RIM shuts out red-hot mobile chat application Kik -- without explanation

RIM shuts out red-hot mobile chat application Kik — without explanation

November 15, 2010 7:25 AM
Matt Marshall

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Kik, the hot mobile chat application we wrote about two weeks ago that was seeing explosive growth, has been pulled from the Blackberry app market App World.

RIM, the maker of Blackberry phones, told Kik on Friday afternoon that no new downloads could be made of the app, citing concerns that it “could not elaborate on at the time.” Kik has now been closed for new registrants on Blackberry devices all weekend. The application continues to be available in Apple’s App Store and the Android app market for iPhone and Android device users.

So Kik is being left completely in the dark for now, creating serious uncertainty for the app that was seeing unprecedented growth.

Kik’s chat service is notable for its blazing speed, and intuitive interface. It’s seen a quicker initial uptake than other chat services, such as WhatsApp and PingChat, that also let you message across platforms (iPhone, Android and RIM). Kik says it has hit 2.25 million registered users — an impressive count for an app that has been up all of three weeks. It’s not clear how many of those will remain active, but Kik says about 1 million users have sent a message in the last 48 hours. Until Friday, the users were about evenly distributed across all three platforms.

You’d think that RIM would want to support a service that provides a great chat experience on the Blackberry, so it’s not clear why the company has taken this action. One explanation could be that RIM fears Kik could overtake RIM’s own messaging service, Blackberry Messenger. But such fears wouldn’t make much sense, because RIM doesn’t lose any revenue if users adopt Kik.

RIM has not responded to a request for comment. Ted Livingston, founder of Kik, said RIM hasn’t responded to his requests for timelines for when the issue will be cleared up.

True, Kik has drawn scrutiny for the aggressive way it has pulled contacts into users’ address books, with some people saying it violates Apple’s iOS Developer Terms of Service, because it imports contacts without asking for permission. However, Livingston created a fix for this last week, which he is pushing out today in an update for the iPhone and Android apps. The fix allows users to opt out of the contact-import feature. He’d planned to push the fix to RIM too, but RIM won’t let him. Also, competitor WhatsApp in fact appears to pull a copy of a user’s contacts onto its own servers — making it even more aggressive than Kik on that measure — and yet RIM hasn’t pulled WhatsApp [Update: Actually, there's some disinformation out there about WhatsApp. The company says its application lets users contact you if they know your phone number, and that your phone number is transmitted via SSL for detection of other WhatsApp contacts, "but they are never stored"]. So it doesn’t appear that privacy concerns are behind RIM’s move. Also, Kik has updated the app so that it is not as much of a drain on battery life as some competitors, so Livingston says this issue has also been taken out of the equation.

Another upstart steamrolled by the big guys? Stay tuned to see how this unfolds.

Update: As pointed out in comments below, another reason for RIM’s action could be that Kik’s traffic has overburdened RIM’s network. That would be embarrassing enough for RIM not to want to comment. But not saying anything may be worse, because it comes across as developer unfriendly, as the other comments below suggest.

http://www.slideaway.ca/ jamEs harris

That whole article and you didn't even hit on the probably reason RIM shuttered them. If you followed @kik on Twitter you'd know the BB push service was going down multiple times a day trying to cope with the load Kik was putting on the BB network. I'm sure RIM spent lots of time and money supporting Kik and finally said that's enough. I am not shocked in the slightest that this happened.
http://twitter.com/jayinatlanta J. Ian Irby

“So Kik is being left completely in the dark [regarding why RIM is blocking it] for now, creating serious uncertainty for the app that was seeing unprecedented growth.” – MM
I would paint this more as uncertainty for RIM's devices themselves. This lack of transparency about blocking a “next big thing” application is likely to only hurt the future sale of Blackberrys, rather than affecting the exponential growth of Kik. Think of all the folks whose wireless contracts are expiring who are excited about Kik, but learns it won't be available on the Blackberry they'd choose. It's available on most other platforms, so why not change devices?
http://twitter.com/mfg68 Matt Galo

Very interesting read. Hopefully RIM opens up downloads again, soon.
Matt Marshall

James, fair enough. That could be the reason, because it's embarrassing enough for RIM not to want to comment about. RIM had offered unlimited service to Kik. Not sure why Kik's load of a few million messages should overload the service of corporate America's biggest mobile provider. And if it did, well, that may be something to hide?
http://twitter.com/logicalmoron Matt Lynley

A majority of the reaction I've seen from friends is that Kik's basically a really good version of BlackBerry messenger… that doesn't require you to be tied to BlackBerry OS. Knowing David, I can't imagine that there weren't some ulterior motives outside of traffic and bandwidth issues.
http://twitter.com/cerocero7 cerocero7

What about the spam they where doing? Stealing your contacts and then spamming your contacts asking them to add the app! Real abuse of trust, Sneaky bastards!
Jamie

“But such fears wouldn’t make much sense, because RIM doesn’t lose any revenue if users adopt Kik.”Not directly, but BBM has single handedly developed a loyal user base for RIM in the consumer space. Without BBM, many BB users (in the consumer space) would be quite willing to switch to other smartphone platforms. Kik represents a threat to that lock-in because it is cross platform. While this may suck for Kik users, it's a smart move by RIM.
fieldforceapp

Trying to find the equivalent RIM Blackberry Developer Terms of Service, I believe this is the governing agreement: http://us.blackberry.com/legal/bbaw_vendor.jsp and if so, I wonder if section 8.2 actually opens up RIM to some legal claim by kik users? The money quote, “…Nothing in this Agreement shall restrict Vendor from using for Vendor’s lawful business purposes (in compliance with Vendor’s privacy policy) any data provided to Vendor directly by an End User in connection with that End User’s registration or use of an Application, provided that in all events Vendor complies with all applicable privacy legislation.”Is RIM rethinking this clause?
http://twitter.com/STPBud Bud Kleppe

BlackBerry blocked kik for one reason only. If BlackBerry users see how awesome kik is, and enough of their friends are on it, there is no reason for them to stay with RIM.I've been an avid Blackberry user since the 8100 dropped. Currently on my 5th and last BB, the 9700. Android, here I come!
http://gigaom.com/2010/11/23/rim-pulls-the-plug-on-messaging-upstart-kik/ RIM Pulls the Plug on Messaging Upstart Kik: Tech News «

[...] was first pulled from BlackBerry App World on Nov. 12 with little explanation provided. The concern grew that Kik was targeted for its privacy policy or [...]