Truecaller, a service that started as an app to protect against spam calls and spam messages, has now released a messaging app.
The app will be available on both iOS and Android platforms. Android users have an edge over their iOS rivals as they can test the app in its beta state right now.
Truecaller is already expanding its services into other areas. It recently launched a payment service, to make one to one payments easier. This move happened after it bought startup Chillr in June. Truecaller’s largest userbase belongs to India.
The Swedish tech company is making plans to enable third-party payment services to integrate into the app as well. So naturally, the next logical step was to add a chat feature.
This can be a really useful feature for Android users. The app should work similarly to Apple’s iMessage. Messages between Truecaller users will be free whereas messages between Truecaller and a nonuser will be sent as SMS.
Truecaller is looking to compete with Whatsapp in India by combating the issue of fake news. In India, several false reports and sensationalized headlines spread via Whatsapp. This creates a lot of social issues for the country.
Truecaller plans to combat fake news by relying on their userbase to closely check the authenticity of the source and report it immediately. The company also wants to utilize AI and machine learning to combat this menace.
There is, however, a major flaw in the service. Currently, spam messages and spam calls are identified by users. This is called community reporting which is a technique used by Whatsapp and Facebook as well.
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Since this is a human-based process, there is a possibility for false flags and the right information being passed out as being wrong. Moreover, if Truecaller goes truly viral, its user-base would increase exponentially.
This will further increase the chances of reporting errors.
60 percent of Truecaller’s users are from India. It remains to be seen how many of these are active. Even though the anti-spam company boasts a daily use of 100 million users, it is far behind Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger.
The fact that the company is way behind its competition, doesn’t seem to affect it. Even though the messaging app is available for the whole world to use, India will be impacted the most.
Over the last decade, India has become a hub of technology. Many major tech companies such as Google and Facebook want to make specific content and services for the south-Asian country.
There’s a lot of potential in this country because of how populated the country is. With its chat functionality, Truecaller will hope to make full use of this potential before it integrates the platform with third-party users.
This might happen sooner than our expectations.
Fazeel Ashraf
