The New Improved Kik

Our portfolio company Kik quietly pushed out a new improved version of its popular mobile messaging app yesterday. The only press was a short blog post.

But if you are a frequent user of Kik, as I am, you will immediately notice that its cleaner, faster, and lighter. It practically hums in your hand.

For years, Kik has focused on its bot platform and apps that run in its messenger. That continues. I believe that Kik has more bots on its platform than any other messaging platform.

But over the past few months, Kik has been doubling down on its core messenger to address some lingering issues. Now there is less spam and more speed.

If you haven’t been on Kik in a while, give it a shot. I think you’ll agree that they did a nice job with the new version. You can download it here by clicking on the blue download button.

#mobile

Comments (Archived):

  1. William Mougayar

    They definitely reduced spam at least x5, which is great. Now it’s maybe 1 per month which is comparable to what you might get in an email client that never catches 100% of them.

    1. fredwilson

      they have worked incredibly hard at that over 2016. kind of relates to yesterday’s post!

  2. JimHirshfield

    This. Just this.”It practically hums in your hand.”

    1. jason wright

      but first i will need a new phone. what kind of phone is best for humming apps?all recommendations thoughtfully received.

    2. William Mougayar

      surprised you didn’t kik the can further on that one. you could kik it up a notch, no?

      1. JimHirshfield

        I’m on a pun cleanse this week. Wordplay detox. It’s rejuvenating…for all my fellow commenters.

        1. jason wright

          Vim Fresh

    3. LE

      You have had a few of your best puns since he won.

  3. Anne Libby

    Are Kik messages encrypted?

    1. Jess Bachman

      No, as far as I know. I use Signal.

      1. jason wright

        Bitmessage?

  4. Rob Underwood

    I really enjoyed using its API – well documented and straight ahead to use (you make recall another Kik post prompted me to go build a Zork clone in node that uses Kik and its api).

  5. jason wright

    not wanting to offend the gods of avc, and having no financial interest at stake, Patagonia is donating its entire (100%) Black Friday sales revenue to environmental campaigning groups and projects. that’s leadership.

    1. LE

      Leadership of what?Patagonia makes great products. I own close to a dozen of their ‘better sweater’ which I wear everyday. I have a few that I haven’t even worn yet. I am worried they will be discontinued so I stocked up. However to me what they are doing is just clever PR and marketing. They do this as well in their catalog which features well to do millennials taking risks wearing their bright colored gear. [1]Patagonia is a clever corporation which presents itself as a social cause and movement by selling premium products.[1] (Which to repeat I buy and I love)….

      1. jason wright

        what they are doing is intelligent. i would like to see more intelligence out there in the market. too many duffers at the moment unfortunately.Leadership – setting a good example, and one others will hopefully follow.

      2. Chimpwithcans

        “Just clever PR and Marketing” is no small feat….I would argue it is a huge part of the success and delivery of a company. Apple comes to mind.

        1. jason wright

          Larry’s description is Apple to its core.

        2. LE

          I never said it was a small feat. I was just replying to Jason’s use of “leadership” to indicate some kind of higher purpose when what they are doing is quite frankly ‘good business’.

          1. Chimpwithcans

            Fair enough thanks for clarifying

    2. awaldstein

      You are right on. Patagonia is the real deal.They were created on an ideal and have remained very committed to it for the most part.Having a vision and a core set of beliefs matters.

      1. jason wright

        Spot on. Unfortunately such companies seem to be few and far between.

        1. awaldstein

          There are way more than you think especially in the massive new e-commerce movement in the fashion sector. So many great small companies.And my friend the way to win is to celebrate the examples of those that do it right as you did.Thanks for this, I”ll post on it.

    3. Chimpwithcans

      Wow what a rad company. No watering down of the message!

  6. Adam Sher

    I signed up on my phone. I almost did. The part where you select your birthday requires you to scroll through every month starting from November 2016. I am 31, which means there are a lot of months between my birth date and now. Not a good way to verify age.

  7. Joe Lazarus

    Out of curiosity, who uses Kik the most? I know they have a lot of users. Are the primarily international, teens, some other group?

    1. creative group

      Joe Lazarus:resist breathing in the smoke.The youth and underground community who uses Craigslist and Backpage, etc use Kik to establish contact.The very vested interest in companies is a motivating factor in even having this post. Stop it people. Soccer moms, adults, etc use other messaging offerings.This gets so disingenuous.(Straight talk and truth offends. Living in lies will get liars elected POTUS)

      1. fredwilson

        yup. teens are the big user base.

      2. jason wright

        See John Pilger interviewing Julian Assange for the great lie that was Hillary Clinton (YouTube).

        1. creative group

          jason wright:we viewed the YouTube interview of the alleged rapist. And we are in agreement with many of the alleged rapist points regarding HRC. ————–“Trump and Clinton supporters were both looking for a leader to save them and the country. It’s time we matured beyond the desire for saviors and started building a progressive politics in which people unite to save themselves from an oligarchy that is not working.”-Peter Bloom, Truthout:—————-#UnequivocallyUnapologeticallyIndependent (Misnomer using a hash when we don’t have a twitter account)#Termlimits (US Senators 2 terms, US Representatives 4 terms limit)

    2. JamesHRH

      “Speak into the ear horn sonny”. Teens love it b/c it was the first platform that did not require a mobile service provider: worked on Wifi and all phones, which people with no $$$ sucked up like crazy.

  8. jason wright

    Blunt question.How does Kik make money?

  9. creative group

    CONTRIBUTORS:Founder and CEO Jon Brod of Confide messaging app messages self-destruct after it is read.https://techcrunch.com/2015

  10. creative group

    CONTRIBUTORS:A brief list of the encrypted and messaging apps that provide privacy.Viber. …LINE. …Telegram. …KakaoTalk. …Signal – Private Messenger. …Cyber Dust. …ChatSecure.Confide?

  11. creative group

    CONTRIBUTORS:Two of the 21 Presidential Medal of Freedom 2016 recipients.Well deserved. America’s royalty comes in many different ways.Good choice POTUS. Will be a hard act to follow regarding character, poise and demeanor. https://uploads.disquscdn.c

    1. Chimpwithcans

      Hi creative, who is the guy on the left (I’m not American, and everyone knows the Boss 🙂 )

  12. big bang reviews

    I like to use your famous messaging apps KIK. Through I have no clear idea of it but its work efficiency is so well and I hope its new update is also be good.