Beluga has been attacked.

We made a lot of introductions to Kik before. This new communication application, which is rapidly becoming popular because of its simplicity and ease of use, has sparked a domestic imitation frenzy and even the fear of RIM.

In addition to some of the domestic kik of its own characteristics have a choice, but also added some extension features, such as group chat and image support. These are also the new features that Kik included in the next update, which should be their response to Twitter, "Big update." In fact, before kik out of this step, foreign countries have emerged such as GROUPME, Beluga and Yobongo such as the special Group message service.

Because GROUPME is still only support the U.S. region Mobile number user registration, Yobongo as a real name and mobile phone number registered local group chat software, the same has not yet supported the domestic city, so I focused on a try Beluga this has been Facebook Acquisition of group communications services software.

Currently, Beluga supports IOS, Android, and then a Blackberry platform. But Beluga is a truly cross-platform application. Do you use the Symbian platform's mobile phone? or even mobile devices? No, Beluga can also support direct browser access. For example, we hold a netbook, nest in the quilt can also log in Beluga and outside the use of mobile phone friends for easy communication, this is a real cross-platform application.

Registration Beluga is slightly cumbersome, you need to fill in the name, email address, mobile phone number of the basic information. The Beluga main interface has only two options, except that the setting is to start a new conversation or group (POD). The concept of pod is interesting, the official explanation is the circle of friends (private groups of friends), but you can also consider it as a matter of communication with a group of friends, where the software can define the time and place of the pod.

After launching a pod, the friends in pod can easily communicate (group chat), Exchange pictures, and view the geographical location shared by friends. If you like to communicate with a friend alone, just add a Pod to chat with him alone, and use Beluga, the exchange of friends and the individual communication is no different, the number of people.

In our test, even the Edge of the network environment speed is very fast, push is also very timely.

In addition, Beluga is not only an online service, it and the integration of mobile phone text is also quite good, according to Beluga, if you use Beluga sent to not use the Software friend information, the other side will receive text messages, and can be directly involved in the dialogue through the text, unfortunately, Beluga This feature does not support domestic mobile phone numbers.

If you want to generalize Beluga this software, SNS + Path + LBS + Group SMS may be the most appropriate description.

Group Chat is the core of Beluga. In fact, group chat is not a new thing, we in QQ such software has long been playing the hot group. However, SNS as the core of the Beluga no longer have the concept of online offline, but through the Push of the way to keep in sync with the chat forever. Beluga is not a contact but a group core, and contacts are only visible in each Pods. You can leave a Pods at any time or accept an invitation to join a Pods at any time. Pop phrase: participate, or not participate, the group is there, not invisible.

And because Beluga to chat as the core, you can not see in the main interface how many so-called friends, so in a way it is like we have introduced the Path of anti-social. The use of Beluga will not encounter the social noise on Weibo, such a service is more suitable for people familiar with their exchanges, two of Pods like private text messages, students Pods like alumni, the team Pods like a meeting room.

In contrast to Kik, Beluga lacks a "read" message status hint. Perhaps because of the group chat, read unread processing is not so simple, in the future Kik to join the group chat how to process the message status tag is also worth paying attention to. Without all the contact list this approach, for our accustomed to traditional instant messaging users, always feel a bit uncomfortable. Moreover, in any Pods, strangers are unable to join. Beluga can be sent directly to any ID, which means that as long as others know your Beluga account, you can send unlimited messages, which may cause information harassment, especially can send pictures directly, of course, Kik also exists in this problem.

Based on SNS, there are many value-added services that can be mined. After the copycat frenzy triggered by Twitter, Foursquare, Instagram and Kik, the next hot spot may be the SNS Group message service represented by Beluga. Facebook, after acquiring Beluga and teaming up with Skype, has also completed a preliminary super consolidation within Facebook, the big platform. In the future, all of the Facebook users will be able to complete the communication needs of SMS, group chat, voice chat and video chat within the platform. The aircraft carrier is increasingly untouchable.