They fell in love, built a video messenger, and lived ‘appily’ ever after Meera Innes grew up in Japan. Born to an Indian mother and a British father. While working in London, she fell in love with Adam Baker, a serial entrepreneur. Both of them travelled frequently and often found themselves in different continents. They longed for a personal way to see each other as well as their other loved ones. There were several communication apps, from WhatsApp to Skype and Hike, to choose from. But both Innes and Baker wanted something more personal, private, and engaging. That got them thinking about video-sharing, and led them to build Reel. “Sometimes the nicest way of staying in touch is to record a visual message to say ‘I’m thinking of you’. Last week, my cousin in San Francisco had a baby, and my uncle, visiting her from India, sent me a video of the baby – by email. This was heavy at both ends and not the easiest way to share video. Instances like this are precisely why we’ve built Reel, so that we can promote the use of video as an instant messenger – the next iteration of messaging,” Innes tells Tech in Asia. Developed with Indian users in mind, Reel uses little data, takes up no storage on the mobile device, and can be used on a 2G network. Users can record a video message of up to 20 seconds in duration using their phone camera, review it, and send it to people in their phone book. The sender can choose how many times the message can be seen on a loop. The message is not saved on the sender’s side and deletes automatically from the recipient’s inbox immediately after the video has been played. The instant video messenger for Android devices verifies users with their mobile phone number, and based on the user’s preference while installing the app, gets access to their phone contacts. The users are able to check who among their contacts are already using Reel, and also invite others. These elements differentiate Reel Messenger from other video-messaging apps like Skype’s Qik. “Reel Messenger is like WhatsApp, but for video,” says Innes. Made for India Reel is a ‘made for India’ product, which is not surprising. After all, India is the world’s fastest growing smartphone market. Thanks to the influx of low cost devices, more and more Indians are swapping their brick phones for smartphones. According to a study by InMobi, messaging is the second most popular activity among Indian smartphone users, after social networking: 46 percent of mobile users are on messaging apps regularly, compared to 28 percent who play games and 22 percent who access shopping apps. But mobile internet in India is a lot slower. The average achieved download speed of a mobile internet connection in India is 1.1 Mbit/s while it is 16.7 Mbit/s in Singapore. Innes says they took these regional problems into consideration while creating Reel. We focused especially on compression to make videos as light as possible without compromising on speed or quality. Videos on Reel are no bigger than two text messages. The app itself is also very light and doesn’t take up much space on a phone. As videos are not stored, unlike photos/text on most apps, it uses no device space. Both considerations are important to us to ensure that people are not prevented from using the app; we want the app to appeal to users of all age groups, demographics, and backgrounds, from college students to older users who are less tech-savvy. Reel also has some measures in place to prevent harassment. It verifies new users by their phone numbers. Plus, users cannot contact people whose phone numbers they don’t have. That is, if you know someone only by their name, you cannot find them on Reel. Once messages are viewed, they delete automatically, preventing misuse. “In the event of harassment, we exercise a zero-tolerance policy. Users can block and report the harasser, who will be blacklisted from the app. We also enable users to send videos to friends in their phonebook who are not yet using Reel. They will be notified via SMS. If the recipient wishes to view the video, they can install the app and go through the signup verification process,” Innes explains. The Reel team, except for Baker, is based in Bangalore. Innes divides her time between London and Bangalore. Teething troubles and #BoycottAirtel campaign Initially, like most other startups, Reel had a few teething troubles. One reason is that it took off almost as soon as it was launched. It had already got over 1,000 users when the team found a bug. They had to act quickly to fix it. “One of the biggest issues we faced came from a third party provider we work with, which made it harder to resolve for our users, but that’s behind us now,” Innes recalls. Last week, Indian telecom major Airtel announced a new plan to charge customers for data usage on instant messaging and VoIP apps like Skype, Viber, Whatsapp, and Line. The new tariff plan will charge customers on the number of minutes used on VoIP services, rather than the current system of charging by the amount of data used. This will make it more expensive for consumers who use messaging apps to make calls. This move immediately drew fire from consumers in India, forcing Airtel to temporarily withdraw the plan. Innes does not view the move as a threat. On the contrary, she welcomes it. Telcos like Airtel, she says, are “completely within their right to prohibit certain apps from functioning through their network. Reel Messenger doesn’t conflict with operators at all, as it does not offer or replace calls. In fact, services like Reel Messenger are perfect partners for companies like Airtel.” She has a point. After all, Reel is built for light usage, unlike the data-consuming Skype calls. The majority of Reel users are youngsters. “The very nature of quick, fun video messages resonates with a younger audience,” Innes feels. She is planning to launch a group feature where users can have conversations with all of their friends and family together. See: Hike gets fresh $65M funding to take on WhatsApp in India This post They fell in love, built a video messenger, and lived ‘appily’ ever after appeared first on Tech in Asia.
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 05:34:42 +0000
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