The Universal Messaging App Glue

Universal Messaging App Glue FAQ

Q. What is a “Messaging App Glue” solution?

A. When you chat with your friends on a particular app, such as WhatsApp, Teams or Signal, you each have to make a choice to install the same kind of software on your devices. You each individually download the same app and then add each other as friends. This works, up to a point, but there are 11 major apps (and countless other options) that different people have a preference for, so it means that almost every time you start a new conversation, you need to download a new app, which clogs up your device and takes up a lot of your time. This leads to people having to collect together on one app, even if they don’t like the policies of that app, simply to keep in touch with their friends.

There are some solutions, and they all revolve around finding ‘common ground’.  For many years this ‘common ground’ has been SMS, which as most of us know, are simple ‘text-only’ messages, or limited media messages (MMS). They do cost, however, and don’t offer the interactivity, or detailed media, that we get on messaging apps.

A “messaging app glue” solution is called this because it sits between the messaging apps themselves, making use of the common ground of your device’s web browser, and allows any user of any app to message each other immediately, in a modern fashion, without having to download anything further. Users come out of their app and onto a shared web page which includes the full interface of the “glue messaging app”, and downloads to their device within a couple of seconds.

This downloadable interface is common between all users, and the messages from the forum are stored on a single, shared server, meaning everyone can see them in an equal fashion.

The interface includes all the typical, basic features of popular messaging apps e.g.

  • ‘Typing’ indicators
  • Group chat
  • Group video conferencing
  • Photo, audio, video and PDF document uploading
  • Stickers and emoticons

 

Q. Why is “Messaging App Glue” a good solution, and what about RCS?

A. “Messaging App Glue” is not the only solution in use: there have been quite a few attempts at making messaging apps communicate with each other over the years. Most of these attempts have revolved around using a common protocol for ‘interoperability’ at the “message level”.  Due to the technical difficulties involved in agreeing on these protocols, implementing them, and in-part, the commercial incentive involved in ‘owning’ you as a user, none have been completely accepted, everywhere.

A web browser (and HTML5), however, is an accepted common global protocol, that everyone can agree on, and this is the only protocol that is needed for a “messaging app glue” solution.

For general information, RCS is a rich communications protocol that offers an enhanced ‘messaging app’-like experience, and has been accepted by one major provider (Google/Android), and is in development by another (Apple), but the implementation is complex, involving multiple phone network carriers, and is subject to the specific policies of each provider (e.g. Apple iMessage prefers Android users to be shown as green bubbles, for commercial reasons).

In contrast, a “messaging app glue” solution is entirely platform neutral, and already works across all devices and systems (with an equivalent installed-base of 4.5 billion users, i.e. practically 100% of all devices including phones, tablets and desktops).

A messaging app glue ‘shortcut’ can be added to a messaging app (as an enhancement), to make it easier within a particular messaging app to access the shared space, but it is not required for users of the app to be able to use the shared space. Only a web link is required.

 

Q. So a “Messaging App Glue” solution makes sense, but why is AtomJump, itself, a good option?

A. As a non-profit, and fully independent technology provider, we do not have any personal commercial incentives to push our particular ‘glue’ solution onto users. All of our messaging software is 100% free and open source, and we offer a paid hosted solution as an option, only. This paid hosted solution is for private forums and the income helps to cover the costs of hosting our free public forums. There is no advertising model on AtomJump.

AtomJump software allows any party to build plugins to enhance the software, as different laws and different preferences exist for different providers in different localities.

We encourage other providers to provide their own hosted solutions to end-users, with our software if they wish, as alternative hosted spaces.

AtomJump’s own hosting solution uses 100% renewable energy and ultra-low energy servers. We construct and maintain the servers on our own mission-specific land in New Zealand, and their layout is particularly designed to cope with earthquakes, floods and high winds. We have the option to host certain forums in other countries, in future.

 

Q. What about privacy, and are AtomJump.com chats encrypted?

A. Yes, the forums on AtomJump.com are encrypted between the browser and the server, but most users will find themselves, initially, on a free public forum that is not password-protected, and is therefore virtually open to all. If a particular group decide they want to continue chatting on the forum, they can choose to add password protection (which is a NZ$15 / year annual subscription per group, or approx. US$10 / year) from AtomJump.com.

This group password protection will provide a good level of privacy, but it does not offer the same level of protection as a dedicated E2EE (End-to-End-Encrypted) app. While, as an organisation, AtomJump don’t believe that E2EE necessarily has a net-positive benefit to society, we respect other’s wishes to use an E2EE app. As an alternative, and offering around the same level of protection, an AtomJump forum can be hosted by yourself as an individual, on your own servers.

It is important to note that when you use AtomJump.com you will not be in your regular app environment, and if you wish to be using E2EE, you should either remain within your own app environment, or set up your own AtomJump server for an equivalent level of privacy.

 

Q. How do I set up an AtomJump.com forum, and how do I share it with my friends?

  1. Go to AtomJump.com, and enter a (globally) unique forum name for the new forum in the central input box.
  2. On the page, tap the share link in the top-right corner to share this with your friends.

 

Q. Why doesn’t my app provider have any shortcuts to AtomJump, and is it hard for them to add them?

A. They may not wish to, because while this ‘glue’ solution to interoperability is very straightforward, it means that they may not have any control over you, as a user (i.e. they have a commercial incentive to keep you within their closed-garden). It would take an app provider around 1-3 days to add these shortcuts to their app, as opposed to 6 – 18 months to add a full “message-level” interoperability solution.

You are most welcome to suggest that your app provider add this functionality in (you can send them this link), but otherwise you can use:

  • the free, open-source AtomJump app for storing shortcuts to these shared forums, or
  • your device’s homepage icons, (see the ‘Install’ button on each AtomJump page) or
  • your browser’s bookmark facility.