It would seem that after the appearance of the IRC (the first mass messenger) in 1988, the format of such applications was predetermined: there is a chat window and an interlocutor. But over time, there have been a lot of messengers: now everyone uses an average of 3-4 such applications every day, and some have 5-10 of them installed! Naturally, this is inconvenient. The Beeper startup came to the aid of users: it is an aggregator that combines chats from different instant messengers in one application. Perfect! Three years ago Beeper was released in test mode. And in early April 2024, it was finally published for free use.
And if you’re tired of texting, you can log into the Melbet ph app and place a bet on an upcoming sporting event. The bookmaker provides a large selection of events from different sports: football, basketball, and boxing. There are several dozen disciplines.
Beeper integrates 14 popular messaging apps, except for iMessage
However, according to the developers, in March, the US government sued Apple over blocking Beeper’s access to the “apple” messenger, so there is a chance that iMessage will soon appear on the list of supported services. Currently, the list looks like this: X, IRC, Slack, Signal, Matrix, Discord, LinkedIn, Telegram, WhatsApp, Google Chat, Instagram Direct, Facebook Messenger, SMS and RCS messages
In addition to its main function of account integration, Beeper supports global search across all chats, chat archiving, “bubble” notifications, forwarding images, videos, and all other features of popular messengers. The app can be downloaded on Android, iOS, iPadOS, macOS, Linux, Windows, and ChromeOS.
Beeper was acquired by Automattic, a giant that manages WordPress.com, Tumblr, and several other extremely popular web resources
The deal was finalized last week, and officially announced on Tuesday, April 9th. This acquisition has an intriguing backstory. Concerning Beeper, it happened a couple of months after Beeper launched a new app called Beeper Mini, allowing Android users to connect to the iMessage protocol and appear as blue bubbles in the “Messages” app. Apple didn’t like this; both sides played cat and mouse for a while, and eventually, Beeper simply gave in. (Now this struggle occupies a prominent place in the antitrust complaint against Apple.)
Eric Migicovsky, CEO of Beeper, advises against viewing this time as a failure: Beeper couldn’t achieve what it wanted, so it surrendered and sold the company. Instead, he says, it’s about Beeper finding a better and more sustainable way to achieve what it has always wanted: a unified app that integrates messaging services and turns messaging into a people-oriented system, not just a platform. “Working on this for three and a half years,” he says, “and seeing how difficult it is to bring something like this to life, we realized that we need to know who our friends are in this game.” Automattic, an influential and long-time supporter of open-source software, was one of Beeper’s early investors and has a good reputation for managing acquisitions. Migicovsky felt it was a fitting landing spot.
On the other hand, Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg has been saying for several months that he believes messaging is the next important pillar of the company. In WordPress projects, Automattic helps control about half of the websites on the Internet. Thanks to WooCommerce, it’s a powerful player in online commerce. And in messaging, as Mullenweg told me last fall, he saw another opportunity to work on something as big and as important. “Messaging is communication, and communication is fundamental to human existence,” he said. “And that’s why private, free, encrypted communication with open-source code is a fundamental human right.”
In the future, Migicovsky will lead Automattic’s messaging department, and the Texts and Beeper teams will work together on Beeper. (There is currently no information about what is happening with the “Texts” app.) The team’s first task is to prepare the app for the 450,000 people on Beeper’s waiting list, who can now use the app along with everyone else who wants to. They also have a lot of work to do to release a more secure version of the Beeper app for all platforms — currently, Android is far ahead of the others. “We have a lot of work ahead of us,” Migicovsky says. “But I’m very excited about it.”
