WhatsApp vs. Viber – Is there really competition?

For my blog this week I am going to talk about WhatsApp messenger and Viber. I have used these before and I have to admit I absolutely love them! I don’t know what I would have done without either of these while I was away on Erasmus. I couldn’t use them in Africa because well we barely had phones (ha-ha). These apps really help reduce geographical awareness about distance which really did suit me perfectly while travelling. I didn’t feel as detached from home compared to when I was in Africa.

These are instant messaging services available as apps only on your Smartphone’s or iPhones. These services enable you to instant message and to also send audio files, video files and pictures to people anywhere in the world. Viber also allows you to make phone calls but if this distance is very far the call quality is extremely poor and irritating. On the other hand, Viber is completely free so it is worth it for this service.

Example of Viber’s available tools and design:

Viber Display
Source: http://www.blogspot.com

In my personal opinion, I much prefer WhatsApp even though they charge an annual fee of €0.89c after a year’s free membership. The quality of service with regards to messages and media were sent is far superior (for me, personally).

Example of WhatsApp available tools and design:

WhatsApp Display
Source: http://www.androidappsforpcfree.com

The layouts of both of these instant messaging services are very clear and simple. WhatsApp uses green and white for their logo and colour scheme and Viber uses purple and white. The graphics used are very clean in design. In my Technical Writing lecture’s we learned about the aspects of good web design. Both of these apps follow the basis of good design because they are functional, efficient and well designed. These apps layout and content add to the functionality of the clean design. Such as, the colour choice which contrasts well against each other allows it to be legible. This allows each of these apps to be really easy to navigate about and use.

Unfortunately, there is a downside to both of these apps. Sadly it doesn’t allow you to have your number on multiple devices. Or even to have multiple numbers on one device. Being abroad I did have two numbers and I had to decide which one I wanted to use which was a bit of a nuisance since some people only had one or the other number.

Facebook has taken over WhatsApp recently so I’m hoping they will make some interesting changes for the better that I can blog about in the future! At the moment, there is competition between the two apps but what keeps Viber competitive is the fact that it offers calling services. If Facebook add this feature and more to WhatsApp I believe it could easily take the lead in this battle of instant messaging.