make the communication more interactive for the users the implementation of voice and the video call is very much important. To make this feature possible, you can simply use business phone number, VOIP, WebRTC technology. This technology contains a group of methodologies which is used to deliver audio communications and also multimedia sessions on the internet.
Challenges while developing a Messaging App
After when you get familiar with the main features that are necessary for the developing of any chat app, you should make notice certain challenges while in the development of an application. While making the messaging app there are some of the challenges which are marked to be as follows:
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Security Problems
Security problem is considered to be one of the main challenges while developing any of the messaging applications. Today in this modern world everyone demands a secure means of communication. These security issue leads users to worry and make the app effective which brings hurdles in their success. This messaging app also gets failed due to the lack of encryption. This encryption is the great demand of any organization by which they can make their application successful.
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Managing Ubiquity
The expectations of the users are growing day by day due to the advancement in the technologies. Now in this modern world, many of the users expect that kind of messenger that acts like a tool capable of doing everything. Regarding this factor, we can take an example of WeChat. This is a type of messenger application that provides everything to their users like direct messages and the payments in an instant way.
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Retention and Engaging Users
These two features are considered to be the important metrics that give genuine kind of insight into the progress and success of any application. Nowadays the users of any mobile application don’t provide many chances so you should have to take some steps to attract your users from the very start of the process.
You should have to make that kind of the application by which the users get engaged and your application can easily flourish. Make such kind of an application that proves to be friendly for the users and advanced otherwise people don’t use that app and leads to their failure.
Additional features in any Messaging App
Chatting or messaging app should be in the form that it can receive or send messages on an instant form.
Regarding this factor here are the list of some extra and the useful features that should be kept in mind while developing any messaging app. These extra features are marked to be as follows:
- Enhanced profiles like their color schemes, fonts, and patterns.
- Chats should be secretly secured with messages that should be destructed on both of the devices at a limited time after reading.
- Messages should be scheduled in advance like any holiday or birthday event.
- The location should be shared.
- The feature by which the user can easily create their stickers.
- Temporary type of content in the form of stories or status.
- For fun, the feature of games should also be provided.
- Ecommerce type of features in the form of chatbots etc.
So these are marked to be some of the important and helpful features for any organization that develop any kind of messaging application. Having these all features in the app, that application can easily meet the needs and the demands of the users. Including these features, you can also make your app successful.
Ways to get Profit from these Messaging App
By the development of any app, you can also make a profit up to limit. Here are some of the important points by which you can easily earn money by the making of messaging app:
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Subscription Fee
With the help of any subscription fee, a developer can earn money that a customer should have to pay to run their application. We can say that this subscription fee can easily bring a substantial kind of revenue in the case when the base of the user is quite large. Today in this modern world most of the messaging apps are free and the subscription fee is considered to be the barrier in preventing many of the people from using this application.
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Advertisement
By the advertisement of any app a developer can easily earn money. Such a kind of approach works in a positive manner that is marked to be a great solution by which a developer can divert the attention of consumers. For example, we can say that a messaging app like Viber will show the targeted type of messages and ads. But on the other hand, many of the users prefer such kinds of messengers that do not contain any invasive type of ads. So here, we can say that this advertising will make a small profit and might the users get annoyed by it.
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Additional Revenue
While developing a messaging app if someone wants some custom features you can demand some additional payment from them. Paid of stickers is considered to be a great source of revenue for a large number of messengers.
Along with stickers, other customization options can also be paid like different filters, wallpapers, and themes.
By adding the feature of games a great profit can be made and by which you can lead the app to success.
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Sponsorship
Sponsorship involves partnership with the advertisers who give their users different rewards for the completion of different actions in an application. Messaging apps simply earn money by taking a kind of share of the profit from the exchanged rewards. In this way, some of the companies use branded types of stickers to promote their company products like information about new foods and the latest upcoming movies.
So these are marked to be some of the important aspects of the profit and by which any organization can easily earn money.
Conclusion
With the help of above-mentioned details, we can conclude that for the development of any messaging app you should have to make the strategy. These messaging apps have become extremely important as these are considered to be the great means of communication among people who are far away from each other. These applications can also prove to be profitable for people and help them spread out their message.
If you are looking to build a messaging app, then connect with Aalpha today.
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Written by:
Stuti Dhruv
Stuti Dhruv is a Senior Consultant at Aalpha Information Systems, specializing in pre-sales and advising clients on the latest technology trends. With years of experience in the IT industry, she helps businesses harness the power of technology for growth and success.
Stuti Dhruv is a Senior Consultant at Aalpha Information Systems, specializing in pre-sales and advising clients on the latest technology trends. With years of experience in the IT industry, she helps businesses harness the power of technology for growth and success.