Developer(s) Tawkers Inc Platform iOS, Web Website Tawkers.com | Stable release 3.0 / Jan. 20th 2015 Available in English | |
Original author(s) | ||
Tawkers is a chat application, which allows for publishing a user's text message conversations live or after the fact. The application is created for various devices, but was originally launched as an iPhone app. Tawkers is owned and managed by Tawkers Inc, which was founded in 2011.
Contents
The company launched a beta of Tawkers as a web application in 2013, before releasing the official version in March 2014. Gizmodo Brazil ranked Tawkers in their list of top iPhone Apps for that particular month.
Background
Blake Ian is the current CEO and co-founded the company in 2011 in New York City after having the idea of sharing text conversations while he was chatting with a friend about a film over instant messaging. In late 2011, after developing the idea, the company received $360,000 in seed funding.
Following the development of a beta in 2013, Ian stated to TechCrunch that he believed that celebrities would use the Tawkers platform as a way to engage with fans and also engage conversation on given subjects.
The app did just that in the early stages of the beta, with Lee Camp, Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, Colin Quinn, singer Eleanor Goldfield, Deepak Chopra and also Howard Rheingold using the app during the early parts of its existence.
In 2014, the company announced that it had received $1 million in seed funding from angel investors. In March 2014, Gizmodo Brazil ranked Tawkers in their list of top Apps.
Mechanics
According to their website, the application aims to bridge the gap between private text messaging and public expression.
The messaging app works in a similar way to any conventional messaging app. Users invite people to join and can use the system as a standard messaging app. Messages remain private, until the user decides to publish parts or entire conversations, at which point they become public. People can follow users who regularly have interesting text conversations or share interesting content. In 2014, Ian commented on the desire for people to share their own text conversations and read conversations by others, particularly celebrities. The example he gave was when Macklemore texted Kendrick Lamar, after Macklemore's Grammy success and then tweeted an image of the conversation which went viral.
Tawks
The app refers to live public text conversations as Tawks. These are one-on-one conversations between two hosts, which are completely public from the outset of the conversation. Each Tawk discussion has a comments section that allows anyone to comment on the discussion between the users. There is a mechanism, which allows for the hosts to call out an audience comment by using a feature called Spotlight, threading it into the host conversation. Each Tawk is typically on a specific topic, issue or cause.
Privacy
Sharing conversations between two or more people could obviously have privacy issues. In order to avoid any problems, all creators of any conversation must approve what any other user is sharing or publishing.