Amazon May Unveil Its Own Messaging App (engadget.com)

The messaging app field is as hot as ever with Apple, Facebook and Google (among others) slugging it out... and Amazon appears to want in on the action. From a report: AFTVnews claims to have customer survey info revealing that Amazon is working on Anytime, a messaging app for Android, iOS and the desktop that promises a few twists on the usual formula. It has mainstays like message encryption, video, voice and (of course) stickers, but it reportedly has a few hooks that would make it easy to sign up and participate in group chats. You would only need a name to reach out to someone, for one thing -- no WhatsApp-style dependence on phone numbers here. You only have to use Twitter-style @ mentions to bring people into conversations or share photos, and you can color-code chats to identify the most important ones. Naturally, there are app-like functions (such as group music listening and food ordering) and promises of chatting with businesses for shopping or customer service.

Comments

And in a year ...

[John Jorsett]

will we be hearing that Amazon is going to be selling our names and chat contents to third parties for advertising purposes?

Re:Let's hope it's not the no-Linux AppData bomb

[stealth_finger]

If there's no Linux version

Of course there will no no linux version. Not nearly enough people to advertise to and the ones that there are will say 'fuck this shit'

Please don't

[slashdice]

Amazon's consumer facing software is awful. I assume they outsource it to the cheapest Indian body shop they can find.