“We’re
open minded and we think about how to build the best experience. If [there are]
teams that help us to do that and accelerate that, we’re always interested. We
see a lot of people building on chat [and] a lot of ways to partner with them.”
Head of strategy and
partners, Jae Kim in an interview with Techcrunch about the purchase of Blynk
The
Kik Messenger App is bringing on the Robots.
On
Monday December 21st 2015, Canadian company Kik Interactive Inc.
purchased Blynk, a fashion App as
reported in the article “Kik
Messenger Buys Fashion App Blynk to Build More Chat Bots”, published
December 21, 2015 By Kurt Wagner, Recode.
The
staff of four that runs Blynk will
now become a part of Kik as reported on the Kik Blog in a post entitled “Fashion
advice startup Blynk is joining Kik!”.
Kik
most likely plans to use Blynk Style to chat with customers via the Kik
Messenger, now 150 million users strong as reported in my blog article
entitled “150
million users @Kik Messenger with Promoted Keywords and better Photo Sharing –
Teenagers say Kik me Please with Love from the Canadian with the Golden Gun”.
Blink
will help them to build better text-based semiautonomous program or chatbots
like Blynk Style to assist teenagers with make decisions about music and
fashion as explained in the article “Kik
Invests In Its Platform, Buys Fashion Startup Behind Popular Kik Bot”,
published December 21, 2015 by Jon Russell, Techcrunch.
Kik buys Blynk - Why
chatbots are the future of music and shopping
Blynk was founded in 2013 by Jaclyn Ling
and Shums Kassam.
The
App uses a Tinder-like swipe interface with a visual Q&A voting system
within the Kik Messenger to help users chose from various outfits show to them
as explained in the article “Messaging
company Kik acquires fashion App Blynk”, Published Monday, Dec. 21, 2015 by
Shane Dingman, The Globe and Mail.
Swiping
left means you dislike the outfit and swiping right to give it some love is how
Blynk Style works, narrowing down
you preferences. Gradually, as Blynk Style gets to know your style, it shows
you fewer and fewer things that you like and more of what you prefer.
Blynk's business plan was to make money
from commission fees from retailers on any purchase of clothing, a sort of like
affiliate or referral links but based on sales as explained in my MICO Wars blog article
entitled “How
Jamaicans can make Money from Referral Websites”.
Despite
the failure of this business model, they amassed an amazing three to five
million swipes a month on its iOS and Android apps even though less than 10,000
persons had downloaded Blynk Style. This attracted the attention of Kik who
want to use Blynk tech to create an
army of these chatbots similar to the Facebook Messenger chatbot but
specialized to assist customer making purchases in one specific area.
Expect
Blynk bots to start sprouting up
like poppies inside of your Kik Messenger to assist you with everything from
music, fashion and even telling you what the future holds for you!
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