Kik: Blowing Up Virally

If you follow social media then you may have been around yesterday to watch the newest trend take off with record numbers.  Kik Messenger is an SMS application that was developed specifically for smartphones (iPhone, BlackBerry and Andriod devices) and is asynchronous, meaning it lets you see messages right away. It’s very simliar to an instant message conversation, where you can see when the person you are chatting with is typing.   Also, like the popular BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) you can see when the message has been read by the recipient.

According to the Kik website the company states that “by Monday evening, we hit a peak of 3 new users a second, with no sign of a let-up.”  Only 14 days after the launch the amount of users quickly surpassed 700,000 and is growing exponentially.  The most remarkable part of this new app is the potential for expansion in the future, because of the streaming capabilities,  users may soon be able to share live video and music from their phone with their friends.

On a more personal level, our team was up all last night monitoring our own smartphones while in complete awe. Our phones were going off every minute with a new notification that “You may know [insert friend's name].  To start chatting with [friend], just type a message!”  Let’s just say by the time we went to sleep, we had to turn the notifications off just to get some peace and quite.  So, if you’re a smartphone user and want to start Kikin’ it with your pals, get the app and chat away!

Kik is available for free download in the Android Market, iPhone App Store and Blackberry App World.