branfont Posted April 22, 2023 Share Posted April 22, 2023 Eric Migicovsky likes to tinker. And the former CEO of Pebble — he's now a partner at Y Combinator — knows a thing or two about messaging. "You remember on the Pebble," he asked me, "how we had this microphone, and on Android you could reply to all kinds of messages?" Migicovsky liked that feature, and he especially liked that it didn't care which app you used. Android-using Pebble wearers could speak their replies to texts, Messenger chats, almost any notification that popped up. That kind of universal, non-siloed approach to messaging appealed to Migicovsky, and it didn't really exist anywhere else. "Remember Trillian from back in the day?" he asked, somewhat wistfully. "Or Adium?" They were the gold-standard of universal messaging apps; users could log in to their AIM, MSN, GChat and Yahoo accounts, and chat with everyone in one place. Migicovsky has spent the last two years building a modern equivalent. It's called Beeper, and it pulls 15 different messaging services — including WhatsApp, Slack, Instagram and iMessage — into a single app. The app launched this week, and will cost $10 a month for anyone who wants to use it. Migicovsky said roughly 40 people have been using the app for the last few months, and that he's come to rely on it completely. "Beeper went down for me a couple of weeks ago, and I had to fix it," he said. "And for the hours I was fixing it, I had to open up Slack, Telegram, Signal, everything. It was like going back to the Stone Ages." To explain how Beeper works, and why Migicovsky thinks it's valuable, you have to understand the protocols. In the early days of online messaging (otherwise known as The Adium Era), many messaging services were based on a protocol called Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, or XMPP. When it was designed, XMPP intended to make all kinds of communication on the internet, from text to video to file transfers, into decentralized systems. For a while, it worked: From AIM to Google Talk to the early days of Facebook Chat, some of the biggest messaging services used XMPP. https://www.protocol.com/beeper-messaging-app Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1428276-beeper-built-the-universal-messaging-app-the-world-needed/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
xrobwx71 Posted April 22, 2023 Share Posted April 22, 2023 I'm on the waitlist. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1428276-beeper-built-the-universal-messaging-app-the-world-needed/#findComment-598814794 Share on other sites More sharing options...
spaceelf Posted April 23, 2023 Share Posted April 23, 2023 Sounds nice. But not $10 a month nice. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1428276-beeper-built-the-universal-messaging-app-the-world-needed/#findComment-598814862 Share on other sites More sharing options...
_-Psycho-_ Posted April 23, 2023 Share Posted April 23, 2023 Sounds great, but no way in hell I'm paying 10 bucks a month for this. Maybe 1$. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1428276-beeper-built-the-universal-messaging-app-the-world-needed/#findComment-598814878 Share on other sites More sharing options...
branfont Posted April 23, 2023 Author Share Posted April 23, 2023 On 23/04/2023 at 07:06, the shadows said: Sounds nice. But not $10 a month nice. Hopefully they eventually figure out that no one wants to pay for a messaging app. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1428276-beeper-built-the-universal-messaging-app-the-world-needed/#findComment-598814879 Share on other sites More sharing options...
spaceelf Posted April 23, 2023 Share Posted April 23, 2023 On 23/04/2023 at 11:27, branfont said: Hopefully they eventually figure out that no one wants to pay for a messaging app. Hey I wouldn't really mind paying, it's got functionality noone else has right now. But for me I'm mostly down to Discord and RCS and that'll do. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1428276-beeper-built-the-universal-messaging-app-the-world-needed/#findComment-598814884 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe User Posted April 24, 2023 Share Posted April 24, 2023 Will this one get sold overnight like Pebble was? Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1428276-beeper-built-the-universal-messaging-app-the-world-needed/#findComment-598815080 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now