By
Steve Muchoki
April 16th, 2024
Kik messaging platform will stay but it will be working under MediaLab that has purchased it.
Messaging platform Kik announced on Friday it was acquired by MediaLab, a holding company that has Whisper and a number of other apps under its wing.
The mother company of Kik, Kik Interactive already said, and we reported that it would be closing its app down in October. However, last week, its CEO Ted Livingston said that a company had signed a letter of intent to purchase the app. Both companies kept their mouths shut when it comes to details of the sale.
The blog post says:
“We believe that Kik’s best days remain ahead of it. As part of that long term commitment, we need to ensure that we’re able to cover our expenses. So over the coming weeks we’ll be introducing ads to the service. While we know that some of you may not love that idea we plan to do it in a way that it is non-intrusive, and in no way takes away from what makes Kik great (no annoying full screen video takeovers or things like that).”
And while MediaLab’s plans include committing to Kik long-term goals, the company also intends to increase its revenue through its messaging app, and plans to also infuse ads on the platform, at least for a short time until they manage to raise so needed capital. Livingston was pretty much against the idea of enabling ads on the platform before, but sometimes, marketing seems like an only option for making profit.
Kik Interactive is currently involved in a legal fight with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) (now, why this information isn’t surprising at all?), that says Kik breached securities law in the moment it raised $100 million during its token sale back in 2017.
Livingston tried hard to persist, but last month he had to admit defeat and said that Kik would close its messaging app business and directly blamed this shutdown on SEC.
He then wrote:
“After 18 months of working with the SEC the only choice they gave us was to either label Kin a security or fight them in court. Becoming a security would kill the usability of any cryptocurrency and set a dangerous precedent for the industry. So with the SEC working to characterize almost all cryptocurrencies as securities we made the decision to step forward and fight.”
In Friday’s blog post, MediaLab said the messaging app would continue to enable Kin transactions, writing:
“We are fans of Kin and believe in its long term potential. We are excited to further partner with Ted and his team on expanding the Kin integration and have plans to further support the project. We’ll have more to share on that front soon.”
As they said from the company, MediaLab will keep improving the app, “reduce the number of bugs, and solicit feedback from the app’s users to determine what features they want or issues they have.”
“Ted Livingston and the rest of the team at Kik have spent the last 9 years building something truly special. At the risk of sounding cheesy we are still passionate believers in what the internet promised to bring in its early days – a connected and shared experience amongst people regardless of geography or time zone. Kik is one of those amazing places that brings us back to those early aspirations,” reads the announcement.