There is a lot going well for Amazon beyond being the world leader in ecommerce space. It has been foraying into several other sectors like an on-demand video player with Amazon Prime, home speaker with Echo. It even went offline with retail and book stores.
After tasting success in these sectors, it is now reportedly looking at venturing into the messaging space to take on WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger with a new app called Anytime.
According to a report in Financial Express, the app could be launched soon and Amazon has already started to survey customers on what features they would like in the new messaging app.
FE reports that other media reports claimed that Amazon will come up with a range of features like video and voice chat, play games with friends, put filters over photos within the app and more.
However, unlike its other business extensions, a messaging app could be a tough nut to crack. Facebook-owned WhatsApp has penetrated the market immensely and has become the default messaging app for majority of the world.
Google’s launch of Allo, its messaging service also failed to make much of an impact. There were a few others like Hike in India, which managed to garner some, but is still nothing compared to WhatsApp.
While there is still no information on when Amazon will officially announce ‘Anytime’ or make it publicly available, Amazon could integrate some of its existing features like its AI-based assistant, Prime video and maybe even Amazon Pay to make its app standout.
Some leaks have suggested that users will not need to give their mobile phone numbers attached to their Amazon account. The report says that you will be able to directly use the chat service using your friend’s name. This feature may give Amazon an edge over other messengers given that WhatsApp and Facebook both need a mobile number to log in to the app.
A few leaks suggest that unlike WhatsApp, which claims to have made its platform safe through the end-to-end encryption feature, Amazon may let users use the feature only for a few important and safe messages like bank account details. Users can pick which messages they want to keep face.
Anytime could also reportedly allow users to share music on their app and provide new ways to hang out on the app. This could also mean that it may eventually let users watch videos from its Prime Video service on the app together.
That could certainly give it an edge over the other messaging services and even help boost Amazon Prime Video.
Image: William Hook via Flickr