I’m excited to announce that Beeper has been acquired by Automattic. This acquisition marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter as we continue our mission to create the best chat app on earth.
Pour info, beeper est une app qui permet de creer facilement des ponts sur les messagerie comme telegram, signal, whatsapp, sms. Sous Element (app matrix), l'option etait un peu technique ou il faut avoir un abo sur Element One...enfin toute les étapes qu'une personne normale ne ferait pas. Beeper simplifie cela.
En tout cas, c'est un gros changement dans le paysage des tchats. Automattic (wordpress) était déjà interessé par Matrix en 2020 :
Et je me disais qu'Element allait gagner en maturité, fonctionalités et je l'avais suggéré à mon équipe pour un résultat en demi-teinte, trop tot car pas super aboutti.
Et je pense que cette acquisition va bousculer un peu le paysage, nottament pour whatsapp. Reste que matrix a encore besoin de finition.
Eh ben les amis, je peux vous dire que je suis HYPER CONTENTE d'avoir découvert l'application #beeper qui centralise toutes tes applis de messagerie : sms, whatsapp, signal, télégram, messenger, on peut même mettre les DM de Insta ou linkedin.
Je kiffe et pour toustes celleux qui en ont marre d'écrire sur 1000 applis différentes, je vous la recommande à 100% !
Quote from Automattic founder in @gruber writeup on Automattic buying Beeper:
"I have zero interest in fighting with Apple, I think instead it’s best to focus on messaging networks that want more engagement from power-user clients"
Good writeup, helped make sense of why this move makes sense.
Beeper is awesome. I have now all my instant messaging in the same app including Telegram, Matrix, Signal, WhatsApp, Instagram DM, LinkedIn DM and even IRC. https://www.beeper.com
"Automattic is betting that the changing regulatory environment will make people more interested in finding a unified messaging system like Beeper"
"Mr. Schneider said Beeper and Texts employees would combine their systems into a single app that worked on iPhones and Android smartphones as well as computers."
A happy ending for the company who annoyed #Apple & #iMessage users everywhere.
As far as a universal messaging system goes, this has been attempted numerous times with little success. I can see #Beeper complimenting #WordPress sites, but I do not see them creating a universal standard for sending messages.
But do we need a universal messaging system when we have email‽
How do you feel about #Beeper, #Automattic and Automattic acquiring Beeper?
TBH credit is due where credit is due. Nobody can predict the real intentions of a company, least of all engineers, but Beeper has from day 1 built its product on top of #Matrix, it has made it much easier to install and configure messaging bridges (even to those less likely to go through the hassle of configuring a full Synapse server and install bridges with huge configuration files), and it has challenged Apple head-to-head with the iMessage bridge.
I feel that Beeper joining forces with Automattic will give the company both:
Stronger shoulders to defend themselves from lawsuits coming from the likes of Apple and anybody who has made it their business mission to oppose inter-operability as long as they can - Apple can’t simply take down a Github repo with a snap of their fingers if that Github repo is owned by the same company that also owns Wordpress, at least not without a lengthy legal battle on the blueprint of Epic v Apple. Moreover, sclerotic corporate scum with an outdated business model like Apple will just never understand how big of a favour they do to small companies like Beeper when they attack them. Beeper was in beta until recently. Then it got a lot of attention after Apple declared war to its iMessage bridge. Consequence: the largest company on earth suddenly put a relatively small product like Beeper under the spotlight, its user-base went up by an order of magnitude or so within a short time frame, they rushed their way out of beta, and now Automattic is acquiring them. There’s no better publicity than an aggressive rent-seeking parasite waging war against your product.
More opportunities to sit at a table with the likes of Google, Meta etc. and get them to actually build the open alternatives together, instead of reverse engineering their closed garden and play and endless catch-up game with them.
The timing of this announcement is also perfect, as the EU’s #DMA is just about to make inter-operability a requirement for messaging gatekeepers - and Beeper seems to be eager to capitalize on its opportunity of being at the right place at the right time.
Let’s keep an eye on how this product develops. I see a lot of potential for growth, and I’ll be looking for all the signals of early-exit/lock-in/enshittification.
Just installed #Beeper (now that they dropped the waiting list following the Automattic acquisition) and while it doesn’t include iMessage, it’s nice to get Signal, Telegram, Whatsapp, Discord, and Slack DMs under one roof.
The desktop app is, of course, an electron webapp. It's ok-ish – not really any worse than the other five webapps it (potentially*) replaces.
*) you still need the others for calls etc, which Beeper doesn't support yet.
ÇA Y'EST ! La libération !!!!! #Beeper est en accès libre 😍 😍 😍
C'est vraiment génial comme application on s'en rends pas compte à quel point ça change tout d'un coup d'avoir toutes ses messageries centralisées en 1 seul endroit vraiment GG aux devs !
En plus l'app est open-source et de ce que j'ai vu, relativement transparente avec les données partagées c'est génial d'avoir des projets comme ça ! Attendez-vous à ce que j'en parle pendant des jours 😅
I published a couple of Instagram stories recently, and now that I got a foot there, my friends are starting to send me Instagram Direct messages. Yet another #messaging app…
To keep up with all the channels, I regularly use #Beeper, mainly on desktop. But I just learnt that their #Android app has been rebuilt from scratch, and it looks really neat!
If you want to try, just ask and I'll share my invite code.
I just had Firefox ask if I wanted to open a #Matrix room (https://matrix.to/#/#firefish:matrix.fedibird.com) in #Beeper. First I have seen Firefox recognizing the Matrix protocol in the wild, I had just been reading the MCS about how they are dealing with protocol handlers last week
They both have extensive feature sets. But unfortunately my messenger of choice, @signalapp , is still not fully OpenSource (server), doesn't provide similar features, and the most annoying thing: have a stale bot on their Github to push issues under the rug:
Regarding the sec risk, I get it but in case you need full encryption is better to use pgp and email? Plus, in case you run your own server then you could onboard everybody you care to it. Getting people out of closed source apps is always a win.
Beeper users say Apple is now blocking their Macs from using iMessage entirely. This is likely the final nail in the coffin for what Beeper has been trying to accomplish.