WeChat – The Funkiest Messaging App Ever!
Over the last few months we’ve tried out a bunch of different third-party messaging services including Viber, Line, Kik, and What’s App. Most of them offer the same things: free messaging over 3G/WiFi and several additional gimmicky features. Upon prodding of Yuga’s latest post though we decided to try out a new messaging app called WeChat. We weren’t really expecting much but it turns out it’s one of the most intuitive, fun, and feature-packed messaging apps out there! Read on for a quick overview.
- 3G/Internet Messaging Service
- Group Chat (Up to 50 people)
- Social and Local Features
- Free Download
- Animated and Static Emoticons
- Available on BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows Phone, iOS, and Android
Ridiculously Cute Emoticons
WeChat is pre-loaded with a lot of funky animated emoticons that makes messaging more expressive and fun. In fact the emoticons are so cute you’ll end up sending messages more, hehe. It’s perfect for communication with close friends and loved ones. Other than the animated emoticons there are also a lot of static built-in images that you can send ranging from smileys, hand-signs, to even ninja penguins.
By the way, you can easily download and use other emoticons you find on the web and send them to your contacts as well. There’s an option for that on the app.
Walkie-Talkie!
A surprisingly cool feature is their voice chat. You can hold down a button and say stuff and the app will record, compress, and then send it to the person you’re chatting with. When they get the message they just have to press the icon and it will play the audio recording. While initially it may sound a little too funky it actually has its uses especially when you’re busy doing stuff and you don’t have time to type out long text messages.
Multimedia Messages
Other than the audio recordings, emoticons, and messaging, WeChat also lets you send photos, videos, and even maps. For pictures and videos you can get from your camera roll and albums. Just be very careful with what you send though, especially to your partners (lol).
Seriously… don’t send compromising photos of yourselves. There’s no such thing as privacy online these days.
Adding friends is easy
When you install WeChat it will ask you to connect your contacts to the app. Doing this will automatically show you who among your friends are already using the service. Adding them should be easy afterwards. You can also connect your Facebook. To invite friends to join just press the “invite” button next to the name of the contact and they’ll get a message asking them to download the app.
We were actually surprised to see that we had quite a number of friends already on the service. Looks like WeChat has been slowly gaining popularity in the last few months. Hopefully this blog post will push more users to try it out, hehe (don’t forget to add me on your lists).
Group Chat Support
I haven’t tried this particular feature yet but it should be able to accommodate up to 50 people per group. Using my boss powers (lol) I’ll ask my team to install it when work resumes next week and see if it’s something we can actually use for work. If not then it should be good enough for the barkada. 🙂
Download WeChat folks. It’s free.
So… what are you waiting for? Hehe. Hit up your app store of choice and download WeChat. Just go to the search feature and key in “WeChat”. Again this is available for Symbian, BlackBerry, iOS, Windows Phone, and Android.
