Many of us spend more hours connected to WhatsApp than any other Internet service. But Telegram, which already has 800 million users around the world, has been eating away at part of that usage time.
The evolution of Telegram has been much superior to that of WhatsApp. Especially in one aspect: there are countries where its use is widespread and has become an alternative to social networks.
We see it, for example, in conflicts like the one in Ukraine. Where the citizens of this country and Russia, where Telegram was created, are largely informed about the state of the war through this application and not through social networks.
This is due to the great orientation that Telegram has had to create enormous communication channels and user groups. It can be said that WhatsApp is more specialized in communication between users or through small groups, but Telegram has been more oriented towards what is called point-to-mass communication.
These groups are an alternative to Facebook groups. And WhatsApp is increasingly moving towards that, precisely because it is one of its main weaknesses. A few days ago, for example, an important function was revealed: events can be created in groups or information channels.
The usefulness of this is that it is much easier to plan appointments or any type of activity that way. When we sign up for these events we will receive our own updates. Which also has the advantage of facilitating information in a group.
Whoever signs up for an event will receive information about it, which prevents us from having to read numerous messages on the subject. Events can also be created between two people to plan something. The operation is actually identical to that of Facebook events, but taking the experience to a messaging network.
In fact, here WhatsApp takes the lead over Telegram. Well, the second most popular messaging app in the world does not have a similar function. In order to use something similar, it is necessary to create events in a service external to Telegram.
Meta has also begun to implement its own AI in WhatsApp in some countries. Something that will mean that we have to leave the messaging application less and less to consult information.
In fact, the deployment of Meta AI will also eliminate part of Google searches, since searches are carried out in Microsoft’s Bing search engine. A year ago Meta also introduced in WhatsApp the ability to send two GB files using the document sharing function.
Another clear approach to Telegram that was also aimed at making us use cloud services, such as Dropbox, less. Paradoxically, part of WhatsApp’s competition is at home.
Many Instagram users are increasingly using other messaging services less and less, especially young people. And curiously it does not seem that Meta is interested in expanding the messaging functions of this social network. In fact, it has barely evolved since it was released despite its popularity.
Meta is betting everything on the development of WhatsApp, the most powerful service in its entire ecosystem. So it’s no surprise that their social media messaging services are taking a backseat.
