The Third Web

Today we hear from Ted Livingston, who founded Kik interactive in 2009 to address the problem of chat between blackberry, android and iPhone. Since then their chat app, Kik, has exploded in popularity, experiencing use by up to 40% of US teenagers. In 2015 Tencent, the builder of Chinese chat giant Wechat, purchased a 5% stake in the company at a Billion dollar valuation. A move that some are saying has anointed Kik as the Wechat of the west. It’s interesting to see the youth focus with One Direction leading their award winning marketing campaign of 2014 . Kik is a somewhat anonymous platform, with it’s own economy in which stickers are traded and users can be charged for access to certain chat rooms. By launching the Kik in-app currency, Kin, as a cryptocurrency, Kik interactive aims to enable the Kik micro-economy to grow independently and organically. The Token launch ended recently with nearly one hundred million USD equivalent raised. No surprises there. What is interesting is that registered contributor