Technology
The Evolution of Instant Messaging
The concept of instant messaging crossed into the mainstream in the 1990s, allowing friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and like-minded thinkers from all over the world to connect in real-time.
Since then, instant messaging has revolutionized how we communicate, and today over 2.5 billion people are signed up for at least one messaging app. The present IM experience is seamless, and it intuitively integrates features like video, photos, voice, e-commerce, and gaming with plain-old messaging.
However, despite the impressive features of dominant apps like Snapchat, Facebook Messenger, and Whatsapp, today’s technology would simply not be possible without the earlier breakthroughs of their more rudimentary predecessors.
Instant Messaging: Past, Present, and Future
The following infographic from Hello Pal, a messaging app allowing for instant translation, shows the evolution of instant messaging. It pays homage to the advancements made in the early days by apps such as ICQ or AIM, while also looking at the trends in IM that will surface in the coming years.
While messaging is commonplace today, it was only two decades ago that chatting with friends and strangers online was a revolutionary concept.
The History of Instant Messaging
1961 – MIT’s Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS), along with other multi-user operating systems, helps to pioneer instant messaging by allowing up to 30 users to chat in real-time.
1988 – Internet Relay Chat (IRC) allows users to connect to networks with client software to chat with groups in real-time. IRC peaked in popularity in the 1990s, but still has hundreds of thousands of users today.
The late 1990s sees the first major competing IM platforms arrive: ICQ, AIM, MSN, and Yahoo all fight for market share in the new instant messaging market.
1992 – The first SMS message, “Merry Christmas”, is sent over the Vodafone GSM network in the U.K. in December.
1996 – Israeli company Mirabilis launches ICQ, which allowed users to chat one-on-one or in groups, exchange files, and search for other users. At its peak in 2001, ICQ had over 100 million accounts registered.
1997 – AOL launches AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), which pioneers the “Buddy List” concept. By the mid-2000s, AIM has the largest share of the instant messaging market in North America with 52%.
1998 – Yahoo! Messenger launches, allowing users with a Yahoo! ID to connect.
1999 – Microsoft releases MSN Messenger, a competitor to AIM and Yahoo. By 2005, roughly 2.5 billion messages are sent each day on the platform.
1999 – Across the Pacific Ocean, Tencent Holdings launches its first successful app. It’s called QQ, and it is initially a near-exact clone of ICQ.
To many, the 2000s is a Golden Age for instant messaging. Sharing photos, making video calls, and playing games are now common platform features
2001: By this time, only 30 million SMS text messages are sent per month in the United States.
2002: Apple launches iChat for its Mac OS X operating system, which is compatible with AIM.
2003: Skype allows Internet users to communicate with others through video, voice and instant messaging.
2005: Google Talk, available in a Gmail user’s window, is launched to allow easy communication between email contacts.
2006: MySpace launches the first instant messaging platform built within a social network: MySpaceIM.
2006: Market Snapshot (US Market)
- AIM: 53 million
- MSN: 27 million
- Yahoo: 22 million
- Google: 866,000
2006: By this time, 12.5 billion SMS text messages were sent each month in the United States
2008: Facebook Chat is released, allowing Facebook users to message friends or groups of friends on the social network. (Later on, Facebook would release a standalone mobile app version called Facebook Messenger in 2011.)
2009: An upstart WhatsApp allows users to text, send video, and audio for free.
Instant messaging undergoes a renaissance in the 2010s, as new apps like Snapchat, WhatsApp, and WeChat change how the game is played.
The popularity of new platforms change the concept of messaging entirely:
WeChat (2011)
Initially started by Tencent as a clone of WhatsApp, WeChat is now much more than a chat app. It’s a fully integrated mobile platform with shopping, payments, games, and much more.
WeChat processed $46 billion in payments in January 2016 – that’s about as twice as much as Paypal.
Snapchat (2011)
Snapchat, which is popular with millennials, allows users to send “snaps” which disappear after an allotted amount of time.
The app has evolved into a mix of private and public content, including brand networks and coverage of live events.
Slack (2013)
Slack’s workplace collaboration software allows teams to communicate easily and efficiently.
Slack was the fastest company to hit “unicorn” status ever, taking just 1.25 years to be worth over $1 billion.
Technology
The World’s Biggest Cloud Computing Service Providers
Cloud computing service providers generated $270 billion in revenues last year, concentrated among a few giants.
The World’s Biggest Cloud Computing Service Providers
This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
Today, the three largest cloud computing service providers command 66% of the global market.
Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have generated billions in revenues through their cloud infrastructure that provide the computing power companies need to store data. What’s more, most AI models are run on the cloud, creating a surge in computing demand for cloud providers.
The above graphic shows the largest cloud providers globally, based on data from Synergy Research Group.
Breaking Down the Cloud Market
Here are the world’s top cloud computing service providers based on enterprise revenues as of the fourth quarter of 2023:
Provider | Country | Market Share Q4 2023 |
---|---|---|
Amazon Web Services | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 31% |
Microsoft Azure | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 24% |
Google Cloud | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 11% |
Alibaba Cloud | 🇨🇳 China | 4% |
Salesforce | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 3% |
IBM Cloud | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 2% |
Oracle | 🇺🇸 U.S. | 2% |
Tencent Cloud | 🇨🇳 China | 2% |
Other | 🌐 Other | 21% |
With 31% of the global market share, Amazon’s cloud division posted $24.2 billion in revenues over the quarter.
AWS is a major cash engine for the company, but growth slowed over 2023 as enterprises and startups cut back on tech spending. Annual sales growth compared to the same quarter last year grew by 13%—far below competitors Microsoft and Google, whose cloud divisions grew by 30% and 26%, respectively.
As we can see, U.S. firms make up the lion’s share of the market, while China’s Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud together comprise 5% of the global share.
The AI Boom and the Cloud
Given that a significant chunk of AI models are run on the cloud, the industry may be positioned to see greater demand as momentum accelerates.
In fact, newer AI systems are as much as 10 to 100 times larger than older models. In line with this, major cloud providers are seeing high demand for cloud services to allow companies across financial to manufacturing sectors to run large language models on their platforms.
Today, 98% of companies globally rely on the cloud for at least one part of their business applications, which may present a market opportunity for the industry as advancements in AI continue to grow.
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