As you may already know, in today's world, communication is very key to survival and staying relevant. Even in relationships, especially in relationships, and that applies to the Tech World too. More and more apps are adding features like messaging to keep their users locked in for longer and wanting more. Apps like Flipagram - an app that lets you merge pictures and video snippets with music to create your own beautiful stories - have added a direct messaging feature to make your creations more fun and interactive. It allows you to send your Flips through to specific friends or group of friends without leaving the app. Whew! Finally! It's something that used to be an "ish", where you had to leave the Flipagram app in order to send Flips to people directly. Not anymore! The DM (direct messaging) feature now has a prominent place directly to the right of the + at the bottom of the screen that you press to create a new Flip. It replaced the music button which now appears in the explore section. You find friends to message by following them and them following you back in the app. The messaging interface will appear on a different screen where you can exchange messages as well as Flips with friends. The app has over 40 million registered users and has consistently hovered in the top 10 photo and video apps in the key US Market. Messaging is in many ways the killer app on mobile at the moment with apps like WhatsApp and Messenger (both owned by Facebook) now used by billions of consumers. Just so you know, Farhad Mohit is the co-founder and CEO of Flipagram. The company has been around since 2013. I'm pretty sure some people still don't know about Flipagram and what it does... (look who's talking, *me* I only got to know about it in 2015). Well, it helps you stitch photos and video pieces into a slideshow that can be shared on internet platforms like Facebook or Twitter or Instagram... (like I haven't said that already) which brings us to another interesting feature to come to Flipagram, or more like a transition of the app from an editing app to a social network. A really bold step right? It says it wants to keep those precious moments inside its own app so that users will follow and like and share them with one another inside Flipagram just like it's done on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. Although the usual progression is from starting with the network to adding tools, Flipagram seems to be transitioning from a tool app to a social company. Mohit when asked in an interview about this reverse-order of progression had this to say (this has been edited for clarity and size) "The question you have to ask yourself as a starting company is how are you going to get a lot of users interested in your product? The answer for us and for some others was to make it as simple as possible with enough utility" he said "I actually think there are a lot of examples of folks that started out as a utility or tool and then kind of expanded that out into more of a network. Instagram is a good example of one of such. It really just started out making your photos prettier for Facebook" Mohit founded and sold Shopzilla and Bizrate for over $500 million as far back as 10 years ago. An enterprenuer Indeed! Despite the fact that lots of people still do not use or know what Flipagram is all about, it's really here to stay. What's not to love about this company. With Direct Messaging feature and the app's supposed transition into a social network platform, I say these guys are not thinking of bowing out anytime soon. And neither are we. One more reason why we love Life In A Jet Age. Happy Flipagramming! Adios!!!
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